Weeping Out the Old Dreams

Well, Beloveds, I have a new favourite poet and I would like to tell you about him. And by “new”, I mean new to me, since I discovered that he has been writing for a few years now. His first book was published in 2006. Truthfully, this was a marker year in my life and really began the tsunami of my awakening process, so I am not surprised his book did not come into my orbit back then. And of course, what I believe wholeheartedly, because my experience has shown it over and over, is that “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” I was absolutely not ready for Jeff fifteen years ago. Obviously, I was not ready till a few months ago, which is in itself an interesting point for future exploration in order to answer the ever-loaded question: “WHY/WHY NOT?”. But I am so ready now, again, obviously, and have decided, just in case someone out there in WordPress land might not have found Jeff’s work yet, and may be ready to awaken with him through me, to share this news with my Beloveds.

I cannot quite remember how or exactly when I stumbled upon Jeff Foster’s work, since I spend fruitful and wasteful hours plunging down rabbit holes in the boisterous pursuit of my particular white rabbit, which happens to be pure and simple Awareness. You see, as that now classic Aerosmith rock song goes: “I don’t want to miss a thing”.

Since removing myself to this magical place I now live in, I have the luxury of an office, located in the upper storey of a magnificently restored two-hundred-thirty year-old home, a beautiful natural environment with tides, marshes and rivers, apple orchards and stone walls, ocean breezes, magnificent sunsets, and almost perfect peace. I cannot claim total quiet since I am on a winding coastal highway where the speed limit is slow, but the travelers are often behaving like they’re on a thruway, or even participating in the Indy 500. Zoom! Zoom! And currently we are in the midst of a major kitchen “reno-storation”, which is Cath-speak for a combined renovation and restoration, so there is some construction noise, which is what my new Bluetooth noise-cancelling headphones are for. But I digress.

In my office, on my laptop, one day in early Spring, I plunged after “Whitey, The Rabbit of Awakening”, and there I found myself face to face with You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life, Jeff Foster’s latest 2020 collection of poetry. I am sure it was connected to my still wonderful spiritual teacher G.P. Walsh, who is always teaching that we don’t have to be healed, improved, or awakened because at our very core of what we really are, we are already Whole and Perfect and “Woke”. G.P. teaches, we just have to find ways to REMEMBER who/ what we are and to find our way back to connecting to that! (In one of his short and simple books, Angel in the Basement, GP explains this revelation.)

So, I found him! His name is Jeff Foster and he is English and young enough to be my son. Not that ageism has anything to do with excellence, especially when we are speaking of a spiritual teacher, which he has definitely become for me in the few short weeks of my exploration of his gifts. I point this age difference out not to make the point that wisdom has no timeline, but rather to state the important awareness that when it comes to matters of Spirit and the soul, there are no boundaries whatsoever. Period. So whether it has taken me nearly sixty-nine years or sixty-nine seconds to find the teachings of Jeff Foster, it is exactly what is in my greatest and highest good right now, in this space and place on the planet.

Speaking of which…

Jeff Foster must be a genius, at least in my mind, because he studied astrophysics at Cambridge! Seriously, people—ASTRO physics! That is astronomy on steroids! An astrophysicist studies the physical and chemical nature of celestial bodies like the Sun, the Moon, planets, the other stars, the galaxies, the multi-verse, infinity and beyond! The Energy of the Universe is astrophysics. In other words, it’s Everything! It’s cosmology as well and the realm of Carl Sagan, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Margherita Hack, and even Galileo, Copernicus, Hubble, Newton, Ptolemy, Buzz Lightyear, and so many more! Are you not impressed with the company of scholars Jeff Foster chose to muddle himself in?

Jeff has a Face Book page which is of no use to me since I am not a Face Book fan or junkie…not even for a new spiritual teacher…and I will explain why in an up-coming blog post which I wrote in January of 2018 when I began my Face Book disconnect. However, I have peeked at Jeff’s page and I like it. More importantly, he has a website http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com, which I encourage you to check out. For those of you who, like me, have been “away with the fairies” when it comes to Jeff, an expression my Nana would say when I was daydreaming or otherwise not paying attention, and have not yet heard of this prolific teacher, then NOW is the time!

And, if you have been aware of Jeff Foster for years, as in one of his 41.6K subscribers on You Tube, or missed him like I did on “Buddha At The Gas Pump” ten years ago which I had been subscribed to for years, or if you have only been aware of his presence for a few days now, remember, it is all happening in this moment, so everything I share about his work, though new enough to me, is something we all have already “known” but needed to hear for some reason right now, or else we would not be receiving the information at this particular moment in time.

Interesting, right? Breathe. Breath of Life. Spirit, Inspire, inspiration!

Coincidence? I think not!

Jeff also posts on You Tube and just began to post again after quite a long hiatus, which he explains here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyTd6zZRVqM

I do appreciate his honesty.

And as if that weren’t enough, he is featured at a 7-day spiritual retreat in Belgium in the Fall, called “The Healing Power of the Present Moment” which is soooo tempting to me to attend in the physical, if I were not going to be in the thick of the kitchen cabinet install stage of my reno-storation. Maybe next time! I can access it through the etheric field anyway, which will be more or less free, less troublesome to travel, given the monstrous situation with airports right now, and thus way more peaceful.

All of this being said, I am looking forward to deepening my meditation practice by reading Jeff Foster for inspiration and a total reminder that it’s all OKAY!

Love yourself, the one you are always with!

Which brings me directly to the title of this blog: “Weeping Out The Old Dreams”. When I read this line “You only have to…weep out the old dreams” in the poem entitled “Victory!” from You Were Never Broken, I actually shed three tears of joy, because it describes perfectly what it is I have been feeling and doing for the last decade, as my marriage fell apart and my life seemed to be spinning out of control in the agony of uncertainty which I was so compelled by my conditioning to allow. The poem is actually about the joy that comes from all the heartache, the depression, the grief, and especially the fear of not being “enough” even for yourself, let alone being and doing for anybody else. It is the rainbow that is always there requiring just the right combination of storm and sun to reveal itself, just as there is always joy in your soul. It is our innate nature to be “happy”, in joy, at peace, and like a rainbow, it takes the storms of life to bring it all out into the light.

It was exactly the “permission” I needed, to finally LET GO! No “buts”, no “what ifs?”, no “maybe there’s a better way”! Just breathing.

Do yourself a favour and connect with Jeff Foster. Especially if you have a few dreams of your own to weep out.

Bye Just Now!

I love you!

Cath

Why This Bird Didn’t Sing or An Allegory on Beliefs

Allegories are stories, poems, or pictures that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one. They are metaphors. Metaphors are ideas regarded as representative or symbolic of something else, especially something abstract. They create images and provoke thought, comparison, connection. Jesus taught in allegory. His parables were simple and profound, and while the experts disagree, there have been 42 unique tales commonly attributed to this master teacher.

My favourite of Jesus’ parables has always been “The Mustard Seed”. So simple. So profound. A perfect image for the ‘Kingdom of God’ being one of the smallest of seeds…(A mustard seed is about this big: ‘O’ if you are using a Calibri 11 font)…bigger than a poppy or sesame seed …but yields a tree that is 3 metres in height! In other words, the image for what is inside You, your Divinity, that has been created from the Source (the Kingdom of God), with nurturing, can grow to be a large, beautiful, and functional Being-ness (shelter for the birds, again an image of a much larger Kingdom of freedom and peace) which of course then recreates itself, as trees do. The intent of the tale and the significance of the images convey the meaning, which is ‘allegory’.

The greatest teachers use story-telling to get their messages across. My favourite of all allegories has to be “Plato’s Cave”. I invite you to re-familiarize yourself with it on a regular basis, because, as with all great allegories, the meanings change as you grow in awareness. It means something totally different to me now than it did even four years ago. Looking back to my first study of The Cave in Grade 12 English Lit. class, not to mention before that when, as a ten year old, I stumbled upon the concept of Plato’s Cave in an ancient Encyclopedia Britannica (1911) while researching a speech, the transformation in my understanding is quite amazing to me. The allegory of course hasn’t change, but I sure have.

So it is with the stories of your life. All of them, every single one that you can recall and re-tell for yourself, are allegories for You, for who you are. When appreciated and reviewed from your current point of view, I promise you that they will guide you to making some awesome discoveries.

As promised from my previous blog, I offer below my simple (?) allegory to show how our beliefs, formed so innocently in our childhood, can have major impact on our whole life, . (And, yes, Beloveds, I was asked to share, otherwise, be your own guru!)

Remember in my last blog post, I had been discussing gender beliefs and suggesting that they could be eliminated if not adjusted, because we are in a different world from our ancestors, and even now in this present moment, in a different space from when the ideas were first placed in our awareness. This means of course that there has been a transformation and these once useful, and maybe even well-cherished beliefs, no longer serve us. In fact, they may be getting in the way of You being You.

I said that I would not be giving an analogy related to gender issues because as I said, you’re on your own for questioning those and all beliefs that you might like to put under the Mindful Microscope. But here’s the example that I hope will help to clarify the insidiousness of some beliefs we hold, and thus, underline the importance of discarding the ideas once and for all, now that you have awakened to their now ‘useless’ existence !

First, I’ll tell the story:

Once upon a time there was lovely little girl who woke up every morning singing in full voice. Singing made her feel good, and feeling good inspired her singing. It was a beautiful thing! When singing, she felt so happy in her heart.

Then one day, Father, who did not sing, though often was heard to whistle happy tunes, said to his songbird daughter when she bounced down the stairs to sit at the breakfast table in the sunny kitchen: “Daughter, it is time for me to tell you this fact of life. You are old enough to learn this now.”

The little girl felt excited, and her eyes shone with pride. “I am a big girl now!” she assured her father adoringly, and anticipated the secret she was now old enough to have revealed to her.

The man tilted his head and looked at his daughter across the table. His bowl of porridge steamed in front of him. Pointing his poised spoon in her direction, the little girl’s father declared: “When you sing before you eat your oatmeal, you will have a reason to cry before you go to sleep tonight.”

The little girl stared at her father in astonishment. What! “No!” she cried out in instant horrified rejection of this truth. Ashamed of her outburst, she focused her gaze upon her cereal bowl, and shoved a spoonful of the cooling potage between her lips. Just then, an evil fairy flew into the room, hovered over the table and pointed her twisted wand at the little girl’s throat. The mouthful of oatmeal felt thickly stuck in her throat in a huge sticky lump. Then, with a tinkly wicked laugh, the fairy dipped over the table, glancing appreciatively at her own tiny reflection in the shiny toaster, and then POOF!, she disappeared in a cloud of black smoke.

Swallowing the oatmeal with great difficulty, the pain causing tears to seep down her cheeks, the little girl jumped up from the table and ran to her room where she stayed till shadows darkened the walls and crept into her heart. She fell asleep with her daddy’s words repeating in her mind.

The next morning, the sweet child awoke with a happy heart, leapt out of bed and began to sing her appreciation for the new day. No sooner had the first notes lifted from her heart to her throat than she felt them bump up against a solid wall and stay stuck there. Try as she might, she could not get the tune out. Not one note! Running to the bathroom, the little girl took a drink of water. Staring in the mirror she watched her mouth form the words, ” Oh what a beautiful morning..” but no sound came out.

Like a flock of blackbirds, the events of the day before came swooping into her memory and the little girl flung her hand to cover her mouth, eyes wide in horror. “I have a spell on me”, she whispered to her mirror self. “I cannot sing anymore.” Sadness overwhelmed her, and fear soon followed: “I can never sing again. I might not even be able to speak any more. How will I break this spell? Who can help me?” ….

To be continued… (If you should ask)

LTOYW! I love you! Cath

Who Can Change Their Minds?

Well done, Beloveds! The first response to my latest blog, published on February 16th, was a phone call from my dinner companion whom I wrote about previously, and she pointed out what she perceived as a major discrepancy in my recent article: “You used a gender comment at the beginning of the blog post, referencing your right to change your mind because you are female, and then you go on to comment on how human beings have been conditioned to our gender beliefs and that we need to re-think our beliefs.” She asked for clarity.

So thanks for asking, Little Moon! Here is my reply:

Gender-based beliefs, also known as stereotypes, do have their uses and the statement that I am allowed to change my mind “because I am female”, was made to underline the perfidity of that and similar gender-based beliefs. In other words, it was an arrow shot out of my bow with the intention of pricking a soft spot, and it did! Of course anyone can and should change their minds, and I want all Beloveds to change their minds on everything. I want you to question everything you have ever believed about anything and see if it is really true for you and if you still need to believe it.

Start with all the gender type-casting beliefs that you have ever held. Anything that tells you that a male or female identity qualifies the owner with specific (of species) traits or aspects, that the other gender does or does not have, and which specially (as in of the species) qualifies one or the other to have a leg up on survival, so to speak. Don’t just think your ideas. Actually get still and be quiet, do your mindfulness breathing, ask your inner wisdom, and listen. If you are unable to come up with some gender notions to question that is indeed AWESOME! And I am not going to suggest any gender notions to be questioned, for the exact reason I am attempting to get across to you this uber important, ultimate, paramount fact: You know the answers! You are the Wise One. Trust your innate wisdom on this!

However, should a gender notion come up for you, and then you go inside to question its validity, trust that this is a belief you hold, and that it is true for you, the every day, ego-self you. Your nervous system holds on to the belief in order to keep you safe. If you state the belief when you go inside, and then feel a signal in your body of discomfort, or what I like to call “yuck”, that’s a signal that you are holding onto an idea that may not be serving you any more. It is a ‘true’ belief for you. But, don’t confuse that with The Truth, because it’s not.

The real Truth is that a gender designation is not who You true-ly are, and does not define or limit you unless you allow it to, which is fine, if it’s serving to keep you secure and protected. But if it no longer serves you as a belief, especially if it is particularly uncomfortable when you run it by your internal “Yum-Yucker”, then it can be changed, altered, replaced or discarded if you choose. If it’s a thought about the way you see the world and you are not finding it useful anymore, if it is interfering with your comfort, then simply thank the energy for being there for you for all these years, and then tell it “You can go. I don’t need you anymore, right now.” Try not to conceptualize anything, just keep noticing the feeling in your body as you have this conversation with your own energies.

There’s a simple analogy I can share with you, not related to gender issues because you’re on your own for questioning these and all beliefs that you might like to put under the Mindful Microscope. But for an an example that might help to clarify, as I have been asked to do, please catch my next blog.

For now, suffice it to say, that dialoguing with your own energetic Inner Self, your Innocent Inner Child, will allow you to eliminate these conditioned, self-limiting, sometimes downright insidious, beliefs from your nervous system. If the belief is “Yucky”, it no longer serves you, though have no doubt that it once did or it would not be there. But “yucky” is not who you are. I cannot underline enough the importance of first acknowledging the ideas and appreciating them for once being useful to your energy system, even if it was in a past life or what is very common, an inherited belief from ancestors, especially through your parents. Then, once you have done this, if the notions are no longer serving You— the boss of your own energy — the system is so smart, it will just let the ‘yucks’ go in a brilliant example of cosmic conservation.

Just try it! And remember, if you would like more clarification using an analogous example of how our beliefs can influence us and how by changing them, we change our whole world—or if you would just like to read an interesting personal story— then please, just ask!

Till next time…

LTOYW,

Love, Cath

The Non-Blog Post Blog Post, or How to Play Chess With the Universe

In my last post I related the account of dinner with my friend and former student, who was miffed that I had decided and declared (see my February 4th post) that I no longer needed to be needed and therefore would no longer be teaching or healing as Cathy Millage Heart Healer nor writing any more blog posts. (well, I am female, and reserve the right to change my mind)

The fallout, to my amusement, continues swirling all around me with calls and curious questions, even from people I haven’t heard from for years. A few are merely curious, some are worried about having to find a new practitioner or teacher, and two are genuinely concerned about me as in “Are you okay, Cath? Are you in crisis mode?” I had no idea at the time that the choice I had made in my own awakening, to liberate my Beloveds to be their own gurus, would lead to such a reaction.

And I find it rather ironic, too, for the reason I will explain in my next blog post if anyone cares to know, that my desire to have others focus their energy on going within to find the answers, and to practise Love TOY Wisdom for themselves, without depending on me or anybody or anything outside of themselves, would draw so much attention back to me. In other words, by letting go of the need to teach and to heal others, in order to have them experience for themselves their own internal GPS, and in so doing, to allow myself to become non-attached to external energies of any kind, the Universe, in response, sent me a plethora of entities to deal with!

It’s a Great Big Universal Tease! As in:

“Okay, Cath, you want to disengage from the need to be needed and the compulsion to be heard because you feel it’s a manifestation of ego that you have become aware is no longer serving you or your students, so We’ll (that’s the Universal We…the Collective Energies, The Archetypes of Awesome)…We’ll show you where that gets you! Here’s some more stuff for you to play with! Now what’s your next move?”

How does a soul play chess with the Universe?

Great question!

Attracting all this attention has led me to ASK my Innocent Inner Child Cath: “Why is this choice causing this response? ”

Asking is a new aspect of the LTOYW practice that I have learned to do from this same great spiritual teacher, G.P. Walsh, of the Master Heart Institute, (check him out here: http://MasterHeartInstitute.com ) who teaches when suffering arises: “Go within and Ask the Energy!” The energy is always signaled by an emotion (think: energy in motion)–something that is nonlocal (that is not tangible in the world of time and space) and therefore very close to the highest vibration of our own soul. The emotion then embodies as a feeling located in the nervous system of what G.P. calls our amazing Human Instrument, the very local body, definitely found in the sensory world of time and space, Then, we ask the feeling “What are you saying to me? What do I need to know here?”

So, that’s exactly what I did. I went within, precisely as I am encouraging everybody to do to find all the answers they could ever be looking for, for themselves.

Go within! This is called mindfulness in many traditions. It is definitely something everyone is capable of doing, but here’s the ‘catch 22’: most of us in our western society and culture have been taught by the Tribe, the purveyors of safety, rules, and procedures, for generations and lifetimes, that it’s not appropriate to go within to get in touch with our feelings. And the males of our species have been conditioned even more greatly than the females to deal in specific (rooted in ‘species’) acceptable ways with their feelings.

We have even been taught that because of certain hormones, and physical aspects of our bodies females are more emotional than males and it’s “Just their Nature” to behave in certain ways. Talk about self-fulfilling! Gender labeling of emotions and specific characteristics over the generations, has caused so many identity issues , which are fortunately now coming to the surface of our societal soul to be loved, healed and cleared.

In the meantime, we get born into a family, a human family called a tribe, into a culture of conformity that dictates who we are and how we are supposed to behave, which may or may not be true for each individual and unique spiritual being who emerges on the planet.

Part of this altruistic, yet not all-truth-istic motivation of the Tribe, dictates that certain feelings are “uncomfortable” (BIG neon sign flashing here for you: JUDGMENT! LIMITATION!) or some feelings are “yucky” (FLASH! FLASH!) or even “bad” (OMG!) and to avoid these certain feelings at all costs. It’s denial of a very big part of who we really are when we believe that sadness is to be shunned, anger is to be disguised, grief is painful so needs to be soothed, fear is harmful, and pain and suffering need to be eliminated.

These are our feelings, dammit! and they come from the same Source energy as happiness, compassion, romance, pleasure and peace. They are just feelings: not problems to solve nor challenges to be overcome nor situations to be dealt with. They are opportunities to grow and to expand; they are signals from Source, through our soul selves that we are alive! We are having experiences and this is what it is like to be a human being! So, Celebrate! (again, more on this “Life as Celebration” idea in a future blog, should you ask for it )

It’s All who we are! Keeping some feelings and sending other feelings to the basement is what leads to dis-ease because we are denying our own Source energy manifesting as an embodied human being! (more on this in a future blog, should I be asked)

We, as individual expressions of God-ness, are perfect just the way we are. It’s all okay or it wouldn’t be! It is, so it is! Now the task becomes getting in touch with what is; with that which is within that may have been suppressed or repressed in shame or fear. Are we then to be ashamed of God, acting as us? Of course not! This is where mindfulness comes in! We figure out what the feelings are, we have a conversation with them like we would with a five year old child in pain, and then, by giving all our feelings equal attention, affection, acceptance, allowance, and appreciation… a.k.a. LOVE…we return to the wholeness and the freedom of our original soul nature.

“How do you do that? ” you ask. (You did ask, right?)

First I just breathe myself into relax mode, as I taught in the LTOYW meditation. (see previous blog post) Then I focus on the sensations in my body. I don’t judge the sensations and every time my mind wants to jump in and comment on them like “Ooooh, that lower back pain is a signal someone in your world is causing an emotional burden for you.” or “Mmmm, itchy big toe. What does that mean?” I say “Thank you,” to the energy “I don’t need you right now.” And then I go back to the sensations. Once “settled”, I ask the feelings, “What are you telling me about this situation?” and “What do you want me to know?”

And do you know what I hear from the energy? It tells me exactly what I need to hear. I listen, I thank it for being here, and I breathe.

That is exactly what I did with these feelings of upset and discomfort, garnered when others expressed their feelings of unhappiness with me. And this is what they, as my soul self, told me: “You are being true to your nature, You know that you used to want people to be happy and to approve of you. You don’t need anyone’s approval now, because you know you are perfect in your imperfections, and other people’s opinions of you are none of your business. And now you are aware, because of your own experiences, that people have to experience a range of feelings. And you now have the confidence to know that everything that arises is exactly what is supposed to happen, occurring exactly when it is supposed to take place, for the highest good of all, so love that, and love the one who is still doubtful or insecure. Love The One You’re With! All is well. Celebrate!

And that is what anybody can do for herself!

Hey, Universe, it’s your move!

LTOYW! I love you, Cath Remember to check out http://MasterHeartInstitute.com for G.P. Walsh’s sagacious wisdom.

Why “Love TOY” so much?

In the past few weeks since beginning this blog, I have been asked “Why?” about several aspects of Love Toy Wisdom. So I have decided at this time to reply to, and in some ways, to reiterate, what I have already explained. Namely this:

We repeatedly and habitually tell our own hearts how much we love them, saying “I Love You” over and over, as a way of giving them the expression of the love…attention, affection, appreciation, acceptance, and allowance…that we may never have been given, or never got enough of when we were children. Why?

In order to ground Love into our being, as counter-conditioning for all the subconscious conditioning we picked up as little kids, we tell ourselves how much we are loved. This childhood subconscious conditioning has been running patterns in our minds and bodies that tell us we’re not good enough, or worthy of, or deserving of happiness, success, abundance, etc. and these fearful patterns wreck havoc on our relationships. We need to un-learn those years of deep hypnosis-like effect on our nervous system. Repetition is the way… especially out loud, spoken directly so as many of the senses can be reached in the process. Why?

It is important to reach all of the senses because that is the doorway through which we first received the original ideas that led to our belief that we are something separate from and other than a unique expression of the beautiful Divine being of the God Source Nature. It is like returning to the womb, or ground of creation with our statements. We are making up for it in all dimensions, time, and space and for all timelines we may find ourselves in.

It is also most certain that we do not get enough of that special love now, as so-called grown-ups, because in truth, as adults, we give ourselves very little opportunity to just play in the sandbox of self-love. Somewhere along the line we may have been taught that it is “selfish”, or “self-indulgent” or “self-centered” with the implication that these are “bad” things… that is, to be avoided at all costs. Which is just “propaganda” put out by the Tribe in order to preserve its rules and regulations, and as just a point of view and a judgment, easily overwritten by a mind equally capable of choosing for itself.

Once we get down to the basic energy, which is Love, then we have a tabula rasa for creating a new sense of who we really are, a new identity based on the truth, which is that there is no limit to the capacity of the human heart to give and to receive love. And of course, the blessing and the miracle is that when we can love whatever arises in our lives, because we have the essential strength of loving ourselves, then each experience in life is either reflecting that love or giving us opportunities to put it into practice. It’s all a win-win situation!

So, in summary, we follow LOVE TOY Wisdom…that is Loving the One You’re With… in order to anchor vibrationally the Love for which we have an opening, if not a craving, for in our hearts.

Matt Kahn, of True Divine Nature, calls it “The Love Revolution” and he explains it beautifully and with a transmission of energy that will also help to anchor something awesome in your heart. Watch his video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFS84Jp1qfc and be sure to catch my next blog when I explain more about soul masturbation.

I love you! LTOYW

How Do I Practice LTOYW? Part Three

This is the third of three introductory blogs on the Practice of Love TOY Wisdom, or Loving the One You’re With. The first, called “So What Do I Do?”, really gave a more theoretical outline and some info on the teachings that inspired me to develop it, including where the quip Love TOY Wisdom came from. The blog also provided a link and the lyrics to the song Love The One You’re With. Then it left the teaser about Matt Kahn and True Divine Nature‘s teaching of sending emails to your own heart.

The second introductory blog covered: How to send emails to your own heart, along with how to cascade a daily flood of “I Love You’s” to your own heart as a therapeutic practice.

This final introductory piece about putting Love TOY Wisdom into practice is a meditation that I devised because in my own experience, as a daily mantra meditation practitioner and a Chopra Center Primordial Sound Meditation Instructor, I have discovered that meditation opens up your “inner world” like nothing else that is also healthy and inexpensive!

There are hundreds of studies on the advantages of a daily/regular meditation practice, which are available with the magic of an internet search engine, so I do not need to site any stats here and now. Although I will be referring to the stats and info as I write about the beauty of the “Loving the One You’re With Process” because I happen to believe in mantra meditation as the best route to go, especially for people who are serious about incorporating meditation into their lifestyles. That is not to say I don’t enjoy a beautiful guided meditation, and there are many programs offered out there, including with Deepak Chopra and Oprah Winfrey (two bangs for your buck!), davidji… a former Chopra University Master Teacher, and one I recently completed which had the teachings of Osho as its lead in.

What does the practice of meditation have to do with loving yourself, you ask?

Answer: Meditation takes you inward to knowing yourself more intimately and therefor shows you the beautiful spirit-infused soul that you are, which you are then showering with love as per the practice of “Loving the One You’re With.

Add to that the indisputable fact that when you meditate, it is an act of self-ish attention, meaning it is something one does for, to, and by herself, even when in a large ballroom of five hundred meditators, including Deepak Chopra, Gabrielle Bernstein, and India.Arie, with thousands of others on-line, as I was this past August 8th in Toronto for the Global Meditation for Peace event. (It was memorable and awesome!)

So, meditation can be said to be a selfish act of devotion and when you love yourself enough to give yourself the gift of a daily meditation practice, or, you fake it till you make it, meditation leads you into a deeper self-love, more devotion and above all, an awareness of who you really are, what you really desire, what your purpose in this life is, and what you are grateful for.

Yes! It is that powerful. And it all begins with a decision to Love the One…the ONLY One…You Are EVER and ALWAYS With: YOU

Please find below an outline of my “Love The One You’re With” mantra meditation. If you are new to meditation, start slowly and ease into the length of time you meditate each day. But give yourself the present of daily attention to it for at least a month before you make a decision on keeping it.
If you already have a daily meditation practice, especially a mantra-based one like Primordial Sound Meditation, try substituting the mantra you regularly use for the words “I Love You” in your practice for at least 10 days, and then go back to your previous mantra if you prefer, substituting in the “I Love You” mantra for one day a week and especially when you have been having one of THOSE periods in your life when you require just a little more TLC.

I promise, whether you are new to meditation, are just getting your feet wet recently, have been meditating regularly for a few years, or are a seasoned life-time meditator, following the “I Love You” Meditation from Love TOY Wisdom will profoundly change your life.

One more thing…a little caveat to the “I Love You” meditation practice: Have a box of facial tissues handy for the first couple of weeks. Meditation brings up “stuff” anyway, because you are touching a part of yourself that is so beautiful and innocent that you are moved to tears, like when you see or hold a newborn baby or a little puppy or a sweet kitten, but more so. This “effect” is even more pronounced when the self you meet is being loved on by the one who knows it the most intimately. It just happens! Forewarned is forearmed…with tissue.

Oh, and by the way, what also comes up, bubbles up, eventually gushes up in a heart-opening wide awake awareness kind of way, is the pure Joy of being You!

En-joy!

The “I Love You” Meditation from Love TOY Wisdom:

Take 10 minutes in the morning before you start your day, sitting with your eyes closed, upright in a comfortable position with your feet flat on the floor or cross-legged on the floor, hands held facing upright/open in your lap, in a quiet place where you will not be disturbed
Begin by taking three relaxing breaths. That would be a deep inhale into the belly through the nose for a count of four, hold for a count of three or four, and then an exhale through the nose for a count of four, or an exhale through the mouth with a sigh. Do this three times.
Then, with your next breath in, as if breathing the air into your heart chakra (the centre of your chest area), concentrate on what your body is feeling, and where there is any discomfort—that is, resistance to the relaxation you are creating. If you feel any discomfort either physically or emotionally, say silently, in your head, “I Love you”, and then breathe out through your nose. Keep repeating the “I Love you” mantra, whether you feel any discomfort or not…breathing in through the heart space, keeping aware of discomfort, if any. It is as if you are sending these “I Love you” s to the part of your body that is seeking your attention…for indeed, energetically speaking, it is exactly what is happening! When there is no place in your body that is restless, in pain, etc. then simply focus the “I Love you” s on your heart.

If other thoughts come into your mind, as they surely will, as soon as you notice them, just gently and easily go back to the “I Love you”s. If you hear any noises from the environment around you, or feel any sensations in your body, just acknowledge them in the same way, even with a smile of recognition of the interference, which reminds you that you are alive, and go back to repeating the “I Love you”s.

Do this for a good 5 minutes…use a timer if you like…for several days until it is comfortable for you.
Then add 5 more minutes to the meditation and repeat daily until you are very comfortable with the time and practice.
Then add another 5 minutes until you are up to a total of 30 minutes daily. Or if that seems like a lot, just do whatever is comfortable for you. And I say that because it is your heart (not your mind) that ultimately knows what is feeling good, so if your heart is feeling dis-ease, tell it “I love you” and wait about 18 seconds. If the discomfort persists, stop for now. Be gentle and loving. Your Inner Child may not have heard these words for such a long time that it may be a little insecure…remember we either withdraw into unworthiness or we attack with “this is not what I need”… both are judgments that we are not ale to receive the love that we have always desired to feel.

Follow this simple practice for just 5 minutes every morning, as soon as you waken (after peeing but before anything else!) and I promise you there will be a new lightness in your heart which will translate into lightening up your life. (And the life of everyone you come into contact with…but that’s the topic for another day.)

Love the One You’re With daily in an “I Love You” Meditation

LTOYW I love you!

How Do I Practise LTOYW? Part Two

This, the second introductory blog on How to Practise Love TOY Wisdom will cover : How to send emails to your own heart, which was introduced in Part One, and it is also going to teach a little bit about the how and why of cascading a daily flood of “I Love You’s” to your own heart as a therapeutic practice.

The idea of sending emails to your own heart comes from the recent teachings of a new favourite spiritual teacher of mine, Matt Kahn of True Divine Nature. I invite you to look him up and for an awesome experience join his upcoming series of teachings called Angel Academy 3 that begins on September 27th. His idea of telling your own heart “I love you” whenever you are feeling fear, or anger, or sadness, or at any time you feel dis-comfort, is such a simple thing to do. The difficult part is when you are in the moment of a reactive response to be able to make the switch in your usual mindset and choose to speak to your own heart FIRST!

Remember as a child when you were taught to count to ten before reacting to someone’s insults or behavior? This is because that is how long it took the brain to go from the stimulus response/fight or flight reactive mode of the primitive brain stem (a.k.a. the “dinosaur brain”) when your heart pumps faster and your blood pressure rises, cortisol and adrenaline rush in to protect you from a perceived threat to having the impulse move into the limbic or emotional brain (a.k.a. the “doggy-horsey brain”) where you would have a feeling or emotional response to the stimulus which will either be fear-based or love-based.

Then after ten seconds, the impulse has moved through and into the frontal lobes of the thinking brain (the “human” brain) where all that conditioning I spoke about in September 18th’s blog entry called Part One of “How Do I Practise Love TOY Wisdom?” is contained. Here, in the so-called rational mind also lies all those subconscious beliefs, judgments and ideas picked up when our brains were on automatic record as infants, toddlers, and very young children. Which means that in actual fact, when we are in our human brain, thinking about what has happened and how to respond, we are still very much in a reactive mode. In fact, in many ways it is worse than fighting back with words or fists or running away and hiding which is what young children automatically do when they are triggered to feel unsafe. (Classic example is a two year old’s tantrum!)

So, you might be asking, why shouldn’t we allow our thinking, rational brain to kick in and make a choice for us? Why is Cathy saying that thinking and responding is not a good idea? Well, I’m saying this for a very simple reason, which may seem too simplistic when you first consider it but that is the beauty of Love TOY Wisdom. And the reason is this: IF you are in a situation where you have anger, fear, sadness, doubt, or dis-comfort (dis-ease) of any kind, then first of all you are NOT IN ALIGNMENT with your true self, with your true divine nature and second of all, it was your thinking brain/ego mind that got you there in the first place!

What this means is, thinking will not get you back into alignment. Feeling will! This is using your heart-mind, which is far more wise and intuitive than modern science used to make us believe but which the new studies like those of HeartMath are proving to be true. The heart has more “knowingness” than the brain because of its ability to tap into the universal consciousness and instantly scan for solutions to challenges. If this seems a little “out there”, then keep reading future Love TOY Wisdom blogs, because I will go deeper into the teachings as we go.

For now, all that is needed is an awareness that we need to choose to focus on our hearts when we are out of alignment or out of happiness and joy which is our true nature, and thus stay out of our thoughts which have all those conditioned patterns running the show. And to do that, just as we do in mantra meditation, when we replace the random or rising thoughts with a mantra, we substitute whatever else may come up in our response to an upset with the words “I Love You” directed with focus and intentionality to our own heart. We can even place a hand on our heart as we speak the words…and it is best to say them out loud, though just thinking them is a great place to start. Then, we repeat the “I Love Yous” several times or until we FEEL BETTER, where “feeling better” is code for Moving back into alignment with our true self.

How often do you repeat? Until you feel Safe and comfortable again.

When do you do this? Whenever you feel un-safe and un-comfortable!

Matt Kahn calls this sending emails to your own heart. You could call it sending love letters to your own heart. It is actually expanding the heart-space to be more and more open to receiving love, just as your inbox expands as you receive more and more emails. And unlike the capacity of your server, there is no limit to the heart…it is boundless and infinite, ever-expanding for as far and as wide and as long as you allow it to go.

Now, I add one other practice, just to make the heart muscle a bit stronger emotionally in the moment of upset, and that is to take a minute or two before each meal, just as if saying a prayer of gratitude which you can do right after the practice, and also again right before going to sleep, like a bedtime prayer, and that is to speak to your heart and say “I Love You” repeatedly for that short 60 to 120 seconds. And the way you say it is lovingly, gently, kindly, as if you were speaking to a three-year old child. Speak the words out loud, or whisper them if you don’t feel comfortable vocalizing out loud, and even to just think them does exercise the feeling muscles and expand the heart-space. Best practice however, whenever possible, is to say “I Love You” out loud, hand on heart, sweetly, soothingly, happily, lovingly, in any way just like you were speaking to your little child self.

But wait! Oh my gosh! You are speaking to your little child self. That beautiful inner child, innocent child, who sometimes gets scared and feels un-safe and needs soothing in a way she or he may never have been soothed before, or at least not that you can remember. This is a super special topic for future blogs and is not necessary to be fully informed about for the process introduced here to work. In fact, the best way to approach all this when starting out, is with that original tabula rasa innocence and “Just Do It!”

So, that is how to send emails to your own heart, which is a foundational part of Love Toy Wisdom, or Loving the One You’re With. I like to say that it makes every day Valentine’s Day. I promise that if you start putting Love Toy Wisdom into practice as outlined here, then you will experience more happiness and more joy in a very short period of time.

Stay tuned for “How Do I Practise Love TOY Wisdom? Part Three” for even more actions to take to “Love The One You’re With”.

Hands on Heart and pledge allegiance to your own healing! I love you! LTOYW.

So What Do I Do in Love TOY Wisdom? Part One

Just a brief re-cap and we’ll be off and running with the answer to this question: “What am I supposed to do in the practice of Love TOY Wisdom?”

Remember that Love TOY Wisdom is the “quip” (the quick uploaded imprinted phrase) or the distillation of the term “Love The One You’re With”. I know that it is the title of a beautiful song from 1970, written by Stephen Stills of the amazing Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young (and many more permutations) and if you listen to the lyrics it is about Love. Being a child of the Flower Power generation and a baby-boomer, I was in university when this song first came out and it became an anthem for the newly awakened sexuality for my generation of women. .. thanks to that little pink pill. Nuff said!

You’ll find a youtube link for the song here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2z0us0JPM4 and I have included the lyrics below.

So, Loving The One You’re With is about loving the person sitting next to you at the party, and the stranger on the bus ( a la Joan Osborne, 1995, as written by Eric Bazillian), and the neighbor across the road whose cat uses your front doormat as a litterbox. But FIRST, and I know you may have heard it a hundred times in a dozen different ways, but it is so very, very true… Before you can truly love another, you love yourself.

Why? Why? Why?

Love is the universal energy of Unity and we are all One Tribe, one organism of Life, as science is now confirming left right and centre… but don’t take my word for it…Google It! :)) We are quantumly connected and like the giant hologram we are, each piece of Us, the skin-encapsulated spirit we call a human being, is a manifestation of that hologram, however miniscule your mind sees yourself in the giant microcosm called Life.

So, when you Love yourself, you Love Everybody…no exclusions…and since most of us, whether we are aware of it or not, have been conditioned to have judgments against some other bodies (buddies), whether it be from religious beliefs, racial prejudices, social mores, whatever, whatever! It’s there. Deep in our subconscious, inherited from our ancestors, from our parents, teachers and caregivers, peers, and the great 20th century enculturator…the media, specifically T.V. By the time we are 2, from the moment of conception, we have been on constant record, and this continues well into our pre-school and early childhood, until we reach about 7, when our neurobiology begins to develop a so-called rational aspect to the brain.

Then we develop our full-blown personality, and everything that was previously on Record…and I mean EVERYTHING our senses could absorb!…then gets put onto Rewind. Endless replay of the “Music of Me” or all the vibrations we have imprinted and laid down. That’s our subconscious programming. It’s insidious, it’s infectious, as well as beautiful, and life-affirming. The problem is, we get confused. We have all these feelings that come up that often are in conflict with what we are living, and we have desires that sometimes do not jive with the folks out there.

In previous blogs I have discussed what happens when we let judgment continue to run our programming. But now I am here to remind you that we can adjust our vibrational tuning forks, just like a receiver in those old transistor radios can be “tuned in” to receive the Music we want to receive, or a satellite dish can be re-programmed to get the precise experience /channel that you desire to have.

Transistor radio, circa 1960

Now, some of us may even need to start with the hardware. Maybe their receivers are not clear, having been damaged through some perceived past misuse or abuse. That’s more than okay, and Love TOY Wisdom can repair a receiver just like THAT! (Snap!) It’s all the same process of feeling what you have always wanted to feel, even when you didn’t know or weren’t sure, how you wanted to feel.

How does everyone want to feel? Everyone wants to feel the way we felt when we first emerged into Life and even on the day we were born, no matter how stressful the environment might have been…it was all we knew…our Source identity, which is pure consciousness, pure divine being-ness, blissful awareness of our true identity permeating every cell of our body, and it is the energy we call Love.

That’s who we are! That’s who we have always been and will always be, and it is our true divine nature that we may have forgotten as we, as that infant/ baby/toddler, put our minds on “Record” and then later, tried to sort it all out. Somehow, we have forgotten who we really are.

Love TOY Wisdom is here to remind you and to guide you to find yourself again. How? By Loving The One You’re With…the One you have always been with since the day you were born…and even before that, actually! (incidentally, did you know that your heart is the first organ to develop in the foetus…thump, thump, thump…) Yes, Loving the One You’re With from Second One when you took your first breath of life-giving oxygen.

Foetus at 8 weeks. “Baby, baby, can’t you hear my heart beat?”

So, that’s how we “do” Love Toy Wisdom…essentially we love ourselves as we have never been loved before, as we have always wanted to be loved, as we are truly loved because we are Love. This massive download of Love repairs the separation from our true nature that we have been conditioned to feel over our Lifetime, by raising our consciousness to a higher vibrational awareness of who we are: Love. And we do that so simply… just by sending “I Love You” emails to our own hearts constantly and relentlessly, whether we think we need to or we think we want to or we think it’s stupid. We just ignore all that “stuff” and do it.

Next time…how do I send an email to my own heart?

LTOYW I Love you!

Love the One You’re With

If you’re down and confused And you don’t remember who you’re talking to Concentration slips away Because your baby is so far away

Well there’s a rose in a fisted glove And the eagle flies with the dove And if you can’t be with the one you love, honey Love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with

Don’t be angry, don’t be sad Don’t sit crying over good times you’ve had Well there’s a girl sitting right next to you And she’s just waiting for something to do

Oh yea oh yea, yea Lord, love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with Why don’t you love?

Turn your heartache right into joy She’s a girl and you’re a boy Did you get it together and make it nice? When you ain’t gonna need anymore advice

Well there’s a rose in a fisted glove And the eagle flies with the dove Sometimes you can’t be with the one you love, honey Love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with You gotta love the one you’re with

You gotta love, oh love You gotta love, oh love You gotta love, love the one you’re with You gotta love, love

Songwriter: STEPHEN STILLS

What Is Love Toy Wisdom?

Today I am launching the first blog description of Love TOY Wisdom, which is the nickname for my new program “Love the One You’re With”. In a nutshell, I am describing it as soul masturbation, which means loving yourself (The One you are always with!) as you have never been loved before! It means, in the words of Matt Kahn, a teacher I have just recently been following, whose teachings are known as “True Divine Nature”, to send “I Love You’s” to your own heart, both as a daily practice and whenever you judge anything or anyone.

The premise for all of this is the understanding that somewhere, back in our childhoods, we experienced judgments and conditions from our caregivers, also known as The Tribe, with the intention of keeping us safe according to their own beliefs and conditioning, that deeply conflicted with our true divine innocence which, coming directly from Source Energy, had an innate knowing awareness of its Self as a soul. But soon, the mind develops, and we “forget” that divine nature and that we are a soul. Sometimes we experience teachings from our tribe’s religions that tell us that we have a soul but it seems to be separate from the identity we are taught to assume.

“Love The One You’re With” is first of all a reawakening to the fact that we are the energy of Unconditional Love…that it is our highest vibration and that in living this life we have only masked that vibration in dense layers of beliefs, thoughts, and especially judgments, a.k.a. “THE EGO”.

We “forgot” or “lost” this essence in order to be safe in the world we were born into and we struggle to maintain it, suffering when our desires…our creative force to achieve what we already KNOW is our destiny, conflicts with that world: the rules, the expectations, the beliefs, the judgments, which keep us safe, but also which keep us from experiencing true freedom to be who we are meant to be.

We become caught up into a cycle of stress, where the more we try to get our needs met, the more we bump up against the rules and judgments and expectations of others., which in turn, causes more of the stress. It sinks into our minds and then our bodies and for some of us, we suffer dis-eases, which we then try to “cure” with more “stuff”, masking the symptoms and ignoring the source. But that’s what we’ve been conditioned to believe, and we so want to conform, don’t we?

Some of us try so hard to “fit in” to gain that love from others in our world that we start to believe that there is something wrong with us when we don’t. Then we get these feelings of unworthiness. We get into patterns where it is hard for us to receive anything because we don’t feel that we deserve it. In this process we put up so many walls…barriers to receiving the love, the approval, the attention, the affection, and all else in the abundance that we desire.

Or, some of us take the opposite stance and fight against conformity. These are the rebellious ones, the “I’ll show you” folks. I don’t need your love and approval. I don’t need love and approval from anyone! And so we isolate ourselves from feeling and being who we really are. What we resist, persists!

So, what’s the solution? It’s nothing new at all. I have just packaged it up in a simple way with a few catchy aspects. But before I say any more you need to know this: Love TOY Wisdom works whether you believe it or not. Even if you are the most skeptical person on the planet…and I think I know you personally!… this process works. It works for anyone, any age, any anything, because it is so basic to our nature, like breathing. It’s just that 99.99999% of the people have forgotten to do it…conditioned out of their hearts and into their minds by millennia of tribal teachings!

Love Toy Wisdom is primal. And once you put the process into practice, no matter how curmudgeonly you be, you will start to see the shifts in your life. I promise! Your life will become orgasmic! You will start to masturbate your soul in the most innocent way, and you will become the you that you have always been , whether you have kept your true self hidden from the world or you put your ego self out there confronting it on every turn.

Love TOY Wisdom is the awareness that when we start to love ourselves as we desire to be loved, no matter what…unconditionally in every moment…then we remove the worldly mask and become our true, angelic, highest vibrational selves. AND THE GOOD NEWS IS:

It’s the only tool you’ll ever need! In fact, I am calling it a toy, not a tool, because Life is meant to be fun, and playful, and even orgasmic! (wherein lies the masturbation part)

To treat yourself with all the love in your own heart, which actually taps into all the infinite love of the universe, is playing at the highest level with all of the other angelic beings and masters who exist in this holographic universe. Which are all pieces of You and therefore, you are playing with yourself!

AND here’s the Best Part: Even if you are in the darkest place of judgment, unworthiness, fear, anger, doubt, or hatred, YOU CAN’T MESS THIS UP! It works without you…well without that Ego You which is the only part of you that can experience those frozzy emotions, beautiful and much needed aspect of you that it is… having any control over it whatsoever! You can’t fail even if you want to! No more self-sabotage. It cannot exist in the energy which you will create with this practice. All you have to do is send “I Love You’s” to your own heart.

The “HOW?” and more “WHY?” will follow, so please stay tuned.

Introducing Love Toy Wisdom

Love Toy Wisdom is a quip on the acronym for “Love The One You’r e With”… LTOYW. It is my newly devised practice and process for getting the most out of life … emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. In the weeks to follow I will explain the 5WH’s of Love Toy Wisdom (Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How and not necessarily in this order!)

If you’d like a first look, head over to my website http://www.cathymillagehearthealer.ca to the LTOYW pages. And please stay tuned because I promise, this is the simplest and most direct way to be joyfully happy that I have ever discovered.

lovetoywisdom

"Love The One You're With"

Cathy Millage