Monthly Message ~ "Living MY Life"

Living MY Life – not someone else’s, or for someone else – this is the theme that’s been showing up in the last month or so – along with the many forms of how often we don’t live our life.

One form is that we keep so busy fixing ourselves, working on ourselves, and otherwise making improvements on or to ourselves that we forget to live our life – to embody life and the life-giving, creative force right now.

Then there’s all that time we spend fixing other people’s lives and figuring out what someone else needs – and once again we aren’t living our life, we’re living through someone else’s life.

Another way is how we live for others – parents, relatives, partners, teachers, friends, co-workers, bosses – then we lose track of who we are and what we want in an attempt to live for others.

We also get lost in our identifications – woman, man, survivor, Christian, American, African-American, soldier, executive, Reiki practitioner, etc, etc, etc – and all the beliefs, thoughts, emotions that are attached to each one. Then we’re living our life based on behaviors and expectations that may not be our own.

For some of us it’s amazing that we’re even alive because so much of our life force has gone to just surviving. Walking through the valley of the shadow of death takes tremendous strength of will and spirit – leaving us with little left over for true living.

No wonder it gets confusing once we start a search for self/Self. Even more profoundly, when we begin coming into contact with our Self. And it takes a tremendous amount of courage to look at ourselves, and start sifting the wheat (Self) from the chaff (self).

My journey in search of Self has had many steps… thus far.

In the beginning I thought of it as a search for myself – the who-I-am as a personality. I know without a doubt now that Self was behind the deep urge to move across the country to New York in my late 20s away – from my family, friends, and all that I knew – to pursue my dream of becoming an opera singer. It was scary, it was necessary, and I needed to do it to develop a fuller sense of myself.

The next step was when I started perceiving the mass consciousness influences upon me, and being able to more clearly discriminate between what I believed, thought, and felt, and what was influenced by the mass consciousness or the personality of the world around me.

All along the way I knew there was a Self beyond my personality self – an Inner Voice ever-present and eternal. However, until I had a clearer perception of who I was as a personality, I remained uncertain about which was which, what was self and what was Self. Until I could distinguish my own thoughts and emotions, and perceive the influences of mass consciousness, that Inner Voice, that Self, remained a something that was without and seemingly beyond my reach, rather than being within.

“The ego shouts, the Higher Self whispers, listen carefully.” I don’t know who originally said this, but my Reiki master, who heard it from his Reiki master, quoted it often. It’s a great reminder of how to differentiate between hearing or sensing Self and the muddle of self.

As the Voice Within comes clearer and clearer, so has my ability to live MY life for self and Self. The Voice of the Higher Self has become more present, while the ego has slowly faded into a whisper.

The next step – to be that Voice Within – is yet to come. And I live in faith of divine grace that one day Self will be the only Voice.

Blessings,

Margaret Ann

Quote of Note

“The Self is ever there, there is nothing without it. Be the Self and the desires and doubts will disappear. The Self is the witness in the sleep, dream, and waking states of existence. These states belong to the ego. The Self transcends even the ego.”
– Ramana Maharshi

Contemplation for Your Heart, Mind and Body(tm)

It is the great irony of this time of year that we are asked to spend so much time outward – shopping, parties, family gatherings, traveling, and other commitments – while our spirit is so strongly asking us to go inward.

So here’s a list of highly personal ideas for some inward moments during the busy holiday season…

Notice the quality of light in the sky, especially at dawn or dusk.
Appreciate the glow of a candle in the dark.
Listen to children laughing, especially if they are your own.
Receive Reiki and bodywork sessions.
Listen to Renaissance Christmas music.
Drink a hot toddy while listening to Renaissance Christmas music.
Get up early before anyone else and enjoy the quiet.
Become immersed in a big, fat novel that lasts for days.
Go see a movie while everyone else is frantically shopping.
Cook when no one else is around.
Meditate in the middle of a shopping mall… no one will notice.
Smile with anticipation, smile for no reason at all.
Take a moment to feel whatever you’re feeling.
Breathe, receive, relax… and let it flow.
See the angels all around you.

And remember – it is in an infinite number of moments that life is lived.