Problems Are Gifts of Spiritual Awakening -- Grief and Loss

There is no such thing as a problem
without a gift in its hands.

Richard Bach

My brain has two basic categories of life events: what it wants, and problems. It is programmed genetically, socially, and emotionally to avoid problems, and to pursue what it “wants” – to control outcomes. The “belief” seems to be that if everything in my life went as my brain “wanted”, we would be happy and ok.

Fortunately that is not true. If everything and everyone’s being the way I wanted was the meaning and answer to life, I would be severely short changed – and hopelessly lost.

In my experience, I don’t really know what I want – because I can get people and circumstances to be my way, and still be miserable. There is something else – there are “more” – and not more desirable outcomes.

Problems, to me, are reminders that I don’t have what I “want” – and problems are directions toward finding what I am really looking for. They remind me when I am not happy, so I can seek change. And they remind me which path to stay on toward spiritual enlightenment.

My only real problem in life is separation from my God’s higher Presence. When we get separated from each other, I begin to fear, and hurt, and fight what is.

Problems are problems because they bring my pain and fear into conscious experience. Problems are gifts of life – solutions – because they remind me to reconnect and stay connected to my God, to others, and to myself – to find the hope, love, and joy of spiritual enlightenment in conscious Presence.

We need to have “problems” today – undesirable and uncontrollable life events – so we can receive the spiritual healing gifts of spiritual enlightenment, and loving Presence.

Embrace the undesirable. Treat them with daily inspirations and life’s precious moments. They will bring us to spiritual enlightenment -- back to our precious selves.

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Poem: "Re-emerging Selves" -- Grieving Our Lost Selves

My silence pounds walls of repetitive wordings,
living encapsulating in blocks of sound,
flashes of remembering
the unforgotten swirls of past moments –
events and experiences in the “Now”
of my human beingness.
Every object, event, coated
in emotional energy and glistening
with presence and absence – won and lost.
My mind has fashioned,
constructed…
reconstructed…
demolished….
and reconstructed…
so many selves of experience…
into narrow streams of solidified thought….
Dammed by survival…
resisting possible fluidity…
walls of blindness created in desperate silence…
I am….
We are…..
Reemerging…..
from desolation and destruction…..
looking … for what is still hidden…
so deep….
in the presents of the past.

From my Journal: March 5, 2008

Where Do All The Voices Come From -- Grief and Regaining Ourselves

“So what's worse? Too many voices in your head or complete silence?“

This Facebook quote, along with recent writing and listening I have been doing, triggered some powerful new spiritual awakenings and experiences.

First, it is important to realize and experience that these voices are my “lost selves” – parts of me that were disconnected or dissociated from my actual Self in order to emotionally survive the emotional traumas of my life.

There are four awarenesses that I experienced about my inner voices:

1. When I experience confusion, memory losses, and difficulty making decisions, they is caused by being overwhelmed by these voices – lost selves --pressing me with their pain and fear and needs. Imagine being in a shopping mall full of people – at Christmas, and everyone turns and moves toward you – surrounding you --- talking, then yelling, then screaming information, feelings, demands, requestts, etc...... and imagine trying to process and survive the whole experience.

2. The majority of people survive and function within the material world and within relationships by using silence – the absence of consciousness of the voices. By depressing the operation of the neural pathways of the brain, the pirmitive brain instinctively turns off the sound of their voices. And when that doesn’t work, it will exaggerate, dramatize, generally flood the neural pathways with distracting new activity focused at external circumstances and outcomes – thought.

3. My experience is that we do not have the ability to listen, organize, and process their voices, and successfully address the needs that drives these lost selves into frenzied desperation.

4. What I need to do is to allow a simplification to occur – to become as a little child – in the loving, caring , ujnconditional Presence of my God, and to receive gentle guidance -- to help me move through the conscious experience and restoration of these lost selves. For me, my spiritual parents/guides operate through the Presence that resonates in others.

I perceive that the majority of human beings live materially “successful” lives in virtual silence -- not stillness – silence – the forced and constricted absence of sound -- not the quiet and flowing serenity of Presence. I define ‘success” experiencially as the reaching of enough life outcomes to be reasonably satisfied with life – often to notice of others as being accomplished or having “successfully” overcome sizable obstacles to do so. Most often, success, for humans, is perceived as being within the realm of objects and material outcomes, not relationships, closeness, or intimate awakenings.

“Success” in our modern culture typically entails the suppression of these inner voices – lost selves – in order to reach some external outcome. Consequently, I experience that those who our culture venerates with public media attention, as being the most “successful” are also the most unconscious. As I watch them, I experience the feeling that no one is home. I only experience their masks -- hiding deeper and deeply wounded selves.

The efficiency of unconsciousness – the dead and dying selves lie decomposing on the screens of our televisions and cinemas – in our politics, music, and entertainment. I feel sad. So much wonder and beauty of selves lost in the blinding glares of deafening outcomes.

If you are hearing your inner voices, too, and would like some comforting Presence, and direction, try some of these blogs that I have written, and feel free to contact me on Facebook, or by email.

We can all help each be restored to sanity – truer and more complete versions of ourselves. Our lost selves need us to improve our conscious intimate contact with our God so they can come home. We and they do not have to be alone today.

Click here: Finding Daily Inspirations

Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves

Twelve Step Spiritual Life Management

Valley of Deadened Selves: Regaining our Selves through Grief

My mind drapes sadly over the fallen corpses
selves fallen in the service of guarding, protecting the “me”.
I am buried beneath growing swells of rushing raging e-motions
pounding the beaches of my consciousness and thoughts
Reminding, remembering, forgetting yet again.
Protected– a light that rests casually on the edge of my mind
an unravelling of what was never together
exposing the inner wreckage and carnage of my past and dying selves.
I can’t remember where I am – who I was –
another world seems impinging from somewhere
beyond what is for me –
I am present, fallen, and streaming – in realest time –
as light continues to rise – burning alive motions,
somehow, in this dead and dying selves –
as Presence beginning to gently glow and flow within deadened lifeless
veins – and life, a love, sensations of beingness,
Presence begins to beat
where darkened hearts had stopped before.
My valley of deadened selves, touched – restoring -- yet unknown appearing Self – enlightened shadows of what may yet to come.

Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves -- Grief and Loss

I was in a spiritual support group today where the topic was Step Five of the Twelve Steps:

We admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs (the nature and symptoms of our emotional illness).

This step is the continuation of Step Four:

We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

In Step Five, we reach out to our God through the flesh and blood of another human being, and together we move away the debris that blocks the door to the Secret Garden... Will W.

For the complete article, click here: Returning to the Secret Garden of Lost Selves.

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Shadow Selves Returning Through Spiritual Presence and Grief

Most of the shadows of this life are caused
by standing in one’s own sunshine.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am reminded of an image and inner vision that I have experienced, especially during meditation. I see shadows moving in and out and around me, and I wonder what these shadowy figures are. When I reach out to touch them, I experience that they are “Me’s” – lost selves -- separated by excessive levels of pain from past events and circumstances. They are moving – sometimes running -- around, trying to get my attention – wanting to come home – back to conscious contact with me. And I feel a sadness, an emptiness, and a different type of loneliness.

I sense that I lost selves when I experienced massive abandonment and separation – emotional pain. And I have experienced the regaining of lost selves when my God’s Presence was restored to my mental processes.


There are wonderful treasures of selves and spiritual enlightenment hidden within these shadows. We must connect with a higher Presence of loving Light in order for our darkness to be changed into this spiritual enlightenment – the restoration of our lost selves.

This conscious experience of our shadowy selves can be a wonderful gift of awakening and spiritual enlightenment. But first it may produce a terrifying sense of hopelessness and loss. In any case something will change – as our shadowed selves step back into consciousness, and once again – become Light.

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Opening Our Hearts to Grief and Love

Every now and again, take a good look at something not made with hands – a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream.

There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace

and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.

Sidney Lovett

This inspirational life quote is a reminder of some simple truths of spiritual enlightenment. First, we need to stop-- ever so often – maybe, more often – and remember, that we have forgotten something. The material world screams at us in no uncertain terms to pay attention to its useless chatter and clatter. And our brains react with screaming fierceness – “we have to avoid the present moment – human consciousness is not acceptable.” Together the material world and our brains whip up storms of illusion and confusion that keeps us from remembering – to remember – to stop and experience and reside in just this precious moment.

Take a look – open the eyes of our hearts – take a good look – at something – experience fully our experience of who we are – in something we are not – in something that is not demanding our attention – but in something that carries the subtleness of life’s inexhaustible mystery – within each precious moment – within each atom of human and spiritual experience.

Nature – natural -- not made by man -- uniquely transcendent compared to all the illusions we can create – “what is man that thou art mindful of him” – touch the face of God in moments of Their handiwork – because there are gifts hidden in their simplicity.

Wisdom – spiritual enlightenment – where our brains begin to clear of the wreckages of our pasts – where a higher Presence begins to glow in the darkened synapses of our brain – clarity of experience and intimate Presence adjusts our perceptions and reactions – and we are free to be more wholly present – in life’s precious moments. Wisdom is where human experience and God’s Presence join to become consciousness and intimacy into being.

Patience involves the absence of obsession with material outcomes because we have the guarantee of God’s Presence that all is planned and prepared for our best. The neural energy of our brains diminishes and we are no longer driven to control what will not make us happy anyway. Holding their hands – we have no need to be responsible for our outcomes, only for our presence within Their Presence.

Solace – relief from pain and grief. “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted”. Their Presence comforts us. We are able to flow through our current and past pain and fear and sadness – and find rest. “Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest.”

When I first began to experience rest, I experienced being a very young child, being held by a very attentive Parent and being gently rocked – safe, nurtured, and unconditionally loved and admired. The cares of my mind’s woundedness flowed out and away, and being replaced by a loving stillness – far beyond my brain’s capacity to create.

All of these gifts – nature, spiritual enlightenment, confidence and serenity, and restful spiritual healing – all these are part of the massive and emerging assurance – the personal experience that we are not ever alone – never abandoned or rejected, except by our own injured brains.

Gifts – from someone who likes us and loves us – without conditions or possibility of rejection – precious moments of God’s love becoming spiritual enlightenment.

No longer alone in our world.

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Following Grief Back to the Heart of Presence

It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end.
Ursula LeGuin

What is the meaning of life? A seemingly absurd question considering no one really “knows” the answer. Perhaps the closest answer is the one given by Jack Palance as a rough and worn cowboy in the movie “City Slickers”. He said that the meaning of life is “one thing” – just one thing. Find one thing that means the most to you, and make that the center of your life. Focusing on too many things destroys the meaning of life.

In my experience, the meaning of life is “Presence in the Present”. To experience God – our higher Presence – in this precious moment of time – the Present – that is the truest “meaning of life”. To feel and be totally human and conscious, and consciously connected to God – in this exact moment – gives a dimension to life that overwhelmingly amazing and freeing.

It’s ok to have goals and plans – except when they take us out of our precious moments and into the terrorfying future. We are – each moment – in a sparkle of meaning and love – when we are Present in Presence within our journey.

In math, a line between two points is composed of an infinite number of points. When we are present in this moment, we are approaching an eternity of beingness – the ultimate intimacy and closeness with God, ourselves and others.

So how do we live in the journey and not in the deception of the destination?

It’s impossible for me to do that. This is my starting point. My brain does not operate in present moments. It is always miles of ahead of where I am.
And I cannot stop this.

Second, for me, only inserting the higher Presence of my God into the present can stop my brain at this precious moment. Inspirational life quotes, inspirational readings, music, journaling, and the voice of God in others’ lips – all of these are means of increasing my conscious connection to my God – the meaning of life.

Third, for me, is to take action – do something – act as if God is taking me into this moment – act as if I am loved, safe, and guided. Many times it is as simple as taking the next breath, and taking the next step – being present in each motion forward as an expression of my trust in Their loving Presence and intent.

We have all been given a journey – an infinite number of precious moments -- opportunities for intimacy and meaning with our God. Let us breathe -- touch the hand of our higher Presence -- and step deeply into each precious moment -- our journey to the heart of Presence.

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Laughter and Tears -- Moving From Grief to Life

I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes: nor would I be content with converting my tears…into calm. It is my fervent hope that my whole life on this earth will ever be tears and laughter.
Kahlil Gibran

A story is told of a man who died and woke up in a beautiful bed, in a magnificent bedroom, in huge mansion. As he looked around in amazement and wonder, he thought to himself that he was hungry and some pancakes would taste good. Immediately the door opened, beautiful servants brought in the most wonderful, perfectly cooked and warm pancakes with the best syrup he had ever tasted. The orange juice was hand squeezed and perfectly sweet and tart. Everything was wonderful.

When he was finished, he thought how he would like to get dressed and go see this place. Immediately servants came into the room with just what he wanted to wear – and extremely comfortable. He was helped to get dressed and escorted downstairs, through the house, and out onto the grounds. And as he proceeded, everything he thought of that he wanted immediately was brought to him.

This went on for several days, and he began to become a little uneasy about all the immediate attention and every want being met as soon as he thought it. So he spoke with the head butler, and asked him to stop everyone from giving him everything he thought he wanted. The butler told him that it wasn’t possible to stop doing this. The man became upset, and angrily said, “Heaven just isn’t the way I thought it would be!”

The butler smiled and said, “Who said you were in heaven?”

The human illusion is that if we had everything we wanted, the way we wanted it, we would be happy. So we struggle and scheme and contrive, trying to get control of our circumstances. And when it doesn’t go our way, our lives are ruined and seemingly hopelessly lacking. But it is not our circumstances, but the wounded filters of our brain that are causing our unhappiness.

“I would not exchange the laughter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes...” “What doth it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Bible) The material world seems to possess the control over our happiness since having material wealth seems to give us control over outcomes. And the insanity of humanness is the belief that outcomes determine our happiness.

A heart that can laugh – and cry – can love and be loved – can experience the higher and caring Presence that overrides human circumstances and outcomes. To be able to experience the humanness of living gives us the chance to experience the spiritual, intimate, and totally amazing.

The greatest hope and gift we can have is that we will never lose our laughter -- and our tears – to be fully and consciously human.
If we lose our human consciousness, we become dead to God’s loving and life changing Presence. We become the “undead” – no one home – feeding off of others and ourselves -- without ever knowing that we no longer exist.

Today, let’s take time to laugh – and let’s take time to cry – and in being fully human allow God to become fully Present – giving us Their fullness of love and caring joy and peace. This is a day of celebration that we are consciously alive – and we are not alone.

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Grieving the Past by Love in the Present

Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;

therefore, we are saved by love.
Reinhold Niebuhr

Over the last forty to fifty years, there have been major changes in the structure of our culture. Financial and educational opportunities have created more and more space between persons and their supportive others. Families become scattered all over the country and world – some see family members every couple of years – and childhood friends and acquaintances – never. The fabric and strength of human relationships have been sacrificed for progress, success, fame, and wealth – none of which brings any real closeness and intimacy – serenity or joy – any really deeper meaning to life.

We are forced to live alone – with human bodies passing and flailing about us – no real contact, caring, connection, warmth – we are forced to live disconnected -- alone.

Well, alone just doesn’t work. The massive distractions of our modern world may numb our brains enough to forget – that it’s not working. But then – something happens – flowers, clouds, a death, a birth, an unexpected something happens -- appears on the screens of our brains – and we remember – something just isn’t “right” – something’s missing – and we are remembering – what we forgot – and it’s important.

What is “it”?

Normally what happens next is that our phone rings, someone turns on a TV, a text message appears, and we forget – again. And sometimes – nothing happens – and we still remember – and we want something different – something real – something bigger than ourselves – love.

We begin to believe – and experience – that a love, greater than ourselves, might restore us to Life – at least for this moment, and for this breath – maybe -- maybe longer.

The material nature of our perceived world is an illusion – a mirage – in real terms it doesn’t exist. It can only anesthetize – not energize and enlighten.

Life melts in our hearts not in our heads. And when our hearts touch, something happens – we begin to see a path -- back home to our true and deeper selves – and we become amazed – with others -- along the way.

Today, let’s touch someone else -- with conscious, deliberate smiles -- with sincere and attentive ears -- with hearts opening wide and wider – rediscovering the beautiful place that love can build –that already is.

We can truly make life a better place – by love’s design.

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Raising the Shades of the Past-- Regaining from Losses

Before sunlight can shine through a window, the blinds must be raised.
American Proverb

Light – the presence of energy that reveals what is – colors, depth, space, hues of moments and breaths emerging on the surfaces of our brains – revealing something – nothing – everything.

We are looking for that something. From one day and time to the next – we are looking for different somethings. We don’t really know what we are looking for – does it even exist – is it hidden behind – beneath – inside of something – someone? We don’t know. This is the place to begin. I don’t know what or where or who I am looking for – there is a darkness.

In our unknowingness, something must change – something must move – an opening must form that exposes our brains to Light – spiritual enlightenment – a Presence beyond sight and sound – experienced with our hearts – Light that pulls ourselves back into our own consciousness – by allowing Their Presence to flow – into our hearts – illuminating our unthinking brains.

Before light can shine through a window, there must be a window.

How obvious? But missed. A window – an opening – the presence of open Presence – through which life can enter.

For some, it seems simple. A spiritual presence, with a spiritual guide, and there appears openings.

For some, more complex – a need for intense and consistent spiritual therapy – an IV line to our brains -- through which massive doses of Presence can flow – specifically into the missing voids of seething absence.

Reach out and touch others – smile, be present – and listen – messages, voices, intimate spiritual conversations, emerging, opening -- time stills -- Light shines -- and we see – more and more – what we were looking for --all along.

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Listening to Presence with Our Hearts -- Moving Through Grief

There is a guidance for each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word…. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into your life. Then, without effort, you are impelled to truth and to perfect contentment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each writer uses different words and combinations of words to express and communicate same and similar experiences. Words are receptacles of human energy, which can become filled with spiritual Presence energy and then lived beyond what we could even begin to ask for or think.

There is a higher Presence that resides and resonates within each of us. Hence writers have talked about recognizing and “worshipping” the God that is within all of us –individually and collectively.

That Presence – “a guidance for each of us” – is able to begin to clear our brains of mindless frightened chatter, and begin to reveal to us the higher meaning and direction of our lives – spiritual experiences leading to spiritual awakenings, resulting in spiritual enlightenment. With this guiding Presence, we become increasingly alive and aware.

Implied in these words is the necessity to experience, admit, and accept that of our own abilities, we cannot know! This is required in order to go to the next level.

“Lowly” simply means humble – an active spiritual awareness that we are unable to know and to do life alone -- and that there is Someone there – hidden behind rows and rows of thought within our brains – Someone who is speaking – caringly and lovingly to our hearts – when we can listen.

We are not alone.

As we learn to listen, we begin to hear the “right words”. Words again are containers full of energy. Distorted by our hidden pasts, the neural energy of words destroys and harm. Freed by conscious Presence with the God of our intimate experience, the energy of “right words” heals – spiritually transforms our perceptions and reactions into “rightness” or personal sanity and health.

To access this spiritual Presence on regular basis, we need to place ourselves into the very center of the spiritual stream of God’s Presence and spiritual enlightenment, which flows even now right through our lives – our conscious experiences of living.

It is critical to let God, our higher Presence, reveal this incredible stream of spiritual energy that is ever present and available to all of us.

When we learn to live within these spiritual experiences and Presence, we will find ourselves accessing an infinitely higher awareness, and experiencing a serenity that exceeds all human thinking – and WITHOUT EFFORT!

“Impossible”, says our brains. “Life is only as “good” as we make it,” -- one of the many lies received from our brains.

“Without effort” or effortless: The Bible says, “what man, by willing it to be so, can add one inch to his height?” We are powerless – alone. Intimately connected to our God, we become – merely by having and improving our conscious contact with Him and Her. Spiritual enlightenment and healing comes from conscious Presence with God – “not by our works, lest any man boast”

Let’s take some deep breaths – slow and easy – feeling the rhythm and motion of our bodies – being exactly where we are at this moment – unconditionally perfect, loved – and admired – by our loving higher Parents. We are not alone. Feel their Presence. Begin to allow their caring energy to flow through you – becoming engulfed in the steady glowing stream of their love. And listen – words will appear and begin to dissolve – the pure spirit that flows from Their heart will lift us from our worldly distractions – and we are becoming spiritually enlightened beyond our thoughts and human perceptions.

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