[pinit]
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about this business of safety, trust and surrender, because my life has changed so radically ever since I put all three of these into action last month in Sedona. In fact, I barely recognize myself these days.
A number of things have happened over the past few weeks that would’ve previously sent me spinning into waves and fits of anxiety and fearfulness. But now…nothing.
From car breakdowns a thousand miles from home; to stolen credit cards; to computer malfunction and potential loss of income; to howdy-do visitations from ghosts (or possibly angels, I don’t know – one invisible entity is much like another in my book).
Anyway, my point is, it’s been a cavalcade of what used to be code red anxiety-producing events.
But apparently there’s nothing that presses those fear buttons anymore. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the buttons themselves seem to have been permanently dismantled. And strangely enough, I would actually characterize the events of the past month or so as peaceful and enjoyably stress-free. Because I didn’t really blink an eye at any of it.
And there’s more.
In addition to the total lack of fear, I seem to have unexpectedly acquired a brand new ability to differentiate between the actual facts of a situation, and any stressful story I would’ve told myself about it in the past.
For example, when my credit card information was stolen, I was fully aware of the same old stories I might have chosen to attach to the event: Oh no! I’m not safe. Oh no! What will be stolen from me next? Oh no! What if my replacement card doesn’t arrive before I leave the country tomorrow? But I clearly saw they were optional embellishments, not the reality itself. And so I wasn’t tempted to indulge in them anymore.
Instead there were only simple facts: My credit card was used to make two purchases. The card company reversed those charges and cancelled the account. My new card would either arrive in time or it wouldn’t. Because no stories were woven around the facts, there was no anxiety – indeed, no suffering of any kind, associated with the incident. There was only joy. And gratitude. And profound peace.
After a lifetime of habitually anxious hand-wringing, I cannot begin to tell you how new and wonderful and utterly bizarre it is to live inside this unrecognizably serene new version of myself.
• • •
And so I wondered: What was so incredibly different about the trust and surrender I offered up at the Sedona cabin, versus the hundred thousand-odd other times I’ve tried it? I mean, I’m sincere as hell when I pray. Why did this particular set of prayers cause such deep and fundamental shifts in perception?
I took a long, careful look at this question, because I wanted to crack the code. To tease out the primary catalyst for the miracle I’ve experienced, and hold it up to the light so that I – and you – can get a good look at it.
The nucleus, the core difference between the Sedona Cabin prayer and all preceding ones seemed to be the fact that I was at the end of my rope when I offered it.
I guess I have a hard-ish time fully letting go of ego control under normal circumstances. (Perhaps you can relate.) But these circumstances were hardly normal. I accepted the possibility that surrender might cause my death and then surrendered anyway, because I couldn’t stand to be tormented by my own fears for one minute longer.
And so, I completely and fully surrendered my imaginary “control” of the situation to Spirit for the first time, I guess. Even though it felt like I was putting my life in extra danger by doing so. And I managed it despite being unable to trust even a little bit at that point.
And that’s the tricky thing about trust and surrender. The ego mind so dearly wants it to happen in just that order: Prove to me that I can trust, and THEN when I know it’s safe, I’ll surrender. (Maybe.)
But unfortunately that just isn’t the way it works. Surrender comes first, and then the trust floods in afterward, along with the beautiful miracle of prayers answered.
Having to surrender before we trust isn’t some kind of twisted test set up by God to doublecheck on our worthiness, by the way. That’s not how God rolls.
Our inability to trust in advance is just a hurdle set up by our own ego mind as a means to protect itself.
Yes, it’s kind of a bummer that it works in that seemingly backward order. And your ego mind might want to convince you that surrendering first is some kind of dreadful “lady or the tiger” trick: be suckered into surrendering, and then discover too late that you’re worse off for having done it.
But that’s honestly never the case.
In my experience, anytime we manage to surrender, there’s a guaranteed jackpot waiting in the wings. (The jackpot is always there either way, of course. But surrender seems to enable us to accept it.)
• • •
So is “end-of-rope” suffering necessary in order to surrender deeply to God and accept all the good stuff that comes as a result?
Strictly speaking, no. Of course not.
We just tend to vastly prefer the suffering (i.e. hanging onto ego “control”), wrongly believing it’s the road to peace and freedom.
Oh honey. Au contraire. You want peace? You want freedom? Freedom is having a sense of peace and safety no matter what kind of stuff arises in your 3-D world.
If what you truly want is peace and freedom, then what you truly want is surrender.
Great big gobs of it. Run toward it with open arms. Ask for it with joy and gratitude, even if it feels scary as hell while you’re doing it.
You won’t be disappointed. Trust me.
SAFE
[pinit]
Being female in this world, I’ve always held certain unexamined assumptions about How Things Are. I believed the story that I’m weak and vulnerable. I believed my gender made me an automatic target for crime, and therefore I must be constantly on my guard against theft or bodily attack.
And so, like many women, I developed behavioral responses to my environment:
Never walk down alleyways at night.
Always check the back seat before getting in my car.
Listen for footsteps. Be aware of any cars that might be following mine.
Paranoia, in this case, seemed the smart and rational response to a dangerous world. And this hyper-vigilance gave me some illusory sense of control over my environment.
Despite ongoing enquiry into the nature (and trustworthiness) of my own beliefs, I had never seen fit to question this particularly far-ranging and pernicious set of fears.
I’d spent decades feathering my nest and arranging my life into the reassuring picture of comfort and control, you see. So my fears rarely had the chance to parade themselves in full.
Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Uh…no. They festered ever-present just below the surface of my consciousness, oozing low-level anxiety into every corner of my life instead.
• • •
So it’s been an interesting several months.
After 21 years as a comfortably married lady, I moved out of the house June 1st and gratefully spent the summer at my dear friend Kathy’s place. While there, my primary hobbies including staying awake nights and obsessing about lack of safety, potential loss of steady income, and fears of destitution and/or homelessness.
The theme was survival – was I capable of taking care of myself? And that age-old unconscious question at the base of all things: Did I really have any right to thrive in this world?
I discovered all my buried fears now had ample opportunity to come out and play: How would I live? Where would I go? Could I run my business without Kurt (I.T. Guy Extraordinaire in the next room), ready to bail me out of any technological jam?
There was more: Without a home base to call my own I’d be traveling around with all my worldly goods in tow, having no permanent place to stash my valuables. How would I protect myself from the constant threat of theft? I felt utterly vulnerable and unsupported in the world.
(Interestingly, I was surrounded by beautiful people on all sides who were offering huge quantities of loving support. But this frightening and pervasive lack of support was an inside job. And it welled up in me unceasingly, no matter what anyone around me said or did.)
• • •
At summer’s end, I packed up my little car and drove it across the desert to Sedona. I had no idea why Sedona, or what I might do there. But I had eventually gotten so bored with torturing myself over questions of where to go and what to do, that I surrendered the whole scary bag of worms to Spirit.
And Sedona it appeared to be, so now I was just uneasily following the prompts that seemed to point me toward red rock country.
One of these Spirit-inspired prompts was a Sedona house-share rental that I had taken sight unseen from Craigslist. It was a massive three-story log cabin in the woods, with broad balconies on all sides. It had spectacular views of Thunder Mountain.
So far so good.
This place was quite a bit more expensive than other house-shares I’d seen, but sounded a hundred times better than any private apartment I was likely to find for a similar price. So I took it.
I would have the whole second floor to myself — a huge bedroom with office area; balcony; sitting room; a closet big enough to park my Mini inside (if only I could’ve gotten it up the stairs) and a large separate bath. And there was a very spacious loft area at the other end of the second floor that was also mine – except for Wednesdays, when that space would be used for New Age chiropractic sessions of some sort.
All of that sounded fine, and the pictures looked good. But then I arrived, and saw what the photos hadn’t shown: There were no doors on my room…just a bunch of curtains across an open expanse. No window coverings in most of the house, either, including my bathroom.
And when I asked for a key, I was told they didn’t use them. None of the locks worked on the house’s several exterior doors, apparently. Which didn’t seem to trouble my roommate Maurice (or any of his friends) because he never locked the doors anyway.
Okaaaaaay….
And then three days after I arrived, Maurice left town for two weeks and I was all alone in this giant, exposed, unlockable cabin in the woods. All alone, that is, except for the fifteen or twenty strangers who converged on the place every Wednesday to have their chakras tuned up and spines realigned.
Not only did this place push every safety fear button I had, it seemed to invent a half-dozen new ones.
I was especially terrified of coming home alone after dark to an empty, unlocked house. As I entered, I would turn on every light, methodically checking every room, every closet, under the beds and behind the shower curtains – investigating every potential hiding place to assure myself no unseen attackers were lurking.
I was also afraid that some of those chiropractic patients would surely recognize this house for the easy mark it was; over and over in my mind I’d picture them casing the joint and coming back after dark to steal the aforementioned worldly goods.
Or worse.
Every night in bed my mind ran obsessively through all the horrifying scenarios of What Might Happen. And I couldn’t seem to stop it. The heart-pounding, sick-making terror of it.
Oh yes. I knew these were all just ego stories I had invented.
I knew these fears weren’t real.
I knew I was One with all these horrifying “others” who populated my feverish imagination. And I certainly knew they were innocent in Truth.
But knowing all this didn’t make it a damn bit better. Not when it felt like my very survival was at stake.
• • •
But here’s the thing: These days I’m in a period of consciously examining all my deeply buried unconscious pain, fear and general gunk, together with Spirit. Just the action of witnessing all this hidden crap – just agreeing to bring my awareness to it and be with it unconditionally – this is powerful stuff, and it causes huge leaps in healing.
So whenever dark, difficult emotions crop up, I see it as a gift, and I welcome the emotional turbulence as a prime opportunity for transformation. And back at Kathy’s place, I had prayed to be able to witness my deepest fears and surrender them to Spirit once and for all, for total healing.
Hey, prayer answered.
Or the first half of it, anyway.
So I knew it was no accident I had come to stay in this funhouse of the damned. Besides, even while it made me sick with terror, funnily enough there was something about the house itself that felt like a big, warm hug. On some level I knew this cabin was a loving, gentle laboratory for working out my fears.
A safe place to feel howlingly unsafe in.
But. The obsessive scenarios of violent crime still played out in my head every night and refused to go away. Upon deep examination, I realized my pain stemmed from being helpless to control the situation. (Had the doors been lockable, I could’ve maintained the illusion of control. But in this wide-open vulnerability, I had no choice but to rely on those terrifying “others” – hoping they’d choose not to target this house. But clearly I would never have control over that.)
The truth, of course, is that none of us has control over such things, ever. But we whistle past the graveyard, and we buy alarm systems or firearms or life insurance policies; we build up savings and retirement accounts so that we can stop being afraid. So that we can sleep at night. So that we can give ourselves the illusion of control. But outside forces are outside forces, at least here in the 3-D world of illusion. And outside forces simply aren’t controllable.
The only way to be free of fear once and for all is to meet it where it actually lives:
Within.
After awhile, I found the pain of trying to control the uncontrollable was even more unbearable than the fear itself. So it became comparatively easy to surrender the whole awful situation to Spirit. And that’s saying a lot, because when push comes to shove, we all unconsciously believe surrender to God leaves us completely unprotected and vulnerable to attack.
In that ass-backwards, upside down logic of the ego mind, hanging onto the fear seems to offer some measure of protective armor. Some scrap of control. So if I was going to hand over my last scraps of protection and control, it meant I had to get to a place where I felt willing to die. Where surrender actually seemed a better solution than hanging onto the agony of “control.”
Like: I might as well agree to possibly be murdered in my bed, because living with this kind of mental pain – the endless imaginary future enactment of that murder – is worse than that.
So I surrendered and I trusted, mainly because I saw no other viable options.
Relief was not immediate.
It took days or weeks. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but one day I turned around and realized the fear had gone away completely.
The house was still the same.
The people, God love ‘em, continued to come and go, treating the cabin like a benevolent frat house.
It’s me that’s changed. I’m totally comfortable now.
• • •
Here’s a related subject: The other day in the late afternoon, Fran and I hiked Cathedral Rock. It had been years since I’d done it. Cathedral combines elevation hiking with a substantial amount of rock climbing, so it’s not a hike that can be rushed through. It takes some time.
I wasn’t thinking. It was sunny when we started out, so I wore my prescription sunglasses.
The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time we reached the top. By halfway down it was getting quite dark, so I had to choose between two less-than-ideal options: Make the rapidly deepening dusk even darker by wearing my shades? Or take them off and be as blind as…some kind of blind thing with its eyes closed?
The dilemma made me recall my first “midnight hike” in Sedona. (If you’ve read Long Time No See, you know about that hike.) How terribly anxious I’d been. And how astonished I was to emerge from that pitch-black wilderness experience entirely unscathed.
The lesson that night had been about trusting in Spirit, which was something I was unable to do back then. Then some time later, in another nature setting surrounded by towering Sequoias, I found myself once again worrying about dangerous predators and other safety hazards. And a lesson from Spirit emerged, which referenced that previous midnight hike:
“…The truth is that the bears and the ice are One with your holy Self. In perfect gentleness they support you and keep you safe within this dream world – just as the cactus and coyotes functioned to keep you safe during your pitch-black Sedona hike. Your One Self (which includes all bears, coyotes and prickly desert plants) supports you in your lesson plan as it lovingly awaits your awakening.”
At the time, it was too much to take in. Oh sure, I understood it intellectually. But it wasn’t until the other night, as I shimmied down a mountain in near total darkness, that I got it. I was entirely calm, without a shred of fear or anxiety, filled instead with a sense of total safety and trust in Spirit.
And, just as Spirit had described it back then, I could really feel the rocks and cactus and crickets and sky as my One holy Self, lovingly supporting my progress every step of the way. I felt our mutual gratitude. And our mutual joy.
In fact I felt like the richest, luckiest, giftiest person alive. And pretty much every minute since then has felt like Christmas morning.
• • •
The most extraordinary thing of all: So much more seems to have been healed than just the particular set of fears I thought I was handing over. These days I find myself striding through life in wholly unaccustomed ease and safety for the first time ever.
I have no concern for my personal security or the safety of my stuff. Yes, I remain mindful. I don’t leave my things unattended, or take foolish risks. But fear is gone. I am truly comfortable wherever I find myself.
And even more miraculous than that: For the first time in my life, I now know I have a right to be here. I mean, really know it.
I am safe in My own embrace. And I am Loved. Very, very Loved.
And it’s all an inside job.
I leave this crazy log cabin in a week or two, headed for my next adventure. I will be forever grateful for the things I left behind here. And for the new riches I carry with me, wherever I go.
Walking the talk
Fran’s been here visiting with me, off and on for the past few weeks. If you’ve read Long Time No See, you know about Fran from Sedona. If this blog post is your first intro to her, I will tell you Fran is, among other things, a powerful synchronicity magnet.
Translation: When she does that Fran thing of focusing deeply in tune with present-moment awareness, the “divine coincidence” starts to flow all around, as an outward sign of gentle communion with All That Is.
So we were walking on my favorite beach here in Ventura, the other day. There’s something about this place. I’ve had so many spiritual experiences on this beach, I’ve lost count; I even wrote about it in LTNS. And when Fran and I walk this beach together, the synchronicities pile up. New awarenesses unfold. Big stuff happens.
We went there with no agenda in mind. A short walk for some fresh air. It turned into our longest beachwalk ever – and what emerged from it is a new workshop series that Fran and I will be conducting together, here in Ventura. Here at this beach.
The inspiration flowed, and we started to realize we were feeling called to share too much information to fit into a one-day workshop. It should probably be a full weekend. And it really ought to take place within walking distance of this beach so all participants could get here easily, which meant the workshop would have to happen in a nearby hotel ballroom.
I watched my mind as it began making tired old assumptions and inventing stale, familiar stories of lack: People will pay for a one-day workshop, but will they come for two days? And won’t a hotel meeting room be too expensive? After all, only big famous spiritual speakers book hotels as venues. The rest of us make do with funky backroom spaces attached to bookstores or yoga studios.
(It’s not even like I think hotel ballrooms are nice – they have no natural light, pinkish-tan chairs and those Vegas chandeliers from the 1980s. But even so, in some part of my belief system, they’ve been too good, too legitimate, for me and my work.)
And so Fran and I had a very deep discussion about trusting and allowing abundance; about letting go of old mental stories; about doing what feels authentically right, doing what you feel genuinely called to do. And how when you step up courageously and joyfully to do whatever it is you’re meant to be doing, the inevitable response from the universal One Self is always recognition and support.
And I heard it. I felt it. And all those old stories fell away. We were absolutely confident, but more than that, we felt a deep knowing that this information we’re called to share is so truly hungered for by so many. And it’s time to start putting it out there.
So we’ll book the hotel it’s meant to be in, whatever the costs involved. And whoever is drawn to be at this workshop will show up. It was clear to both of us that we should feel absolutely free to create this workshop series exactly the way we feel inspired to do it, and then trust it will come to pass.
Just then we both looked down and saw something lying in the sand. Something round and flat and sort of strange. What could it be? A thin crosscut piece of wood? A plastic disk? Fran nudged it with her toe. Finally she bent and turned it over. It was a sand dollar.
Let me repeat that with a little more emphasis: It was a sand dollar. And I almost didn’t recognize it. Almost left it lying there, face down in the sand.
This, ladies and gents, is a prime example of the language of synchronicity. Is a sand dollar on a beach unusual? No. But this is the first one I’ve ever seen in my 9 years here. This sand dollar’s appearance wasn’t accidental. And it wasn’t saying, ‘Hey, you two can make a buck (a dollar) by putting on workshops together in the sand.’
This sand dollar was a gentle affirmation saying, ‘Yes! Go for it. Be fearless about living your truest self, about doing what authentically brings you joy. And don’t worry about the rest.’
So we listened to that little sand dollar’s message. We stopped at the hotel on our way home, all windblown and sandy, to ask if they have meeting rooms. Why yes, we have meeting rooms. Let us show you our very nicest one.
Our jaws dropped as we stepped into a beautiful sunny room, its glass walls overlooking a sea of sailboats bobbing in the marina. A pair of French doors led to its own private outdoor patio complete with a beautiful rock fireplace.
I looked around and thought: Honey, I’m home.
• • •
Did I mention? We got the room for a price not very much higher than the cost of a fluorescent-lit backroom of a bookstore.
So there you go. It’s a brave new world, and I’m happy to call it mine. Our first workshop will be held in mid-August, by the way. For more info about it, go to http://www.carrietriffet.com/events.php .
The Truth Within the Truth
Recently I returned from the October 2011 retreat workshop taught in Pecos, New Mexico by Nouk Sanchez and Stacy Sully. I assumed this New Mexico workshop would be valuable, powerful, moving. I never dreamed it would change my life forever.
First off, I should tell you I only went as an observer. (Nouk and I will be teaching a 9-day retreat workshop in Germany in April of 2012, so it seemed like a good idea for me to attend this New Mexico version to start planning how to blend our teaching methods.)
Nobody else on Earth is teaching exactly this information in exactly this way. Sure, this would technically be considered an ACIM (A Course in Miracles, that is) workshop. The curriculum definitely stems from ACIM, and at first glance may all seem very familiar if you’ve been studying the Course for awhile. (Incidentally, you don’t have to be any sort of ACIM expert to attend one of these workshops—but it will damn sure help to have at least a passing familiarity with it.)
But this ACIM-based information is being taught in a way that’s radically new. In the past year (after her partner Tomas Vieira’s passing), Nouk underwent a ton of personal transformation. Some real ‘dark night of the soul’ stuff, as you can imagine, in the aftermath of those events. And in answer to her fervent prayers, she began receiving direct transmissions from Spirit showing her how to much more deeply understand—and teach—the true message and meaning of the Course.
Combined with this astonishing new clarity of interpretation, is Nouk’s own personal experience—which came during that aforementioned ‘dark night’—of releasing all ego attachment in order to surrender total trust to Spirit.
(No, if you’re wondering, she doesn’t yet abide in this awakened, ego-free state permanently. It comes and goes.)
Anyway, the result of all this is phenomenal: Nouk is offering the deep, direct scoop on how to rapidly awaken from the dream, and it’s delivered straight from the Source. This info is absolutely accurately true to the Course, yet at the same time a radical reinterpretation that cuts straight through to the non-dual heart of the teaching.
As I listened to her teach this workshop, it felt as if a powerful, yet gentle surgeon’s scalpel was deftly slicing away all the areas of confusion; of fuzzy thinking; of mistaken ego interpretation that have commonly plagued our collective understanding of the Course until now.
And she teaches all this not merely as mental theory, but from direct experience and inner knowing. She has personally experienced each one of the releases, each of the healings, and all the miracles she’s teaching about.
And, and, as she delivers this information to us, Nouk is constantly listening to her inner Teacher. She pauses to receive added explanations or clearer wording so that any confusion among listeners can be reduced or eliminated. It’s a living process, in other words, a Partnership of teachings being delivered in ‘real time,’ flowing according to the needs and capacity of the listeners who are present.
So that’s a small description of Nouk’s contribution. What’s Stacy’s role, you ask? Why is this new person who isn’t Tomas up there sharing the stage? This is a brief recap, in Nouk’s own words, of how Stacy came to be a part of this teaching process:
“Tomas and I met Stacy Sully in early 2009. Tomas chose to leave physical form in December of 2010. During his final 10 months, Stacy (a powerfully intuitive energy healer) devoted herself to taking Tomas through a very deep and joyful process of releasing fear and undoing the remnants of ego. The outcome for Tomas was a monumental dropping away of fear, and a delivery into Joy and immense trust.
Stacy and I continue to be very close because we share the same goal. Our priority is the peace of God; now we wish to help others undo the one cause of suffering without delay.”
Stacy’s role in these workshops, while much more subtle than Nouk’s, is absolutely vital as well. Stacy’s verbal contributions are filled with quiet wisdom and are always valuable; but what’s absolutely unique and totally essential to the process, is the energy work she does silently, internally, to support the listeners throughout the workshop.
She lovingly ‘holds the space,’ as they say, working on an energetic level with the group as a whole, as well as individuals who need it. (Yes, she can see and read that invisible stuff going on in each of us. It’s ok; you can trust her.) Without speaking or engaging the conscious mind of anybody in the room, she gently helps participants to open their hearts and authentically absorb the very challenging info that Nouk is presenting.
There is a great flow transpiring between Nouk, Stacy and Spirit, in other words. Stacy silently assists each listener to release any blocks, resistance or fear that come up during the workshop. She also helps ground everybody present, so the information doesn’t get stuck in the mind as intellectual theory, but instead becomes integrated into the heart. Through establishing this ‘grounding channel,’ Stacy supports a deeply anchored experience of present awareness in each person’s heart—a direct embodied understanding.
(While in ‘Truth with a capital T’ our energy and our bodies are illusory, the human experience is that bodies and energy are where we hold our unconscious ego blocks rigidly in place, here in the dream world. Stacy’s gift is to help soften those blocks so they can be released if we’re ready. The fewer ego blocks we embrace, the more we can authentically know ourselves as the one True Self that is beyond all dreams of bodies and energy. Stacy’s work is used exclusively to help us accomplish this.)
Stacy’s work relies entirely on the willingness and readiness of the person involved. (Nothing would ever happen without your authentic permission, in other words.) Combined with Nouk’s uncompromising, paradigm-busting material and exercises, Stacy can help workshop attendees experience openings and healings right and left, if they’re genuinely ready.
For me, core stuff that has resisted healing my whole life has begun to fall away in huge chunks after hanging with Nouk and Stacy these few days. But even more than that, it’s like my whole orientation has been subtly turned to True North: It’s as if all my life, every cell in my being has unknowingly contained iron filings within it; and this workshop permanently magnetized all the iron filings, causing me to feel gently but firmly pulled toward a homecoming with God.
The best part is, Nouk and Stacy are just getting started in this paradigm shift. This workshop was only the beginning. There’s lots and lots more info to share—only so much could be squeezed into 2.5 working days.
Going forward (starting with the German workshop in April of 2012), we’ll be joining forces to present these workshops. Nouk and Stacy will be doing their Divinely inspired thing, and I will be providing the nitty-gritty ‘boots on the ground’ examples of how this stuff gets integrated into everyday life. The three of us working together will be an awesome joining, I can feel it.
* * *
So. Are these workshops right for you? To quote Anaïs Nin, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Translation: Are you ready and willing to face and accept your deepest unconscious ego crap, (whatever it may be) and allow it to be gently released? If so, then yes! This workshop series is definitely for you.
If you’re willing to face and accept just some of your unconscious stuff, these workshops may still be for you, although, understandably, you’ll probably get a bit less out of them. Still, great honking chunks of old personal baggage may fall away for you, too, as a result.
But between you and me, if you’re still happy to remain ‘tight in the bud,’ as Anaïs would say…then you’re probably better off staying home. At least for now. Participating in one of these workshops is an agreement to get on the bullet train of forgiveness. It could cause a fair amount of motion sickness if you’re not quite ready for it.
Having said all that…only you will know if you’re ready for this or not. Well, only you and Spirit. My advice? Ask for Guidance, see what feels right. If the answer is yes, then do whatever it takes to get yourself to one of these workshops ASAP. Seriously.
* * *
Future workshop info: Along with the April 2012 Retreat in Germany, Nouk, Stacy and I will facilitate additional retreats at the beautiful Pecos Monastery in New Mexico. The first retreat is open to those who have previously attended a Power of Power – Know Thyself Retreat and will be held in the early summer of 2012. The second retreat is a Level One, 4-Day Power of Power – Know Thyself Retreat in the later Summer of 2012 in New Mexico. If you are interested in attending, please let us know in advance, as our guidance is to keep the groups small, around 20 participants only. Dates, prices and details will be released soon. Please email Sparo Vigil to let us know your interest: sparo.arika@yahoo.com.
For more about Nouk, Stacy, workshops and whatnot, go to http://www.undoing-the-ego.org
To listen to this article, please use this audio player –
I pledge allegiance to…what, exactly?
Awhile back I wrote about pledging allegiance to Love. About making the choice to side with spiritual truth (even though spiritual truth still mostly feels like abstract theory). And against this 3-D world of illusion (even though the workings of the 3-D world still seem so real).
Well. I suppose the decision to choose is a start. But it isn’t much more than that.
Oh, it felt big at the time. But the decision itself only opened a door. And that doorway gave me my first clear view of the road ahead: It’s a hell of a vista.
• • •
Mind you, it’s been a long journey of discovery just getting this far. I would use this analogy to describe it:
It’s like it took me 20 years to realize I had feet and hands. Another year or so figuring out how they worked. Then I was given a pair of one-pound weights, so I spent a few years more teaching myself how to exercise with them.
Much self-congratulation accompanied all this progress. Who was more serious than I, about waking up to the truth of all reality? Who was moving more purposefully down their chosen path toward the constant awareness of Love’s presence?
I exercised faithfully, except when I was too busy. Or too tired. Or too distracted. Or not in the mood. When I wasn’t training, I spent my time watching daytime soaps and eating deep-fried Twinkies. And yet I genuinely wondered why the Olympic Committee never came calling…
All this newfound fitness has allowed me to climb steadily and ever higher, pausing every few steps to admire the valley below and to celebrate having made it this far. Now I’ve finally reached the top of the hill … and it turns out this is just the bunny slope.
I look up for the first time, and notice the commitment to truth that is yet to be honored. You remember…the commitment I made to choose Love instead of the world’s dark fantasies. Yep, it’s still there waiting patiently for me.
It turns out this commitment is a friggin’ mountain, and it goes straight up. My puny muscles are laughably unfit for the task.
• • •
It’s an uncomfortable place to be, this small spot at the top of the bunny slope. The truth is, I hate aerobic exercise, and I’m still damned fond of those Twinkies. Learning to mountain climb doesn’t sound like much fun to a flabby couch potato like me.
And yet.
Heading back down the hill – giving up the quest for awakening, and going back to treating the 3-D world as if it’s real – that would be unthinkable. Not an option.
I’m awake enough to smell what the 3-D world is made of, and it stinks.
No, I could never go back. But on the other hand, I can’t stand still in this spot on this hill forever. Hell, I don’t even want to stand here one more day.
So I guess that leaves me only one choice, and I’d better start seriously gathering my strength.
Because that mountain isn’t going to climb itself.
I pledge allegiance to Love
Funny, how you can hear something said a hundred times, and you think you get it. You think you know exactly what it means.
And then, one day you hear the same statement, and POW! It ignites a flame, a knowing, in your heart. And you realize you had no friggin’ idea, those other hundred times.
It’s an occupational hazard, especially in the spiritual arena. We hear about spiritual truth all the time: We’re all One. This 3-D world is not real. Only Love is real.
Blah, blah, blah. We get ‘truth fatigue.’ We hear it, and it sounds just like the truth we heard last week and the week before that. And so we tune it out. We’re not really hearing it at all.
Well, that’s part of the issue, anyway. The other part is that authentic spiritual truth is entirely beyond words – so the words that describe the truth don’t actually mean much of anything. They mostly exist so our ego minds can latch onto them and assure us we already know what they mean because we’ve heard them so many times before. Which is SO not true.
• • •
Anyway, I recently finished writing my next book, and the time came to ask the lovely Nouk Sanchez to write an afterword. Which she did. And it was wonderful.
Nouk is an amazingly gifted teacher, both in person and in written form. She’s a treasure. But Nouk’s writing (in its raw state) is…how shall I say it…a bit wordy.
I typically polish my own books until they gleam. I edit the hell out of every page, making sure each word fulfills a beautiful purpose. And if it doesn’t, it’s outta there. I’m kind of obsessive about it.
Yet I’ve never edited another person’s work as stringently as I edit my own. When I collaborate with others on blogs or whatnot, I normally try to change their writing as little as possible. I just fix grammar, punctuation and that sort of thing, letting the original character come through almost entirely.
But this was my book we were talking about. My Spirit-inspired, year-long labor of love. No wandering sentences allowed.
Yes, I wanted a beautifully edited afterword that fit in seamlessly with the rest of the book, but I didn’t want my own bossy, obsessive ego to be in charge of the editing process. And I was having a bit of a quandary about that. How to do justice to Nouk’s piece, and my book at the same time?
I wanted to be able to find the ideal afterword within the pages she had written – carefully sculpting away the excess like Michelangelo chipping marble to reveal the masterpiece already present within the hunk of stone.
Hey, I’m good, but I ain’t no Michelangelo. So I did the only reasonable thing: After much prayer, I surrendered the entire thing to Spirit, and let an Editor far greater than me take over.
And the editing became a light, joyful process. And I ended up with a piece that was perfect for my book, while staying true to Nouk’s intention. And that’s not why I’m telling you about it.
This is what I really wanted to tell you: All of that prayer and surrender allowed me to open up to my higher Self and let the editing decisions flow from divine inspiration. But, surprisingly, the same phenomenon also happened in reverse: By being so open while I worked on Nouk’s piece, I was able to absorb what she was saying with my heart instead of my head.
I’d heard her say it many times before: We have to choose. There’s only One truth. That truth is composed of 100% divine Love, and nothing else; we say we believe this, but our actual 3-D experience shows us the opposite. When daily life is showing us disease, unhappiness, lack, or any form of conflict… what is that? It sure as hell isn’t divine Love. Yet we accept this dichotomy.
If reality is Love and only Love, what makes us think a second reality made out of Love’s opposite could ever co-exist side by side with the only reality there is? Two opposing realities absolutely cannot co-exist. It’s Love, or it’s the ego’s delusional version of reality.
SO WHICH IS IT? Put up or shut up – a choice has to be made.
And I heard it. For the first time, I heard that there’s a definitive choice to be made. Right now. By me. And I chose Love.
That means every time I’m faced with proof of Love’s opposite here in the 3-D world (no matter how convincing it seems), I stop and reaffirm my commitment to the only truth there is: I choose Love. Which has no opposite. And I pause to focus all of my intention on this choice until I feel its truth.
Has this choice caused me to permanently see the world through the lens of pure divine Love? Of course it hasn’t; not yet, anyway. I haven’t been able to choose Love consistently with all parts of my mind united. My ego mind is still very much in the picture.
But hey, it’s a start.
THE SELLING OF SPIRITUALITY, INC.
In ‘real life’ (i.e. my paying job) I sometimes help my clients with marketing and branding of their products. That means I find ways to promise customers deep emotional satisfaction as a result of buying my client’s products. It’s a powerful sales strategy.
I would never lie to promote a product. But let’s just say I know how to position the truth in the best possible light.
I like what I do for a living, by the way. And I have no problem with implying that a certain brand of dogfood will bring you closer to nature as you form ever deeper bonds of love with your pet.
Who knows. It might.
It’s very good dogfood, actually.
But I find I really don’t want to apply these sales skills to my own spiritual “products.” I’m completely turned off when I see others do it. I understand why they do it. These techniques work. And no judgment on those guys for promoting their books and workshops as best they can.
But it leaves me in a sort of quandary. Especially with workshops. To sponsor a workshop is a leap of faith for an event organizer. There are upfront costs involved. They put money on the line to bring a workshop presenter to town. And they could lose their shirts if not enough people sign up.
As a workshop presenter, I feel a sense of obligation – I want them to make their money back. And that means I need to do my part in helping persuade folks to plunk down hard-earned cash to come spend a day with me. What better way than by promising a deep emotional payoff when they buy my quality product?
In this workshop, you’ll…
• GET – permanent inner peace
• LEARN – the secrets of the universe
• BECOME – lighter than air
• BLAH – blah blah blah blah
The truth is this:
I – or any workshop presenter – can lay out all the TOOLS for attaining peace of mind or a happy relationship or a closer connection with God. Or whatever the goal happens to be. The tools themselves are magnificent. But we can’t actually make anybody pick up the screwdriver and USE it, you know what I’m saying?
What a person gets out of a book or workshop is something I have no control over. It depends entirely on who they are and where they’re at, at the time.
So it feels inauthentic to me to make promises I know I can’t keep. And yet if I don’t “sell” my workshops by assuring the buyer of the miraculous emotional benefits they’ll get…will they still want to come?
My first workshop in Louisiana is coming up in May. I wrote a kind of weird, not-very-compelling flyer for them to use to advertise it. And now I’ve just agreed to co-present a 5-day retreat workshop in Hawaii with Gary Renard in June.
Eek.
Other than gorgeous scenery and a tan, I wonder what I can comfortably “sell” about that one?
I guess the only answer is to hand it all over to Spirit and trust that a new paradigm is being born: One in which honesty trumps emotional manipulation, and the “customer” is trusted to make decisions for themselves.
Much love to you, as we inch our way into honest interaction together.
xoxo
Carrie
The road less traveled
I’ve been planning the cover for the next book, The Enlightenment Project. After viewing dozens of shots of empty roads in lonesome landscapes, I chose an image of the Southwest. An empty highway heading toward some red rock formations.
I could’ve picked any background shot but this is the one that spoke to me, the one that seemed to best hint of the “road” to enlightenment.
Today I got an email from Fran (of InnerVision 12 fame), she was poking around on my website to see what was new, and commented that she loves the computerized image of Monument Valley.
At first I had no idea what she was referring to. And then I just started to laugh.
A few years ago, she and I took off together and did a 5-day InnerVision journey throughout the 4 corners of the Southwest. Lots of mind-boggling spiritual experiences in lots of locations like Spider Rock, Mexican Hat and Valley of the Gods.
But the one place I HATED was Monument Valley. I expected to love it, of course. Who doesn’t love Monument Valley? But it creeped me out, and I thought it was hideously ugly.
To me, it looked strip-mined. A ruined wasteland.
In Fran’s words, “Monument Valley is a powerful energetic reminder of truth. It represents ‘in your face, here I am, no apologies’ presence… It holds a message of ‘stand raw and naked, hidden by nothing.’ Just as the monuments themselves do.”
Well no wonder I hated it.
Fran commented at the time that my extreme negative reaction to the energy of Monument Valley clearly represented something in myself that I’d have to face sooner or later.
I said yeah, whatever, and we headed for the next powerful site. I never looked back.
Pretty funny, then, that I singled out this photo to describe my own journey.
Even funnier: Fran tells me there is no such bright, shiny highway. Somebody photoshopped it in.
And both of these things seem very appropriate. The discomfort I originally felt in Monument Valley was due to very deep fears I hadn’t yet faced in my own life. This book is all about uncovering and facing those fears.
And the fact that the road I picture doesn’t actually exist …
Well, that’s perfect. What could be a more accurate way to talk about enlightenment?
Double vision
What do you do when you and somebody in another part of the country have the exact same vision at the exact same time? Well, if you’re me, you sit up and pay attention.
I’d been praying recently for guidance on what’s next. And rather than trying to figure it out with my thinking mind – which, experience has taught me, pretty much always comes up with the wrong answer – I just say to Spirit:
Show me.
Point it out to me in a way I’ll understand, and I swear I’ll head in that direction. But I’m flying blind, here. I need to be told which way to go.
So I’d been praying that way for a week or so. Then on Thursday morning, out of nowhere, I woke up that day knowing clearly what sort of book Fran (of InnerVision fame) and I should write together. I understood wordlessly the book’s format, what it would be about, and how I would write it.
And then I clearly saw the book’s cover. Or, more accurately, I saw the bottom third of the book’s cover. The title and cover artwork were hazy, but I could read the bottom part, plain as day. The background was a dark chocolate brown, and I could even describe the typeface for you, although I’m not going to.
It said: By Fran Duda, with Carrie Triffet.
Fran was flying that day (in an airplane, I mean, from one city to another), so I made no attempt to reach her to tell her of my vision. I wasn’t sure how she’d respond, anyway. She’s always known she’s supposed to write a book, but the idea has seemed far too daunting for a variety of reasons.
I’ve always been pretty sure I’m supposed to help her write that book (since I’m the translator she trusts to put her ‘beyond words’ experience into language). But I also always suspected the project was likely to be a hugely frustrating pain in the ass.
Fran is a brilliantly gifted intuitive; so gifted that it’s always been hard for her to blend into society and ‘pass’ as normal. (For more about Fran, if you haven’t already read about her in my book, see any of the previous blog posts under the topic heading of ‘Sedona’s spiritual connection.’)
She’s always been terrified of going public. And especially afraid of going public through the written word.
She’s fine when speaking one on one or to groups of people, but when it comes to writing things down and letting those statements be set in stone and seen by the world, she freezes. When I first knew her, she would spend weeks obsessing over the wording of a single sentence. These days, she’s far more trusting, much more surrendered and willing to let the connection flow as it does, from Spirit through her and through me simultaneously, so that I can put the essential meaning behind her ethereal experiences into words for her.
So the collaborative writing process would be far less torturous now than ever before, but I also knew it could still have its very sticky moments because she would be writing down her deeply personal stories. The desire to endlessly edit might still rear its head if the information in the stories got too close to home.
Yet Spirit’s message had been perfectly clear, so I knew I needed to put aside all my own doubts and just agree to do it.
But Jeez Louise, I already have one book in the works and another in the hopper. And little time to work on either one. So although I accepted this vision as an answer to my request for Divine guidance, let’s say I wasn’t altogether on board with it.
The next morning, Fran called out of the blue, apologizing for the short notice and asking if she could come here for a visit the following day? We sometimes go months without talking, so I knew this request was purposeful. And she’s a delightful houseguest, I always love having her here. So of course I said yes.
After she settled in, our first activity together was a walk on our favorite beach. While walking on that beach I told her of my vision that we would write a book. She stopped walking and turned to stare at me; I could tell she was having one of those time-stop moments of recognition.
I told her the book would be a series of recorded conversations between us, in which she verbally tells me the story of her extremely fascinating life, as well as a full description (language limits permitting) of her gifts and the nature of her InnerVision work. And that I would then fashion those audio conversations into a written book.
And then I reported what the bottom third of the book jacket would say, reading the words off to her.
And she told me then that she had had the identical vision of the book cover on Thursday morning, and I had spoken the exact wording that she saw on that bottom third.
So that’s it, then. I guess I’m writing a book. It’ll be by Fran Duda, with Carrie Triffet, and it’s bound to be a barn burner.
No idea when it’ll come out, I just know that it will. And I’m good with that.
Enlightenment: infinite joygasm – or just release from ego?
I like Adyashanti. He comes across as a perfectly normal guy who just happens to be enlightened. And when he talks about the true nature of enlightenment, his explanations are clear and simple firsthand reports.
But for students of A Course in Miracles, those explanations can be troubling, because Adya’s descriptions of enlightenment are markedly different from those offered by the Course.
Adya says enlightenment is nothing at all – it’s merely what you have left after the ego mind is dissolved. There’s no more distorted perception of the world; you just have the clear, ever-present truth of Oneness. It’s a state of awareness that’s neither happy nor sad – it merely is. And there’s nothing else beyond it.
(It’s not just Adya who says this, of course. Jed McKenna, various Zen masters and many other self-realized teachers throughout history have all described their enlightenment in similar terms.)
The Course, on the other hand, speaks of a fully enlightened state, which it describes as limitless joy, infinite fulfillment and completion. Perfect love and safety and freedom and peace – along with the certainty of being home at last, exactly where we belong. And this is said to be a permanent, changeless state, radiating with brilliant holy light, forever and ever amen.
So whose description should we believe?
The answer, as far as I can tell is: Both. But they’re describing two different states.
Adya’s explanation seems to be a description of non-dualism, which the Course says is the 3rd step of 4 on the road to full enlightenment. Non-dualism is just what it sounds like: It’s the realization of Oneness, waking up to the reality that we’re not separate.
(The first 2 steps of 4 would be: dualism, which is where we all start out – an unquestioned belief in separate bodies and separate minds; and semi-dualism, which would be sincere-ish belief in Oneness while mostly maintaining faith in the reality of separate 3-D existence at the same time. Trying to have cake and eat it, in other words.)
Adya and the aforementioned other guys are enlightened. I’m not. (I’m assuming the same can be said of you.) So it seems ridiculous to stand up in front of a self-realized guy and say: No, excuse me, you’re wrong, because the teaching I believe in describes enlightenment differently from what you say about it.
I mean, who am I to disagree with an enlightened guy, right? He’d probably just smile and tell me all beliefs are illusion, so get over it.
Well, as it happens, I did get within spitting distance of enlightenment once. And it left a sort of residue of truth behind – a lasting ability to see the big picture.
In the Dinnertable Awakening of 2005, I was presented with an invitation to accept enlightenment. (That’s what awakenings are – you’re awakened to the truth of all existence, but whether you embrace that truth or turn away from it is up to you.)
I didn’t embrace it. At the time I found the limitless freedom of enlightenment so disturbing, so uncomfortable that I willingly threw away the opportunity. I pulled myself back into my body and my 3-D world instead, choosing to turn away from Oneness.
(Could I kick myself now for making that choice? Uh…hell yeah. But I wasn’t ready; I just couldn’t stand to stay in that infinite state of awareness.)
But when people like Adya are presented with the option of enlightenment, they choose it as their permanent operating system. So I’m not about to claim they’re mistaken or misinformed about what that enlightenment looks like. How could they be? They’re clearly just reporting on their own authentic experience.
Yet I choose to believe that there’s more, as the Course says there is. Call it a strong intuition that there’s another chapter to the story – one that those enlightened guys just haven’t experienced yet.
That would be the 4th state of 4, the full awareness of union with God. The unending joy of knowing that all of us, together, are Heaven.
And that state is called pure non-dualism, a condition that’s so far beyond plain old non-dualism that the Course says there’s no point in even trying to describe the magnificence of it.
Pure non-dualism, that’s the one I want. I’m going for the gold. Could I be wrong about its existence? Absolutely.
But it’s still where I’m headed. And if I make it in this lifetime, I will promise you one hell of a blog post.