Imagine not having to ‘try’ at life?” ~ Adamus Saint Germain

Wow. I haven’t blogged here for a few months. I know. I haven’t tried. No shoulds, musts or goals. As my friend Adamus Saint Germain likes to say “Goals suck!” Wise angel.

When I first created this website and blog, I didn’t want the discipline or commitment of writing daily, weekly or monthly. Only when inspired. You see I’m a recovering Capricorn. A recovering perfectionist who use to get “straight A’s ” in school, always met and surpassed sales goals at work and got the dust bunnies to do a disappearing act at the drop of a hat with company coming.  I thought, like many, that by controlling and maintaining outside reality and the illusion of perfection, all would be well – and happy.  The key to the universe. Not!

Fifty some years later this lifetime I’m finally realizing that all IS well whether I do another damned thing or not…. That energy will continue to serve me when I get out of the way and out of my mind.  That life and living CAN be easy and way more fun when you take your hands off the steering wheel and stop the backseat driving.

If you’re wondering WTF I’m going with this, stay with me…

My last blog was about doing renos on my home.  I felt guided to start without the money to do it but just took it one room at a time. I had also previously committed to go to an  important  consciousness workshop in Kauai in March again based on guidance not my bank account “reality”  None of this really made any sense in the  fiscal “cents”. All very spirit driven just one choice at a time.

My mind was telling me that when I returned from Kauai, I better get busy and get the house back on the market for spring. I’d better make it perfect and finish those painting touch ups. Get the yard cleaned up.Get new photos. Get a new realtor. Figure it out. Plan. Process. Proceed.

In the meantime I thoroughly enjoyed myself in Kauai with the friends, the food, the beauty and the inspiring seminar with Crimson Circle. I was living and breathing in the essence of Me!

Shortly after returning, I had a phone message. A couple who had viewed my home in the fall (sans renos!) were coming out from Calgary and wanted to know if the house was still for sale. They came, they saw and they offered to buy. All within a couple of weeks. No realtors. No complicated contracts or commissions.  No drama. Easy!

Just last week the deal closed and my son and I will remain living here, enJOYING  life in the Okanagan until the end of summer – rent free, no debt, abundance all around. I’m amazed right now at all the friends who ask “Where are you going? What will you do?” I know that I will continue to breathe, choose life, trust in my Self  and allow the NEXT to unfold with ease and grace. New adventures await!

All IS Well! 

“You can’t take your old baggage with you into the New Consciousness!”

~ Jim Self, Mastering Alchemy

Well it’s 2012 and my first post for the year as I come up for air… You see I’ve been literally down “the rabbit hole” of home renovations for the last two months. I woke up January 1st inspired and energetic to do a “clean sweep” of my home and it morphed into painting every room, new flooring and definitely my life with  new  ”aha’s” !

So time to take a deep breath, turn a fresh page for March and share what insights I’ve gained from this experience…. 

Number one would be embracing and diving into the resistance I had to “doing the work”! As some of you know, I have been wanting to sell my home since my husband’s passing more than 3 years ago. It’s an 18 year old home and like everything needed some updates. Quite frankly I would have preferred someone else do the work! My husband was a true handyman and could build/fix anything. I didn’t think I was capable and you know what I’ve learned? I AM strong and powerful  (and Hardward store staff rock)! There is always good guidance available. Just ask!

As well there is tremendous stuck energy in the dance of avoidance. Just do it. Like eating an elephant, I took one room at a time. All I could mentally/physically manage and that worked. Small baby steps and you will be finished sooner than you think with that daunting project! This is the essence of life coaching. You are one step away from living the life you dream. What small step can you take today to get started?

Now I’m also a recovering Capricorn  who hates chaos so I allowed “ordered”  chaos room by room as long as I had one room that had some semblance of order to make me feel sane. I often had to breathe through the mess knowing this too shall pass as I stepped on carpet  tack strips in the night!  You have to have chaos first for reordering and  allowing new beauty in your life.

Of course the other metaphor here has been literally cleaning the cobwebs of my life, letting go, throwing out the past! As I scrubbed each wall for painting, vacuumed the copious spiderwebs that festoon my high ceilings, I had to go into nooks and crannies that haven’t been visited in a long while. Poking, scraping, cleaning old layers of dirt and sponge painting (Just say “No” to wallpaper!) Kind of like our dark aspects that don’t want to be brought to the light! The process can feel yucky and mucky but so fulfilling creating  clear new space. Space to breathe and create again!

And carpet? Talk about sweeping the dirt under!  Ahem, I could have grown a small garden on what lay beneath… I know Adamus Saint Germain has an exercise in his Interdimensional Living Course to lie down and “smell” the different layers of consciousness in the carpet.  Yup, it’s all there – including new puppies! It doesn’t disappear and better to to become conscious and aware and not live in denial of what doo doo lies beneath…

So often in life we “decorate” and primp and paint over old layers of pain and crap that never gets examined. Kind of like putting pink icing on bullshit as the expression goes for “positive thinking”. Not that we have to “process’ for years. Just recognize, acknowledge and allow it to surface and release with love and compassion.

So yes, with home renovations you can pay professionals  to do the work… But  when it comes to that interior reno for yourself there is nobody home but you!  And you ARE a the Master Carpenter in your own life!  

The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come.”  

 ~ A Course in Miracles 

Christmas.  A time of reflection I find as my mind drifts back over the years…. A time to remember family, friends and past celebrations. A marker at this time of year. Funny how we don’t know what will become a special memory in the moment do we until we look back?

As I grow older, I find that I choose to unplug from much of the Christmas “matrix” and commercial aspects and only keep the traditions that  feel good and bring me joy. It’s so easy to get caught in the consumer consciousness and intense energy of this time if you don’t breathe and choose for you.

As I grow older, I find that I choose to unplug from much of the Christmas “matrix” and commercial aspects and only keep the traditions that  feel good and bring me joy. It’s so easy to get caught in the consumer consciousness and intense energy of this time if you don’t breathe and choose for you.

Two things that bring me great joy are the music and the lights. Every year I buy a new CD of one of my favourite artists from Diana Krall to Sting. Something about those familiar melodies with a twist. Our satellite switches the “Smooth Jazz” channel to Christmas versions,  a perfect background as I type away.

As a child, I always loved the twinkling coloured lights that went up  and festooned the neighbourhood homes and trees within. Something magical and cool that adults would do! We would often go out for a family drive to see the decorated houses in Winnipeg, scraping the frost off the windows of the Volkswagen to get a better look (they truly lacked a good defroster in those original cars!)

My Dad had made a star outlined in lights that he would mount on the porch under my window. I have a very strong memory of sitting there gazing out, as the lights reflected off the snow. I was a teen then and beginning to search and question my existence, reading and writing a lot of poetry in school. I really didn’t “know” what I was looking for but just had a feeling as I tuned in to something intangible. Something magical. Something I couldn’t name…

Somehow I felt that at Christmas, there was a different energy in the world. Not just the anticipation of gifts, special food and fun. But an energy of joy, goodness and unconditional love. Later on I would call this “the Christmas morning” feeling. That all was well in all of creation!

Now I have come to recognize that this feeling can be present through out the year and truly resides within us as we recognize our own Divinity and love of Self. Our own Christ child. Gabriel sounded the trumpet and reminded Mary of her precious gift. The gift we all carry. It is time to remember. It is time to wake up.

The world is blessed with your Presence as you remember You Are God Also. Keep shining your light!

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

I love this! And still learning this… Learning to say Yes to myself and what feeds my soul and No to what feels like “feeding” others!

This takes discernment and true grit! I dare say most of us, especially the women reading this, were brought up to be “nice” and take care of others needs and desires before our own. Putting every body else first.

I was certainly raised this way and by a mother who’s mantra was “I give therefore I Am.”  Her whole self image was wrapped up in what other people thought about her – and us!  Yes a loving, giving women but by the time she was sixty, she had nothing left to give to herself and died a slow death of Parkinson’s disease. I remember once asking her if she noticed side effects of the drugs she was taking, and she remarked that her only brother, my uncle had been over and “she didn’t want to get up and do anything for him”.  Oh wow! Truth. The meds were only balancing out her own internal imbalance that had created the dis-ease… I doubt she connected the dots.

With such a role model, you think I would be more vigilant about my own needs. And I have. But it’s been a battle. Constantly checking in to find out what I want and what makes me happy. And it’s been a journey of awareness. When the conditioning in our society is so strong to make others happy first, boy it takes courage to step out of that matrix. You get called selfish. Again – and again. You get called a bitch. Or a Gritty Angel! 

It also takes courage to dare to live your own life and find out what you really, really want. Personally it’s taken me years to be honest with myself about my own needs and wants and put myself first. I realized and still do sometimes, that I really didn’t know what I wanted and needed that to be the quest above all else.

Sometimes its a process of removing what isn’t working in your life first, saying no to what doesn’t serve you to leave space for the unknown to show up. I find I usually know the “no” intuitively with the niggly feeling of resistance, “I don’t wanna”! I get in trouble when I ignore this and try to go along with the person or pack.

I find getting out of the mind helps and into your heart. Feeling what brings you joy and saying yes to more of that. It’s not usually “stuff”,  but experiences. Experiences that make you feel alive and expanded. Clear and connected. Empowered. Excited. That “Christmas morning feeling.” In love with life – and yourself.  If it feels good, say yes!  Don’t think about it. Take a deep breath and do it!

As I say Yes more and more to Me and stop caring about what others think or say, I’ve noticed more flow. More abundance. More energy. More synchronicity. More of Who I really Am. And that feels damn good!

Hell Yeah! Bring it on.

Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale.“ ~ Hans Christian Anderson

 

Do you remember the fairy tale by Hans Christian Anderson called The Princess and the Pea? It was a story about a Prince looking to marry a real Princess. And the way he was able to tell was that only a real Princess would be able to feel a pea sleeping on twenty mattresses! She was kept awake all night and woke up bruised!

Years ago, while facilitating A Course in Miracles study group, one of the members reminded us of this story. As you start awakening and working on your self, it seems that you become more and more sensitive and feel stuff that you would have never noticed before… ignorance IS bliss!

This story comes to mind again for me lately. Ow, damn those peas! I think I’ve cleared and integrated and balanced old energy within me and along comes another “pea”  and it feels like a big bump under my skin… My big “aha” lately though is that it IS those areas of discomfort that are truly hiding the biggest gifts and energy release when I’m willing to truly look at them. Even when they hurt like hell!

While I like to think I’m a highly conscious, sensitive soul like the rest of you, I’ve become aware of areas of my life where I still have resistance! Some of these are simple stuff like cleaning my closet or fridge not to mention doing paperwork or filing! What I’ve been realizing though is that these areas I don’t want to look at, usually hold a huge amount of stuck energy. I know it’s a basic principle in Feng Shui, to clear clutter and you’ll release energy. (In coaching we use to say just go organize a drawer  if you want to move some energy!)

However, going even deeper into these areas of resistance and tasks I DO NOT WANT to tackle, I’ve recognized that it’s more about the “feeling” around the job. There’s a feeling buried in along with the email or file I don’t want to deal with.  These feelings can vary from feeling “stupid” about a poor choice (why DID I buy that) to a lousy business deal I lost money over the negotiation (SUCKER!)

It’s pretty typical I see in our society to avoid feeling bad in anyway. So we eat, watch TV, drink, shop and even work or work out to avoid “rolling in the deep”. We numb out, dumb out and check out…

These last few weeks I’ve come to realize that AS these feelings get triggered by an area of resistance, it is a blessed opportunity to dive right into the darkness and really, really feel it. Really feel shitty. Not run away. Stop. Feel. Breathe. Allow the feelings. Then the magic happens. As I breathe deeply I remember. I remember that there are no mistakes and I am not broken nor guilty nor fucked up. I am Powerful. I am God Also. I Am that I Am.

There’s pearls in them those peas. And peace.

Now where’s my  tiara?

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.  ~ Charles Dickens

I was sitting working on my laptop at the table last week when a sudden movement caught my eye… wtf? A black  butterfly was furiously beating it’s wings again the  side window pane trying to get out. It could see the sky and sense it’s freedom but stuck with an invisible barrier it couldn’t comprehend. Every moment or so it would pause and then go back to its incessant struggle to get out. I grabbed my digital camera to snap a quick pic and then come up with a way to help it. With a basket and plate, I was able to capture it and carry it out to the deck. Releasing the lid, this dark beauty soared out of sight with dizzying speed. Freedom! Ahh…

“Mmm,” I thought to myself regarding the significance and “meaning” of this sign as I posted it on facebook? I have lived in this home for over 17 years and have never had a trapped butterfly before? A bat yes! Butterfly no. Butterflies of course have so many meanings for transformation, awakening, freedom. The journey from cocoon, caterpillar to butterfly. The imaginal cells that Deepak Chopra speaks of. Often an analogy for the pain of death to an old world and rebirth to something new.

 What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.  

~ Richard Bach

No question with my house for sale and I ponder an unknown future as a widow of 52, freedom can be both scary and exciting! After living in a wonderful, safe environment for many years venturing out into the world and creating a new life seems a bit daunting… Cocooning seems way more comfortable!

While it’s easy to say we want change and freedom, the reality can be a tad more challenging as we age. We accumulate stuff – both physical and emotional. But to quote Jim Self from Mastering Alchemy, “We can’t take the old baggage” where we’re going. And I believe some of us have had old baggage we’ve been carrying around for many, many lifetimes! Time to put the load down. Are we willing to let go of what doesn’t serve us anymore?

The other metaphor I get here was despite the butterfly sensing it’s freedom, it couldn’t see the clear barrier in front? I’ve heard a similar story about a fish tank that has a piece of glass in the middle preventing the fish from swimming to the other side … when the glass is removed they still stay swimming in the same corner! Sometimes we don’t recognize that it’s an illusion or simply an opportunity to try another door? We often just try the same old, same old techniques to get out of our boxes and when they don’t work, give up! Rather than coming from a fresh “new think” place. Perhaps stepping to the left will lead us to another door or another direction rather than beating ourselves up against the same wall?

A couple days ago another butterfly was trapped in my home. Mmm…..

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The Wayseer Manifesto

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Several months ago this You Tube video was being posted and shared on social media such as Facebook. I received it several times, like a tribal telegram being passed along! To date it’s been viewed over half a million times. Part rap and part rant, Garret John Loporto is a musician and visionary that is inspiring many with this creation and call to “The Way”.

I recently received this email from him and feel inspired to share with you here. Sometimes we all need a reminder!

Dear Tammie,

You are amazing. Many don’t get your Wayseer nature; 
but rest assured …

The Wayseer experience is no more than this:
A heroic soul born inhumanely open 
desperately yearning to express their truth.

To you … a touch is a blow, a slight is a persecution,  
a connection is an ecstasy, a friend is a devotion, a daydream is a 
premonition, strictness is suffocation, and completion is death.

Add to your brutally sensitive soul the overwhelming need to 
create, express, heal and transform  –  so that without the outpouring 
of honest truth, the creating of music or poetry or something of 
meaning your very breath is cut off …

You must create or disrupt – you must pour out your entire being
in each and every encounter. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency
you never feel truly alive unless you are risking everything to  
express a dangerous truth you know inside.

Thank you for having the courage to create… 
to transform… 
to be yourself unapologetically.

For without your courage the world darkens 
and suffers the absence of your light
and the rest of us Wayseers who are like you
would not have your courageous acts to lift us
and inspire our own.

Rise up,
Garret John LoPorto
from the Wayseer Manifesto

I am waiting for happiness”, she said. 
And I replied,
“I can open a sacred drawer in you and there will be all the gold and joy, and companionship you could ever want.”
 ~ Hafiz 

“I want to be happy.” Seems to be the eternal question that was explored in a recent documentary I screened last week to an audience called aptly enough Happy. In it, director Roko Belic travelled around the world looking at this topic in response to a poll that rated Americans 26th on the “happiness scale”. It seemed that the more affluent countries such as Japan, the less happy the citizens were. Yet it showed very happy people living in the bayous of Louisiana and the slums of Calcutta. Happiness seems to have nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with internal values and close relationships with friends and family. It also showed studies that helping and giving to others released the same amount of Dopamine (feel good hormone) to the brain as a shot of crack cocaine! Mmm…

When I was 19 and dropping out of college, I remember receiving a poignant letter from my mom stating that “she just wanted me to be happy.” Trouble was it was happiness based on what she wanted… college, good job, marriage, family, secure income. All the values she grew up with that supposedly would bring happiness according to the formula. But I was a questor and always looking, asking the bigger questions which kicked off my spiritual search in my early twenties. I wasn’t happy and looking!

I found many answers in the groups I joined, the books I studied, the methods I embraced. I had moments of happiness and joy but still often more intellectual than heart felt. I still felt broken and imperfect. I did eventually get married, have a family and home and make good money. In fact such great money that my old boss use to notice and say “that the more I made, the less happy I seemed.” I soon realized that even $10,000 a month didn’t give me the freedom or self-love and acceptance I craved. Or the time home with my son. Retail therapy only worked for a short span. It was nice to “achieve goals” but then what?

The rest of my story is told in “Who Am I” on my website Gritty Angel. I quit that job and a lot of life experiences have ensued since. Many that one wouldn’t call “happy”. Yet I recently had an experience that has surpassed everything on a happiness scale…

A few weeks ago, I was grocery shopping at our local supermarket and went to pick out a couple of potatoes for baking. There I was. Standing and digging through the russet potato bin when I suddenly found myself fondling and stroking the potatoes with love. They felt so good, the gritty brown skin and earthy smell wafting upwards. A feeling of pure joy washed over me. I was truly happy. Unexpected bliss there in the potato bin! Who would have guessed?

What I have come to discover more and more in my life  is that my happiness is so not dependent on big ticket experiences. Often small daily occurrences and random events. The smell in the air from the lake, an unexpected connection with an old friend,  dog walks. Feeling good for no reason. And most importantly the feeling of love I have for myself. Most days. “Warts and all”. Nothing much can take that away. That’s the holy grail and I’m grateful to have found it. In the potato bin.

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze.  But I think maybe it’s both.  Maybe both are happening at the same time.”

~ Forrest Gump Movie 1994

I’ve found myself lately ruminating about “memories”… what are they, what makes ‘em and why some are special and others fade? It seems we can’t plan memories, or manipulate them, or know usually until after the fact, what was unique and stays with us over the years…. Sometimes a photo captures it, or wisp of lace or dried flower with a lingering scent triggers it. Other times it’s a feeling that just washes over us in the moment. And we wonder “Where did THAT come from?” Sometimes I reach for a memory and nothing is there…

I know in my own life, it wasn’t necessarily exotic travels but the small things that I remember with palpable pleasure. When we visited Tofino on the coast of Vancouver Island and it rained heavily for days (it IS a rain forest for a reason),  I remember with delight the cabin we rented with the skylights over the attic bed like a window canopy. I could curl up with my coffee and book, quite content not to venture out – like Snow White in the her glass sarcophagus. It wasn’t the  world-famous sweeping beaches or whale watching that stayed imprinted like a tourist brochure. Rather the feeling of pure contentment in the moment of doing nothing. All was well.

You never know until AFTER the event what becomes the memory, what stands out? I use to work for a company that published an online career planning service for students. Something we promoted was that life needed both planning and “Gumping”. Our founder believed that like in the movie “Forrest Gump” that sometimes you needed to be like a feather, whereever you landed, there you were. So on holidays, I often found that allowing time for “Gumping” created the most amazing memories with no planning involved. Some of us know this as “syncronicity”.

One time on a camping trip to the Kootenay Valley, we came across a small flyer for a “Tipi Camp”. For a small fee, we were taxied by boat to a wilderness shoreline and given our own tipi tent canoe and wood fueled hot tub. Amazing adventure! This would never have happened unless we were open to being in the moment of other possibilities than provincial camp grounds – or Hilton hotels!

When I reflect back, I realize that most of the memories I hold dear were unscripted and unpaid for… Jumping into a cenote in Mexico. Soaking in wild hot springs in Oregon.  Floating down the Penticton river channel drinking Coronas as the ducks followed. (Mmm, can’t you tell I’m a water babe?) Lying in my tent feeling the earth vibrate to the drum beat at a Medicine Wheel…  All of these experiences evoke a feeling of pleasure and peace. Priceless.

What will tomorrow bring? I guess I won’t know until it’s over. The special remains of the day…

You could remain in these bodies indefinitely if you would allow your environment to continue to produce new, continuing, life-summoning desire. You could be one who opened your vortex to continually find new things to want, and those desires would continue to summon Life Force through you: you are living raucously, you are living joyously, you are living rambunctiously, you are living passionately… And then, from that same framework — you make a conscious decision to make your transition.  ~ Abraham

This is a funny time of year for me as the hot August days wind down and the cooler mornings and evenings slip in. The lake is calm but crowded as tourists cram in the last sweet days of holidays before school starts. I always think of this time as endings and the fall heralding a new year of learning and growth. Too many years working in the education system!

Three years ago on August 23rd, my husband of 19 years passed away at home after a 2 year dance with the Big C – cancer and consciousness.I held his hand and his heart as he took his last breath at 5:55 am. Someone told me that number represents “change”… An understatement!

So yes, a time of reflection for me of all the changes these past few years with many more waiting in the wings. An old friend recently asked me how I have changed since Dugg’s death and it caused me to pause and think about what has transpired…

While I didn’t think I had this “planned” or on my dance card, the experience has been powerful and profound. What I have learned is:

• It is truly “not about me”. Death does bring out the worst in families and my husband’s family looked for a scapegoat to project their fears on – me. Members of my own family could not, would not visit or talk about it. As Richard Bach once wrote, “Your true family is the one you’re rarely born into.” I learned to say “fuck ‘em!” A lot.
• I am alone but not lonely. I now have way more time to go within, less conversation, more insight. I’m quite happy being with my own company. I buy myself wine, flowers, chocolate. Go to events. Dress for myself. Travelled to France.
• I am strong and capable. I can and have figured it out. Technology from computers to sprinkler systems to website design, all is possible to learn with a little help from manuals and Google. I can do it! If I have to. Even the French railway system… on strike!
• Loving  and trusting mySelf. Despite all the outside opinion, judgement and flack, I know when to breathe, accept and integrate those feelings of self doubt, unworthiness. My darkness is my Divinity and  I welcome those aspects back. It’s an inside job.
• It is as I’ve created it. So we didn’t have life insurance. Or mortgage.  Hindsight is 20/20. My husband was a self-employed designer most of his life and lived for the moment. We’ve had very little and I’ve had quite a lot.  No victims here. Again abundance comes from within and is a feeling not a number. It’s going to be okay Master Creator that I am!
• Choose life. What do I choose to do? Where do I choose to live once my house sells?  What do I enjoy doing? I feel like I’m 22 rather than 52 with a canvas of bright possibilities. A different city. Europe? My husband would never have left this house, this country. Getting ready to let it all go… New adventures await!
• When in doubt, breathe! 
• All IS well.