A Letter to a Loved One

I awoke thinking about you this morning. I was touched by your sharing yesterday and found myself with so many things in my heart to say … . But, at that moment I did not find the right way to speak these thoughts – perhaps it was not time. This morning, however, I awoke with you fresh in my mind and desiring to share with you.
So I decided to write my thoughts here and offer them to you … to read or not, as you please. I simply want to share with you some of what brings me inner peace. Who knows, perhaps these ideas will serve you as well. Of perhaps, I simply need to write these things for my own benefit and am just using you as an inspiration to do so….
Perhaps the first great relief came for me when I learned what an incredible story maker my ego is! And then I discovered that ego feeds on the resistance that gets created when I believe the stressful stories it tells. (Resistance is any sort of negative feeling or reaction such as anxiety, sadness, resentment, etc that robs me of peace.)
I always think of the nursery rhyme…
“Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater had a wife and couldn't keep her – so he put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.”.
This, to me, is a great description of our relationship with ego. Ego is Peter Pumpkin Eater … that masculine function/ego intellect that is constantly trying to imprison the feminine aspect of self or Divine Essence. The only way he can “keep her(me)” is by convincing her(me) of the story (represented in the rhyme by the pumpkin shell) that he tells her is the truth about who she is. Ego has a definition of self that is very limiting. For instance, the “pumpkin” story told me unrelentingly by ego went something like this; “I am Lynne, daughter of an alcoholic. I am selfish and uncaring and totally unlovable … the world is an unhappy place and I have to take whatever I can wherever I can get it in order to survive…etc etc”
As long as ego could keep me convinced that I was indeed this limited definition of self it could “keep me very well”, which means it rules. In this way, ego keeps me separated from my true nature which is Pure Essence, High Frequency PEACE.
On the coattails of that realization, came the understanding that there are two basic frequencies that the emotional body generates; high frequency and low. High frequency consists of feelings such as love, peace, acceptance, harmony. It is our thoughts that generate frequency. If our thoughts are of a high frequency we will experience feelings on the same frequency – feelings that align us with Source. I realized that only High frequency feelings can bring me into alignment with Source because Source consists of of only the Highest Frequency. Therefore when I am resonating at a low frequency (angst, resentment, pain, depression or any negative state) I cannot connect with Source simply because I am out of vibrational range of that frequency. We are vibrating on different wave lengths, so to speak. When I'm in low frequency, in order to align and connect with Source I must find a way to “up” my frequency.
It didn't take me long to see how committed ego is in keeping me separated from Source by constantly running a low frequency story! These low frequency stories always create nothing but suffering and unhappiness. As a matter of fact, I have realized that anytime I am suffering it's because I am investing belief in a low frequency story.
Tremendous relief came when I realized that I do not have to believe the thoughts that make up these stories. I have come to see that thoughts, much like germs, are rampant in the atmosphere. And like germs, whether or not you are “infected” depends upon the strength of your immune system. If your immunity is compromised then you are susceptible to the germs that abound. Similarly, if you are in a weakened state from years of believing low frequency stories then you are prone to be “infected” by the stressful thoughts that constantly run through the mind. “There are no new stressful thoughts” (a Byron Katie statement), which means that every stress producing thought we've ever had has been thought millions of times. Whether or not we BELIEVE these thoughts, however, is up to us! WOW… that was great news to me, because it meant that, although I could not choose my thoughts… they come and go… I COULD begin to choose whether or not to “marry them” by believing in them! Thoughts are not the problem, I realized, unless I believe them. That's because once I believe what I'm thinking I start REACTING as if they are true. For instance, when I believe the thought, “I am selfish and unable to truly care”, I start acting in ways that end up proving to me that it's true. When I believe the thought it generates low frequency feelings so that I feel bad and so then I start withdrawing etc, etc .. so that my behavior ends up totally verifying the thought! This is the way it works … not occasionally, but every single time!
Don't take my word for these ideas, I certainly didn't! Try them on for yourself! I have proven through my own life experience that this is the way of it.

I have further learned that God is only present in this moment. Here and NOW can be the only abiding place for Source simply because no other place exists! There is no other Reality … past and future are simply imaginary concepts that exist only in the mind. They are the domain of ego.
I have noticed that every time I am anywhere but in this moment it's simply because ego has abducted me, through some low frequency story, into the regrets of the past or the angst of the future, neither of which truly exist! The other place that ego likes to “keep” us is in that totally fabricated place I like to call “Shouldville”. Shouldville is where I am anytime I am resisting the way things are. “This, or that should not be” or “That should be different!” is a way of fighting with Reality. And, as Byron Katie says, “I have never fought with Reality and won!” A question that Byron Katie asks often is; “How do we know it's the way it should be? Because it's the way it is!” God and Reality are one and the same! Therefore anytime I am “shoulding” life, I am battling God.
Life is the way it is. If I want peace, I accept Reality. I don't mean settle for it! I can see the way something is and decide to be proactive towards change. That's not a problem. But what is this moment is what it is. My job is to accept what is this moment. Along with that awareness, that “what is” is just “what is” … comes the further opportunity to trust that the “what is” is as it is because that is exactly what it NEEDS to be! I do not have to understand why things are what they are and it's not my business to demand that things be different (like that works anyway!). And, well frankly, the way things are is not my business anyway. My only concern is my business. Anytime I am in God's (or anyone elses) business, I generate suffering.
One of the things I began practicing (again learned from Byron Katie) when I catch myself resisting Reality is to turn the should around by asking myself, “What are three real reasons why this thing should be exactly the way it is.” For example, let's say I'm telling myself that my husband shouldn't be so controlling … how can I turn that around? What are three real reasons why he “should be” controlling? Here's what I might come up with: He should be controlling because his attempts to control give me a chance to see my own controlling nature (based on the understanding that anything I'm resisting out there is a reflection of my own inner state). Another reason? Because there may be something I need to hear in his controlling words because its happening in my Reality (and I don't believe in accidents or mistakes, meaning there is not a single thing that happens that is not a teaching opportunity for me) and, one more? Because my resistance to him gives me a chance to better love and understand myself … again, because whatever I see out there is a reflection of my own inner state.
This brings me to a final peace-bringing realization worth mentioning, and that is that the Universe is always and only a mirror. We know that when we have something in our eye that we can go to a mirror and use it to see and address the problem. In the same way, the world faithfully and unfailingly mirrors to us our inner state of consciousness. What is mirrored to us by the world around us is whatever our internal beliefs are.
This truism is based on the Universal Law of Mentalism which states that everything in the world is made up of mental energy. This understanding was derived from the idea that the whole Universe and everything in it is all happening in the mind of Creator. What this means is that the world as we see it is totally a mental reflection of our own inner mind. We see what we believe.
A great example of that is something that I experienced recently. I was looking through some pictures that we had taken in Washington and saw one of me that my daughter, Jaquetta had taken. I immediately thought, “Yuk … this is a bad picture, I look old and unattractive, etc.” and quickly flicked on past it to the next one. Then I stopped myself, realized what I was doing — i.e. that I was running a story and forced myself to go back to that very picture and simply listen to what I was telling myself. After listening to the negative story I was detailing, I decided to experiment, just to see what would happen if I set that story aside for a moment and allow myself to look at the picture of myself without the old story. I was amazed! Without my demeaning story the picture looked totally different! Suddenly I saw a woman with happy, bright eyes and a relaxed bearing. I saw someone who was comfortable in her own skin, etc.
The point is that without our stories we can see a totally different world! Realizing this has brought me such tremendous relief. I have realized that the Universe is a friendly, benevolent place. What we see happening out there is simply a reflection of our own mind, and or that of the collective mind. When I react negatively to any single thing I see out there, I know I am projecting a piece of my own story and, using the world in the same way that I use a mirror, I begin to look for what in me is being brought to my awareness for the purpose of integration.
An example: I had a client recently come in inflamed about a magazine cover she had seen featuring a white supremist. She went on and on about how white supremists should be annihilated — should not be allowed to exist. She was almost rabid in rantings. Finally I quietly asked her to tell me about the supremist in herself. “Tell me about the part of you right now that wants to destroy others.” She got suddenly quiet … and then I saw that she got it. She realized that she was feeling the same sort of judgment and animosity towards the supremist that she was blaming him for having!
Our reactions are always about ourselves. The world faithfully mirrors where we are as individuals and as a collective. The way to change the world out there is to use whatever we find ourselves reacting to “out there” as the mirror it is to show us what in ourselves is presently attached to a low frequency story. I have yet to uncover a low frequency story in myself and find it to be true. Ego runs these low frequency stories which rob me of peace by generating the resistance ego needs to feed it and keep it strong in its definition of self and the world … “Peter Pumpkin Eater” translated, is “Ego, Story(resistance) Eater” who runs a limiting story in order to keep itself strong and in charge.
Again, these are simply some of the awarenesses that I've had that have brought new understanding and inner peace. I have stopped needing to resist or change the world around me as I once felt obligated to do. I hope they bring you relief and peace as well.
Love and Blessings,
Lynne