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718th Week: Supporting Re-Centering
In times of personal and collective distress, it’s important to have ways to re-center ourselves as we move through daily life, as we hear news reports of terrible things happening to people and the planet, and as we face the ordinary challenges and stresses of everyday life. One of the things I do each morning is take time to settle myself, even if I don’t have time to meditate or do my regular attunement process. Each of us may have a different way to settle ourselves. The practice that follows organizes itself around what I think is the fundamental importance of not only having a reliable way to ground yourself but also to have a commitment to do so each day.
One of the reasons I feel it’s so important to re-center and settle ourselves each day is because of the powerful impact of collective consciousness on all of us. Read More “718th Week: Supporting Re-Centering”
#919: A Practice: Supporting our Collective Well-Being
It’s been quite a while since I’ve written a practice for this section of my website, and I do so now because of the quality of our collective human experience and expression at this time. Speaking from a perspective of frequencies, the collective frequency of our human family is expressing a quality of emotional experience that would be considered quite “dense.” Frequencies of fear, anger, hatred, suspicion are all quite intense and “thick” in the air.
Because I focus on frequencies quite a bit these days (see my video #5 in my Videos on Multidimensional Living on my website), I find myself deeply concerned about the current quality of our collective emotional well-being. Following is a variation on the Buddhist practice of Tonglen, a heart-based practice of breathing in distressing or negative frequencies, allowing the fiery Love in the heart to neutralize those frequencies, and then breathing out something more constructive or positive, be that love, peace, ease, harmlessness, etc. I think of this kind of practice, altered significantly from the actual Buddhist practice, as akin to what oysters do. We’re filtering out toxins in order to allow our collective consciousness to resonate with more positive frequencies.
As I’ve written about before, we are all affected by our human collective consciousness in every moment, even as we automatically contribute to that collective also in every moment. Quantum research has now demonstrated that we are inextricably entangled, interconnected, with everything else and that goes for our human collective presence, as well. So, the quality of the energies with which we are entangled truly and deeply matters. What we contribute to those energies through the quality of our own being and also our way of moving through the world truly and deeply matters, too.
Here’s the practice and I’ll offer some additional suggestions that you can explore if you’re not comfortable with the way the practice is set up:
- Begin by settling in and taking a moment to ground yourself so that you are present, aware, and settled.
- Bring your awareness to your heart space and in whatever ways make sense to you notice that your heart is filled with the light, energy, and frequency of Love. This Light is ever-present because it arises from an infinite source of Universal Love. It cannot run out, you can’t use it up.
- Take a moment to also notice that this is a fiery Love. It is a purifying energy.
- Now, become of aware of the distress in humanity in whatever way is comfortable for you to do so. You might focus on fear or anger or suffering. Any and all of our human negative feelings contribute to the density of our collective, shared consciousness. Choose what feels right for this time.
- Breathe the negative frequency into your heart space, knowing that the fiery Love will immediately neutralize and cleanse what you have breathed in. Then, imagine that the neutralized energy is filled with, becomes, a quality, a frequency you have chosen to breathe out into the world this time—love, ease, peace, harmlessness, kindness—whatever resonates for you this time.
- As you breathe out, notice that you first fill yourself with the quality/frequency of what you have chosen to breathe out. Then notice that your out-breath continues to carry the quality out to the world around you and recognize that it also becomes part of our human collective consciousness.
- Do this for as long as you would like but be sure to track your comfort level. It’s always best not to over-do a practice like this. It’s more powerful than we usually realize and helping to shift the quality of our human collective is not a marathon—it’s a moment-to-moment, day-by-day process of taking the time to orient to qualities that express positive and constructive frequencies.
- When you’re through, again notice your heart space. The presence of fiery Love is always there for you to experience and to share when you feel moved to do so.
- When you’re ready, bring yourself all the way back, orienting to the sights and sounds of the environment around you.
If you are uncomfortable breathing in negative energy, you can begin this practice by imagining that you are surrounded by white light and that the white light begins to neutralize the negative quality right away, well before it reaches your heartspace.
If the whole practice makes you uncomfortable, here’s another one you might explore:
- Begin by settling yourself in as you would do whenever you are going to have an inner experience. Be sure to give yourself a moment to become grounded and comfortably present.
- Bring your awareness to your heartspace and gently breathe in and out through your heart for a few moments.
- Next, imagine in whatever way makes sense to you, the dense field of our collective human emotional consciousness, a field of awareness that is shared by all of us. Allow a representation of its density to come into awareness. If you use imagery, allow an image to come. If you work more in the realm of words, let words come. If you work more in the arena of felt-sense, notice the felt-sense of the field of density.
- Then, if it works for you, imagine that small points of light begin to show up here and there within the density and hold the intention that these small points of light bring the positive and constructive frequencies described in the practice above. Whatever mode of awareness you draw on to do this kind of work, the key is to notice that the density begins to fill with points of light that carry positive and constructive qualities into this collective field of consciousness.
- If you don’t do imagery, perhaps there could be a sound, a word, a sensation or a feeling that you could imagine begins to penetrate our collective emotional field, conveying more positive and constructive frequencies/qualities into that field.
- Take as much time as is comfortable for you to imagine more and more points of light showing up within the density and notice how that feels to you.
- When you’re ready to come back, bring your awareness to the environment around you, noticing sounds, perhaps smells, and whatever you notice when you open your eyes.
These practices are forms of subtle activism, which we can all do even when we can’t go out into the world and actively work to help create a positive shift in our collective human experience. There are countless other practices in subtle activism that you can explore by simply googling “subtle activism practices.”
As with all these practices in conscious living, please remember to bring along curiosity as your constant companion and to pat gently on the head any judgments that may arise, allowing them to move on through without your having to do anything with or about them.
Here’s the audio version of this practice if you’d rather listen to it. Also, please remember never to listen to guided audio meditations while driving or using dangerous machinery. You may find that you need to pause the recording when you are doing the practices, as I didn’t leave a lot of time between the various steps.
908th Week: Practicing with Frequencies
I cannot say enough about frequencies and the role they play in our quality of life. One of the practices I use to shift frequencies touches on elements used by HeartMath, where breathing in and out through the heart is a standard aspect of their practices and I’d like to share it with you for this week’s practice in conscious living. I began this particular practice as part of my daily self-care routine. It originally arose as a means to help me invite my blood pressure into the numbers that I want to have at this stage of my life. What I noticed when I did this practice is that it not only accomplished what I had in mind, it also relaxed my whole bodymind being. That response reminded me of the importance of frequencies and how they affect the quality of our internal life.
So, here’s the practice and I invite you to see how it resonates for you. Also, I’ve chosen two frequencies—love and ease. These may not be the ones that touch you most powerfully, so see what works best for you as you explore this practice. Also, as a side note but a very important one, I think of spiritual teacher David Spangler’s comments about how useful it is to generate frequencies that are inhospitable to qualities we would rather not have in our lives and experience. That’s why it’s important for you to choose the frequencies that resonate most powerfully for you, in terms of what qualities you seek to experience internally.
Read More “908th Week: Practicing with Frequencies“2024 November Meditation
This month, we continue to focus on orienting to our optimal life, remembering to do so with an open heart. We remember that we are a unique expression of the Life that lives us and that we can practice “not knowing” so that we remain open to optimal possibilities that come our way. With our stance of “not knowing”, potentially limiting beliefs and preconceptions stay out of the way as we invite Life to live us into our optimal expression.
Here’s the audio version, with music:
If you’d rather do the meditation with images from nature, here’s the YouTube version: