(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

When I was fourteen years-old, my father used to call me “Ann Landers,” the late advice columnist. He remarked that it was amazing that I passed my school exams because of all the telephone calls I’d get everyday. (Please click here for information about Ann Landers.)

We all have particular “best ways”  that we help people. Mine is in the area of crisis support. Any kind of crisis.

Of course, my own lifetime crises help me to help others. I don’t have to have had exactly the same experience myself to be able to help others with theirs. A crisis is a crisis. Pain is pain. Suffering is suffering.

That’s the general level.

On the specific level, as I just noted, while I don’t have to have experienced the exact, same type of crisis as those who come to me for help and support, it can add depth and richness to that support.

So, before I continue, I must confess that there is one area where I do not have a lot of experience: romance. A long time ago, I had decided that it was not part of my karmic path in this lifetime. I was dismissive of the idea that one “needs” a partner.

That changed with a clear and vivid dream— a dream that triggered a personal crisis. (Please click here for the dream and the shock waves I experienced.)

Rather than adopt the usual tactics and remedies to ease my pain, I decided that I had to make good use of this crisis rather than waste it by sliding back into habitual patterns that return me back into my comfort zone, my cocoon.

In my generation (the cusp of wartime and “baby boomers”), we were taught to view feelings with suspicion. I found that I had become somewhat numb, another version of falling asleep.

When I had a game-changing dream, I made a game-changing move: I tried to ride the sh0ck waves I experienced by continuously acknowledging my feelings without indulging in or rejecting them.

……
The everyday practice is simply to
develop a complete acceptance and
openness to all situations and emotions.
……
……
source: The Vidyadhara, Venerable Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, excerpt from Maha-Ati text

How to do that?

1. In seems to involve aligning myself with the energetic quality of the feeling, rather than just identifying the feeling itself, e.g. depression, joy, fear, panic etc., itself. To me, it’s like lighting firecrackers — we not only see the full-blown display of the firecracker (feeling) in the sky, but we catch the sizzle (energetic quality) too.
2. Also, I used my own personal identity crisis to get in touch on a continual basis with my own basic goodness. (Please click here for description of the term basic goodness.)

The Ace of Cups from the Motherpeace Tarot card deck gives us a graphic illustration of these ideas:

The Ace of Cups is the gift of love — a dive into one’s deepest feelings, which are spilling over in abundance like a fountain…good [ultimate basically good] feelings are assured. The soft blues and greens [of the card] signify that peace and purity [unfabricated nature of mind] dwell here…This Ace represents a surrender [acceptance, not fighting, stuggling, rejecting] to emotions….The silver cup is the vessel, the chalice, the grail [that symbolizes the womb] — the archetypal feminine receptive mode. It promises ….[an] experience of letting go into unconditional [ultimate, primordial] love [basic goodness], the spaciousness of the open heart.

 Please note: the words in [   ] are my own.

The result of aligning myself with the energetic quality of whatever I was feeling, and getting in touch with my own basic goodness, is that I have more opportunity to live in the NOW rather than in my concept of what is happening. (Please click here for description of NOW.)

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