Earlier in recovery, I used to cringe at every misstep. No more. There is a sense of detachment. I hear the woman’s voice, and enjoy what she says, even when she takes a second or two to process thought, like I would savor the words of a good friend. I see her face and find her beautiful, even though she has a line here and there. I notice her kindness and humor and feel kind and smiley feelings toward her. I wish her well!

As I’ve been reflecting on this, it’s occurred to me that the experience of seeing yourself from outside and, if you will, a little above, as if through the eyes of your angels, is such a gift. It offers you an opportunity to let go of that enemy of peace: self- judgment, and its offspring, fear, dread, hate, anger, resentment, self-destructiveness, defensiveness, shame, and self-importance, “specialness” and arrogance.

Anyone who understands the Law of Attraction can use it to do parlor tricks. All that is required is to for a moment or two, think a thought, feel happy, release it, and feel grateful. This process can create some interesting and amusing results. And it can be temporarily gratifying, in an outside-in, acquisitive sort of way.  And yet, these manifestations, if they are based in inconsistent self-love and inconstant trust, will vanish, like the lottery winnings of a gambler.

The real trick is to abandon tricks. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you.”

True magic begins to happen when you see yourself with Angel Eyes. By this, I mean you love yourself, even though you aren’t “perfect.” You wish yourself health happiness and prosperity, naturally, automatically and overall, most of the time.  It’s no longer hard work to do this. It’s your default setting. Bouts of self-dislike and judgment are few and short-lived and you have developed a skill set to quickly and effectively shift your perspective.

When I work with clients, I help them do this, in various ways. This is the message inside everything I do: paintings, books, CDs, workshops and hypnosis/coaching sessions. My dear friend Hakuin Rose told me this most recent birthday would have its effect for some time to come and suggested I savor it. And so, I am. How lovely to notice my round toed Mary Janes walking their talk. Recovery: “What a long strange trip it’s been!” And all the sweeter that now more and more, recovery has become reemergence into a kinder, sweeter world. ”Every step a prayer, every word a word of love” even and especially within my own head. I wish this for you, dear reader. May you see yourself with Angel Eyes!

“Surrender comes when you no longer ask, “Why is this happening to me?” Eckhart Tolle – Stillness Speaks

I loved it….and it inspired an instant reframe.

Said with resentment and self-pity, the question “Why is this happening to me?” is really not a question. It’s a complaint, a curse, a self-justification, and  an anchoring of self-condemnation all rolled into one. And of course, it attracts more “Tough Stuff” to feel sad and angry about.

When you ask that same question entirely without resentment and with genuine curiousity and willingess to learn what gifts the situation offers, it’s a different question, a real question that actually asks for and welcomes good information. There are unspoken words and punctuation marks within the question…even another additional questions that follow, naturally: 

“Why does this appear to be “happening to me?”  What beliefs, expectations, attchments and judgments created this? How is this situation my soul’s call to change? What would my highest, wisest self do right now?

How is your Tough Stuff  calling you? To explore this in a hands-on creative journal/workbook format, I invite you to check out my book on navigating Tough Stuff in whatever form it presents itself:

“Surviving Cancer and Other Tough Stuff: An Illustrated Journal and Workbook” available on Amazon.com.

You work, you love and laugh anyway. You just ride it out and feel yourself expanding, making… more room for the MORE joy you know is about to fill you because you’re making room for it. Letting go of the strategy that you must experience the physicality of seeing, hearing and touching the beloved. Opening up to the larger experience of the loved one as spirit and integrating him or her within.

As I sat in the dentist’s chair yesterday, the dental assistant was jokingly telling Dr. Y that she thought a particular patient didn’t like him. “How can anyone not like you?” I said, playfully and sincerely at the same time.

“I know,” he grinned at me, “That’s just crazy talk!”

As the dark roast bubbled and brewed I recalled the words of my son’s former drama teacher, commenting on the dramas of life, with empathy and wisdom.

“There are many things to recover from” she wrote. 

“I don’t feel comfortable with the marketing part of writing,” said another dear old friend, a beloved Wisewoman who happens to be talented up the wazoo in multiple forms of artistic and healing expression.

So many things to recover from, I thought. I heard the voice of my father, who when he got ready to fly, became the good friend that he always really was. 

As a young man tortured by shame, he was shouting “Who do you think you are?” to the seven year old me who had, in an an unusually off-guard moment, expressed a thought out loud. The same “shut up” message came through words and random violence from my mentally ill (and also shame-filled) mother, whose own creativity could be stifled and distorted but never silenced.

We are all muses to each other.

Why do we silence ourselves and our children? Why would we be afraid to engage with life “out there”? Why do we fear asking for what we want? Why do we create sad and angry victim stories in which we’re so afraid of what we think we’re “up against”, that we hold back, withdraw, and become mute dreamers, in a state of chronic longing?

Follow all of the streams of all the sad and angry victim stories back to their origination point and you find the toxic shame, self-judgment and fear of the ego…and its fundamental, mistaken belief that we’re in big trouble…that our Creator is capricious, jealous, and disapproving.

We fear the judgement that we have already made. It is we who are judge-MENTAL. We are all suffering from this mental illness to some extent or another. The malady that constricts our self-expression, lest we be judged some more. Fear.

 But help shows up for us, sometimes in surprising forms….bullies to help us find our courage. Imaginary monsters to test our readiness to clear the vocal pathway. 

One of my major muses in public self-expression was the terrifying Mary Brewer, the music teacher and director of both the chorus and the Little Choir at Germantown Friends School. Short of stature and ferociously committed, she would do anything, whatever it took,  to cajole and bully us into producing sonic beauty. She scared me silly.

At home, I privately sang all the time…in my room, on solitary walks in the woods, and (of course) in the shower. I collected copies of the folk music  magazine “Sing Out!” And every day, I’d haul out my well-worn “Joan Baez Songbook” and accompany myself on guitar, singing sad Scottish ballads and songs of hope for “this land…made for you and me.”

In choir, when I could blend with others, my voice flowed out, a pretty, reasonably strong  second soprano. But when singled out, fear and shame constricted my vocal apparatus. When we began rehearsals on a piece called “The Street Cries of London,” I panicked. I would have to do a solo. I was to be the voice of a fruit vendor.

Miss Brewer’s stern gaze fell on me as I sqeaked out my part. “Louder!” she demanded. “Again!” All eyes were on me.

“Fine Seville oranges, fine lemons!” a little louder, still tentative and wishing I could run.

“Again, louder! Come on, open up!” She kept at me, not letting up. It wasn’t going to end. She was going to turn My Fair Lady into Eliza Dolittle if it took all day.

Finally I got mad, and let it fly. This sound came out that shocked me, Miss Brewer and the everyone present. It was beautiful, just like she knew it would be. 

“That’s it! You did it!” She beamed a triumphant smile. Triumph not over me but with me. Like a midwife …or a mother. In that instant, my hate for her morphed to love and gratitude.  She opened up my life to all that I most love!

My voice became activated in that choir room in that awe-ful moment. I began to speak in Quaker meetings for workship and later. Teaching, ministry, coaching, recording, uncensored, happy painting.  All of it! 

“Who do you think you are?” is now an empowering question to me. It invites me to bigger, wider self-expression, and more fun. I offer it to you for consideration. I hope you think you’re wonderful! Anything less you tell yourself is just “crazy talk.”

Wishing you self-acceptance and the trust to ask for what you want, speak your truth and share your beauty. And may your waking up experience be as juicy and sweet as a fine, seville orange.

My thoughts moved to the Guest Minister Talk  and Meditation I gave at Spirit of Unity last weekend, on welcoming ALL new experience (even the “Tough Stuff”) with open arms as the bringer of gifts that it truly is…and I looked forward with anticipation to hearing what my husband Richard will say as Guest Minsiter at Unity of Reading this coming Sunday. I love to hear his voice and when he speaks to groups of people, something beautiful activates. He’s lit up from inside. Mmm, what a treat!  

As I enjoyed my mental stew and morning brew, I picked up a pen and began goofing around. I offer you this musing with best wishes for a delightful day:

A Silly Morning Poem

Life’s a banquest or a mess
‘pending on your consciousness.
Do you feel it light and airy,
sweet and rich,
or dense and scary?

Challenge offering secret gifts,
like open hearts and inner shifts.
Experience and choice abounds,
Cities, villages and towns…

Wise and lofty thoughts for thinkers,
ratting-outs for finky finkers,
smelly words and deeds for stinkers,
smoochy hugs for happy linkers
awesome concert tix for Pinkers,
brand new skates for hocket rinkers,
fastballs, sliders, curves and sinkers…

Curse and moan? Appreciate?
Life is what you make it, Mate!

c Kanta Bosniak 2010

I give thanks for my many blessings 
Just for today I will not anger
Just for today I will not worry
I will do my work honestly
I will be kind to people
and every living thing.

One Day at a time
-Recovery slogan

Yesterday, under strict orders my dear friend (and Massage therapist extraordinaire) Hakuin Rose, I planned to schedule a treatment in preparation for a book tour weekend. Hakuin lives in Virginia, so I needed to see someone up here, where I now live, in Pennsylvania.

Two days, many miles, cities to go in and out of, people to meet, presentations. “Make sure you do it before you go and after you come back” she told me. A slim woman of slight build and average height, she packs a walloping lot of energy. Strong as an ox and stunningly beautiful of face and presence. Who’s going to argue?

I called Jared, my chiropractor, and made the first appointment, with his new massage therapist. “I need to make desposits in my energy bank,” I said.

“You got it. ”

And I did. Anna, new to me and fresh out of massage school on an externship, said, “Jared told me you want some energy.”

“Oh, well, yes. I’d love it. When I said that I was thinking of massage as “energy,” but if you do Reiki, great.”

“I don’t do Reiki. But I do energy work.”

Oh, I thought. Interesting. Just the day before I had a client in the big leather chair who was such a natural healer that I gave her an unofficial and no-charge attunement. Not worrying whether to call it Reiki, Seichim, Reconnective Healing…it’s all good, and it all comes from Source, regardless what channel (re)claims it and (re)names it. And this was a client who was in a position to benefit others every day.

We are all energy conduits. We send universal energy constantly. As it comes through us, through the filter of our minds, depending on where we are in our learning arc, that energy will will in clear and come out altered to whatever degree we’re in alignment with who we really are. And everyone around us will feel it. Whether they do so consciously or not.

If we’re young in our Becoming process, still in Victim/Perpetrator/Rescuer consciousness, it will be distorted. Farther along, less so. The more we have become ourselves, the less we alter or influence the energy that comes through us.

What I like about the Usui prayer is that it invites us, like the slogans and prayers of Recovery, to step aside from who we aren’t, one day at a time. And this spiritual mindfullness practice speeds up the process, because we begin consciously inviting Source Energy to align our thinking. And so, it does!

Anna’s hands were hot. I could feel the energy. I thanked her and I made an appointment for another massage for after I return from my book trip.

Just for today, may you cherish the energy that come through you, inviting alnd allowing it to serve you and others. May you attract good friends who give wise counsel…and a really good energy-channeling massage therapist!

c Kanta 2010

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you”  is the principle at work here. And of course, that kingdom isn’t “out there” somewhere. Nor did whatever challenge that may be facing us at the moment come from “out there.”

When a guest arrives bringing flowers, rejoice and put the flowers in a vase. When a guest arrives bringing “bad news” sit down, and mourn a little while…and then go to work.

Go inside and find the place of no trust. The erroneous belief, the unnessary attachment, The addiction to toxicity. The whatever you no longer need. The whatever no longer matches you as you become a happier and happier person…as you become who you really are.

Go deeper, and find the trust. Then, every guest at your door will be greeted with respect and welcome and every guest will be received with love and gratitude.

c Kanta Bosniak 2010

The microphone caught him cursing himself. “You s**k, [T.W.] ” he said to himself.

Curses, kudos, projections. The voice that berates is the same one that justifies. At its root is a mistake: the notion that we are separate from our Source, impossibly flawed and in need of showing ourselves to be superior to others…or attaching ourselves by identification with the perfect-seeming “other.”

We hold complex and often contradictory emotions about fame. Its aquisition may simply be a necessary tool to success in a field of endeavor, spurring us to serve a larger community to our fullest potential. Or, it may be an unconscious strategy to fill a frozen need for love and approval. Or we may experience some of both versions, healthy and not so. We are, after all, human. And called to learn the main lesson of this earthly adventure: unconditional love. Compassion and self-acceptance.

We share oneness with our Source and we also share fear and doubt about this Divine connection. Each and every one of us has a part that holds our fear and its children, anger, judgment and self-judgement. Call this part the shadow, the ego, the “little me.”

Famous people can inspire us to greatness.  By mental focus, diligent development  natural talent, and by allowing the free-flowing creative expression of  their gifts, they can trigger within us the spark of our own desire to express, extend and share. 

And when they falter, or let slip carefully maintained masks, they can remind us of our own flaws…the ones we also pretended to ourselves and others not to have. And oh, how we can hate them for that, if we are using them as projector screens for our own self-hate!

When the famous become the notorious, they have a renewed opportunity to teach and inspire. The lesson plan takes on more meaning. It goes from modeling excellence in achievement to modeling love itself. Or more accuately, modeling the learning of how to love.

Learning is a messy business. At first and for a while, we’re clumsy at it. We have to be willing to keep practicing until we’re experts, a lifetime endeavor!

Recovery is not about admitting we’re powerless in the sense that we “s**k.” The perspective that one is a monster, the worst, the awfullest…is another way of being “special.” In true recovery, we replace the feeling that we need to be “special” (better or worse than everyone else) with the peace of our enoughness. We wake up to the awareness that we expressions of the One, each of us beautiful in our own way, flaws and all. 

When a person models this (as we all do, sooner or later), s/he inspires at a higher level. And the modeling must, for us to really benefit from it, include the demonstration, slips and all, of step-by-step movement… from the painful constriction  of egoic identification with self to the grace and freedom of identification with Self. To identify with Source is to recover the truth of who we really are, to leave behind forever the need for “specialness,” and to recognize the beauty of every human being.

Thanks to T.W. and to you, Dear Reader, for modeling your journey for all to see. What courage it takes to be a human being! How wonderful it can be to live without the burden of shame. How much more fun! Wishing you empathy, self-forgivness, peace…and the permission to admire your own gifts and those of others with a light heart.