Welcome to the Lake Tahoe Spiritual Living Center!

I sometimes hear a lot of talk about triggers.

“I’m triggered by this.”  “That is a trigger of mine.”  “That’s a trigger and will make me (insert your favorite destructive activity here).”

Really?  Hmmm.  On the one hand, I empathize with folks whose lives are ruled by triggers.   I know what it’s like to live life reacting to what is handed out to me.  It’s not a pleasant place to be, and it’s even less unpleasant because when I was there, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.  I was ignorant, going through life being triggered and not knowing there was any other way to be, not knowing there was any other way to do things.

I also know that it is extremely difficult to rid ourselves of those things which just…well….they push  our buttons and before we know it, we are reacting willy nilly to something without any hesitation at all!

What’s up with that?!?!?!

I’ve rid myself of many of my triggers, and I’ve removed the language of “that’s a trigger for me” from my vocabulary.  Our words have power, and if I say something is a trigger, well, it remains a trigger and I’d really like to avoid being the victim of things like triggers.

So other than removing the language from your vocabulary, what else can you do to remove a trigger?

I’m assuming, of course, that you would really like to have the trigger removed.  So that’s really the first step.  What would your life be like if you were no longer triggered by….let’s say, crowds.  Would it then be possible to go to crowded places?  Perhaps there is a concert you would  like to attend.  What would life be like if you no longer had that limitation? Would it feel empty inside without that trigger to determine where you go and when you go there?  Would it feel a bit scary to be able to simply make a decision to go or not to go based on your desire?  Do some introspection on it, think about whether you really want to remove the trigger, and what life would be like without it.

In treatment centers they like to talk about triggers a lot to their clients, telling them to stay away from bars and other places where alcohol is consumed.  I can understand that when one is still not quite in one’s right mind.  When one does not know one’s own truth, one is subjected to the truth of others, and yes, that will allow triggers to continue to operate in your life.  But the foremost authority on recovery from alcoholism says that one can even attend “plain ordinary whoopee parties” if one is spiritually fit.  (the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous, page 101)

And that right there is the key.  Being spiritually fit will allow you to be anything and accomplish everything that is on your  list of things to do, no matter what.  Triggers will no longer be in your vocabulary if you are spiritually fit.

So what does it mean to be spiritually fit?  First of all, I know that word spiritual can be word loaded with different meanings, so for this discussion I’m going to offer a definition of spiritual:  being spiritual means you are at peace. Period.  End of story.    What allows you to be at peace?   What allows you to live a life based on love, rather than fear?    That is spiritual.

Here’s a formula, if you will, for ridding yourself of a trigger.  Just as an aside, this is also the formula for living a loved based life, rather than a fear based one, because really, it all boils down to that:  a fear based life is ruled by things like triggers, and a love based life is ruled by love.

1. First is the aforementioned introspection to decide if you really wish to be rid of the trigger.  Because if you don’t, none of the steps  will be effective.

2.  Finding a god in your life is of utmost importance.  God is another one of those loaded words, but really, it doesn’t matter what it is, and it doesn’t matter what  you call it.   And if you look, you will find clues as to what and where your god is.  God is about experience, not rules, not dogma,  not the latest fad.  Don’t become a spiritual athlete by jumping from one fad to another in search of that magic formula that will make everything ok.  That’s an outside fix, and outside fixes are never effective for very long.  What needs to happen is inner change, an inner experience.   Being spiritual is about experience.  The experience of being spiritual will change  you, from the inside.  It will allow you to perceive things differently, to feel differently about yourself and the world around you.  Being spiritual will allow you to behave differently.  And it doesn’t really matter how you get spiritual, or find a god of your understanding, just that you find it.  If going to church does it for you, then good, do that.  But I think there is more to it.  At Centers for Spiritual Living all over the world, Sunday services are a very small part of what we do, because we consider ourselves a teaching order rather than a religious one.  We teach.  At any given Center, Teaching Chapter or Study Group, you will find classes, workshops and seminars galore.  And the common theme throughout much of what we teach is this:  do spiritual practices, consistently and persistently.  Spiritual practices consist of meditation, journaling, reading spiritual literature (there’s that word again!  I am not talking the bible here folks, although that could be on the list), introspection.  And we teach you how to do those  things.  We teach you how to do those things because it is in those practices that you will find a god of your understanding, it is in those practices that you will experience the spiritual and it is in those practices that you will be able to know  your own truth, not someone else’s.   You can find a Center here.

3.  Once you have a beginning sense of the spiritual  in your  life, it’s time for some more introspection.  Your sense of who and what  you are will change as you incorporate a sense of the spiritual into your life.  It’s a process that can happen very quickly or more slowly, but it will happen if you continue to do spiritual practices, consistently and persistently.  At this level introspection,  take a good hard look at the things you fear in life.  Fear is key, because, as the Course in Miracles says, there are only two states of being:   fear and love, and you can’t have love if you are in fear, and you can’t have fear if you are in love.  I’d like to see  you be in love, all the time.  So when you look at your fears, and how you react to them, and what makes  you feel fear, you will have gone a long way towards being rid of them.  Hold your fears up to the light of day and they have a tendency to scurry away, like cockroaches when you turn on the light.  You are only as sick as  your secrets.  Look at what  you fear, and how you react to it.  If you don’t understand what fear looks like, look at what makes you angry.  Anger is a result of fear.  So is judgment.  So is blame, shame, guilt, hatred.  Anytime you are feeling any of those things, you are in fear.

4.  Once you’ve taken some time to do the  inner  work, talk with someone about it.  Just as an aside, it  might be very difficult to do the inner work on your own as we are not as a rule taught to do that.  If that is the case, seek help from the beginning of the process, not at this stage.   There are Practitioners all over the world  who are  specifically trained for this kind of work, and it doesn’t have to be someone local.   I work with people on the phone all the time, and I quite frequently will call on the assistance of a Practitioner from another area.  You can find a Practitioner here.

5.  Once you’ve  done that, it’s time to set things right in your life.  You might find that after all that inner work, there are some outside things in  your life that  no longer fit.  You may find that after all that inner work there are some people with whom you need to have a heart to heart talk.  You may experience a period of deconstruction in your life as a result of a changed you.  While this is uncomfortable, it isn’t life threatening, and is necessary in order to live life differently.

6.  Continue your spiritual practices, consistently and persistently.  No matter what.  Just do them.  With spiritual practices as your foundation in life, you will only become more and more powerful, and less and less susceptible to triggers.

“Courage means telling the truth of ourselves from our whole being.”  Patrick Cameron

Yep, it’s another quote from the Integration Conference, spoken in the seminar on leadership held for ministerial students.   About the same time as I heard this quote, I heard another concept from one of my teachers, also in a leadership class.  She said that we should not use “expressing our truth” as a means to bully others.

So…I’ve been thinking some about this truth and courage stuff.  I know that in the past I have been guilty of expressing my truth to try and control and manipulate others.  Setting boundaries is another concept where there is a very fine line between attempts at control, manipulation and bullying, and taking care of ourselves.  The line is drawn in that area between speaking in the first person (“I” statements) and speaking in the second person (“you” statements).  Yet it has been my experience that even first person statements can sometimes be  a thinly veiled attempt at bullying, or attempts to control and manipulate.  I’ve seen relationships destroyed because one person disguised attempts at control as setting boundaries.

So what is the answer?  How do we know our own truth, and express it in such a way that we honor ourselves without venturing into the land of attempts at control, manipulation and bullying?

If you have been reading this column for a while you know the answer:  do your spiritual practices!  In this case, going within through the practices of meditation and journaling seem to be the most effective.  When we go within on such a deep level, we know what our truth is.  And we will feel the difference between courageously expressing that truth or venturing into that fearful place where we try to control, manipulate or bully others.  On some level, it does not feel good when we go beyond simply expressing our truth.

Another part of the answer comes from that ancient wisdom expressed in the Course In Miracles:  there are really only two states of being, love and fear.  We are either in a state of love, or a state of fear, and we will always react from that place.  Learn to recognize what fear looks like for you, so that you can move back into a state of love when it happens.  Learn the spiritual practices that work best for you to move from fear to love.  Love means we do not need to try and control or manipulate any situation or bully anyone.  Love means we can rest easily in our beingness and KNOW that all is well, no matter what.  Love means we can simply honor ourselves, and take care of ourselves.  Love does indeed conquer all.

Yesterday I wrote about a non religious interpretation of what Good Friday could mean for you in your life.  Seeing all that happens in our lives as good is a way to get into freedom, empowerment, the solution.  But sometimes it takes a bit of time to get to that place.  We need some time of contemplation and inner  searching.  We might need some time to grieve, we might need some time to heal before we can rise again, to a new beginning.

If you acknowledged yesterday that there were some things in  your life that you could perhaps view in a different way, to give  you freedom and allow you to get to a place of peace, then today would be the day to rest and do the necessary processes to get to peace about the situation.  Think about it:   if you were to forgive, it would make you feel better about  things. 

We all have roads to travel.  And we travel those roads to get to where we are today.  So many times I hear people declare:  “I’m not traveling down THAT road again!  It didn’t work!”  But if  you hadn’t traveled down that road, you wouldn’t be where you are today.  Are you grateful for where you are today?  Are you limiting yourself by buying into a story that happened previously?  These are the kinds of questions you can contemplate during  your time of rest.  Then you can decide how to proceed in a way that best serves you.

Take your time of rest and heal, for tomorrow will be a new beginning with new possibilities!

A fantastic storm came through town yesterday, it snowed all day long.  Today I awoke to several feet of new snow, freshly flocked trees and a winter wonderland.  As I gazed through my window it occurred to me that storms are quite necessary in the over all scheme of things.  They bring the moisture that is necesssary for our region to survive, and they bring snow, which in this area during the winter, is very necessary economically.  We all benefit from the storms that come our way.

Just as our  region benefits from the storms that pass through, so can our lives.  We all have storms in our lives and we can benefit from them.  Or not.  It’s up to us.  I think the temptation is to sometimes use the storms as reasons to limit ourselves.  We take those storms, make them the stories of our lives, and declare that we are never going to do that again.  The only problem with that is that we limit ourselves when we do.

Wouldn’t it be better to examine the possible benefits of the storm and use that to enrich our lives?

Take a look at where you might be today if you hadn’t weathered any given storm in your life.  What lesson would you have missed?  What aspect of the wonder that is you would be missing today if you hadn’t done all you’ve done, and gone through all you’ve gone through?

Examine your storms today,  and see if you can’t extract the lessons from them, release the negative feelings that may be surrounding them, and use those storms to enrich your life.

Lately there’s been a lot  of talk about humility in the places I go and with the people I see.  The last three classes/book studies/meetings, the talk turned to  humility.

I did a bit of research on the net, and it was no surprise to me to discover that most definitions of humility contain words like self abasement.  I totally disagree with all of those definitions. 

I think humility is a wonderful thing, if viewed from a different perspective.  Years ago, someone gave me a leaflet.  It’s unattributed, if anyone knows where it came from let me know  I have it in a frame on my desk at the studio.  This is what it says:

“Humility is perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no troule.  It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore; to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing against me.  It is to be at reast when nobody praises me, and when I am despised, it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret, and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness when all around and about is seeming trouble.”

Over the years I have taken this saying and applied it to my life with a New Thought twist, of course.  I do have a blessed home inside myself, and I go there quite regularly, but it is not necessary for me to kneel to myself.  I do not have a God separate from me, it is within me.  I do not consider Spirit my father, nor do I call it a name with a gender.  You can determine whether it is appropriate for you to kneel to go to that blessed home within yourself.

I think humility has to do with honesty.  All of this introspection we do, the journaling, the looking at ourselves, exploring our reactions, our thought patterns, discerning our part in things; if we look at ourselves honestly, without boasting and without shaming, that, I think, is humility.  To be able to honestly know who and what we are, who and what we are worth, to acknowledge the good and change the bad without shame, that is humility.

Whatever your concept of God is, I do not think that magnificent being ever wants us to feel ashamed, less than or unworthy.   In fact, I think that is the exact opposite of humility.  In hanging on to feelings of unworthiness or shame or guilt, we are feeding that side of us which would keep us in bondage to lack, limitation, or unhealthy behavior.  I do not think that is our reason for being, and I do not think that any conceptual idea of God would want us to feel or be that way.  I think that in honoring ourselves, we also honor God.  When we are honest with ourselves about who and what we really are, and are able to acknowledge when something is no longer working for us, and then work to change it without shame, that is humility.

Let’s change humility from a dirty word to a wonderful word, a word filled with good stuff, with sacred meaning that will bring us closer to peace and understanding of ourselves and our concept of God. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic!  If you don’t want to post a comment publicly for all to see, then send me an email!

In my practice, I work with people who come to me because they feel some sort of lack in their life.  Most of them are from a very traditional religion, and feel shamed, abandoned and let down by their religion and by the God of that religion.  But they are seeking something, even if they don’t know what it is.  They know there has to be something more to life than what they have now.

There is a difference between religion and spirituality.  With spirituality, you get no rules, no dogma, no shame.  Just  peace.

There IS something more to life than simply abandoning your religion because it did not serve you well.  You can find a god that works for you, a god that has nothing to do with religion, if that is what you want.

Start by thinking about what a god would look like to you.  God is indefinable.  Yet we still try to define it.  I think we need to have a name for it, I think we need to know what it feels like to have a god in our lives, and I think we need to be able to describe it to ourselves.  It’s limiting, but it’s a start.  For once you have a description, you have the beginnings of a god in your life, and you  can start to get glimmers of peace.

Spend some  time each day in quiet contemplation and actively connect with that idea you have begun to formulate.  Know that whatever you think god is, whatever role you want god to play in your life, that is what is.  There are no expectations from god.  God wants for you what you want for  you, so go for it.  Dream big!

Consider using the services of a Practitioner to help you with this.  This is one of my specialties, and I’m very good at it.

Whatever you do, don’t go through life anymore with that feeling of missing something.  It’s not necessary, and you deserve better.

With a New Year comes a consciousness of change.  I’m seeing evidence of it in many of my friends and clients.  We’ve just completed what was a challenging year for many, and so the New Year in a time like this also brings hope.

But what I’m seeing is that with the consciousness of change and hope are also some other feelings:  sadness, guilt, confusion.  It is normal to feel these things in times of change.  It is normal to question yourself:  what if?  how come? 

But we  don’t have to suffer with these feelings.   Simply acknowledge them and know the truth. 

Even that is a bit easier said than done sometimes.  But there are tools and resources available to help with the decision making process in times of change.

Talking it over with another person is invaluble.  Not to look for advice from that person, but to air things out, get it off our chest, and get a different perspective on things. 

Journaling is also a big help. There is magic in writing things down.  It also helps to clear the mind of confusion.

Meditation or quiet time is something our spirit needs regularly, and during times of change even more of that is needed to achieve or maintain peace and clarity of thought.

I believe that we sometimes fear change because  we don’t trust.  We don’t trust that all is well, and all will be well.  But if we take the time to connect with Spirit, whatever our concept of that is, and to know that the messages we are recieving from Spirit are guiding us in the right direction, we need not fear. 

We can move forward with excitement and hope.

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Treasure Map Playshop! Saturday, January 30th. Cost is $29 plus $5 materials charge. We will spend the playing, coloring, pasting, talking, laughing and experiencing profound moments! Contact me for more info and to register.

Today is the first  day of not only a new year, but a new decade. 

Most of us are making decisions as to how we want to change in this new  year.  I’ve been writing, updating my lists of things to do, mulling over some decisions.  I no longer make New Year’s resolutions, as I have found that practice is simply a way to beat myself up.  What I do each year at this time is review:  what is working in my life, and what isn’t?  Then I head in the direction of doing more of that which is working, and less of that which isn’t.

But mostly I turn within at this time of year. I have been spending a lot of time alone lately, by choice, doing the introspection and spiritual stuff that is so necessary to peace in my life.  I’ve been planning and thinking up cool stuff which I will share with you later in the  post.

So I ask you:  have you made some New Year’s resolutions?  Are they the same ones you make every year, having not followed through with it last year?  Are you feeling some guilt or shame behind that?  Why not do it differently this time?

Instead, make a list of how you would like your life to be.  Make sure to include inside stuff:  how you want to be and feel.  And also  include outside stuff: career, relationship, health.  After you’ve described how you want your  life to be, then write the steps you think it will take to get there.  Then your  job becomes to implement those steps.  Sometimes there is nothing on the outside  to be done, just an inner acknowledgement and a joining with Spirit in declaring your intention is sufficient.  And sometimes you might need assistance doing what you want to do or getting where you want to go.  If that is the case, don’t hesitate to give yourself the gift of asking for help.

If you have been reading this post for a while, you know that I am a licensed Practitioner, and that one of the things I do is help people.  I provide  Practitioner sessions in my Center at Lake Tahoe, or I can meet you in the Center in Carson City.  Contact me if you want more information about this.  I think you will find that I can, in a very short time, help you get past what is stopping you from achieving your dreams.

Another thing I do is workshops, only I call them Playshops!  So, I will be scheduling a series of Playshops this year, and the first one is all set to go:  Saturday, January 30, we will be Treasure Mapping!  I’ve got some great plans for this day of play so I hope you will join us!  You can register by calling me at 530-906-9336, or by using the Pay Pal button on my web site.  Cost for the Playshop if you preregister is $34 ($29 for the Playshop and $5 for materials).  If you wait till the day of the Playshop to register, cost goes up by $5. 

On tap for February is a Spiritual Practices Day.  We will talk about meditation and other spiritual practices, and work through any blocks which prevent you from regularly implementing spiritual practices in your life.

I’ve got some other exciting things planned as well so stay tuned!  And if there is a subject you wish to cover in a Playshop, let me know!

There’s been a lot of talk about light going on these days.  Solstice is  just around the corner, the shortest day of the year on December 21.  Then the days will start getting longer and longer until we are seeing sunsets around 9 pm!  Don’t you just love the long days of summer?  But now, in these short days, when there is so much to be done:  celebrating, getting ready, cooking, planning, attending holiday parties, it seems as if the days are entirely too short.

It’s nature’s way of calling to us, telling us to slow down, take a rest.  Many people have celebrations on December 21, the solstice.  The significance of the shortest day of the year, and the timing of it, coming  just before Christmas, is not lost on many of us.  The 21st falls on a Monday this year.  What will you do to celebrate? What will you do to honor the cycles of nature?  Those cycles are repeated within each of us, so it is wise to honor that.  Perhaps you will attend one of the Solstice celebrations going on?  Or perhaps  you will stay home, light some candles, and quietly rejoice in your life, and contemplate your plan for renewal? 

 Once Christmas Day has come and gone, it will then be time for us to take that time to rest, contemplate, renew, refresh, rejuvenate.  It will be time to transition from contemplation our renewal plans to formulating them.  It’s a process:  there’s not really enough time now to sit down and write plans, but we can start thinking about them.  Then after Christmas we can start the process of how we will to implement them.

Starting December 22, I will be doing a ten day blog post here.  It’s called the Season of Illumination, and it comes to us from the mind of a woman named Sunday Cote’.  It is unique, fun, rewarding, and might just set you on the path of your own Illumination!

After that, it will be January and I plan to implement a discussion about approaching the first step of twelve step programs from a metaphysical point of view.  I’ve already got some comments, questions, thoughts and ideas, but there’s always room for more!

So we are embarking on an exciting time.  Solstice, Christmas, then the quiet time of renewal and contemplation.  I’m looking forward to it!

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I was sitting in the silence this morning, as I do most every morning, waiting for a topic for this morning’s post to come to me, and it occurred to me to remind you that you can be, do, achieve anything you want!  Yep, that’s right, there are no limits!  Sometimes I have to remind myself of this.  In fact, much of what I write here, I write because I need to remind myself.  Limitation is one of my biggies.  There’s a quote that’s been making the rounds, and I forget who said it, but it says that if you insist on arguing for your limitations, you will get them!

Do you argue for your limitations?  I like to think that I don’t, but when I experience limitations in my life, it tells me that obviously I have some more work to do.  Do you set up obstacle courses for yourself?  Do you, perhaps, tell  yourself that you could never do (fill in the blank) because you aren’t (fill in the blank again!)?

I don’t think I set up obstacle courses.  My mom, when she was alive, used to be great at that.  I remember once she was unemployed and had a job offer at a place that she really liked.  She turned down the job because it was about 30 miles down a freeway one way to get there.  She said it was too far away.  I was driving past that area over the weekend and it reminded me of the obstacles she used to set up for herself.  There was a lot of “I can’t do that because” in her life.  That, from a woman who also told me I should never let society tell me I couldn’t do or be anything I wanted just because I was a woman!  Ah, the dichotomies we set up for  ourselves! Anyway, of course I always go out of my way to make sure that I don’t do what my mother used to do.  But don’t we sometimes carry the traits of our parents into our lives, without wanting to or meaning to?  And, think about this:  it’s a spiritual law that if you spot it,  you got it.  In other words, judgement is a sign that we need to look inward at the very thing we judging someone else about.

I have made progress though.  There was a time when I thought my skill and ability as a photographer was worthless.  Really.  I still carry a bit of that around, but mostly I’ve been able to get to a point where I know I’m good.  Always room for improvement of course, but knowing I’m good is a good place to be.

So, if you are setting up some limits in your life, I thought perhaps you might like to know how to get rid of that.  How did I get from worthless photographer to good?   Here’s some  key points:

1.  Help.  I have mentors.  Lots and lots of them.  I have spiritual mentors (Practitioners and others, folks who may or may not believe the same thing as me spiritually, but are there for me and willing to listen), professional mentors (other photographers), and friends who know me and are quick to point out their own observations of what is happening in my world (but only when I ask, which is quite healthy of them!).  I’ve also been known to see a therapist upon occasion, but that hasn’t been necessary in a long time.  As I progess in my careers (yep, you read that right, plural), I find that it gets more and more difficult to ask for help, but in reality asking for help is the greatest gift we can give ourselves.  And the helpers are always honored to be asked.

2.  Self exploration and self talk.  I’ve gone within and explored what my beliefs and opinions of myself are.  I’ve looked at the outside manifestations of my beliefs, and then worked to change the ones that no longer serve me.  It involves paying attention to what I am thinking and feeling.  This involves a certain amount of living in the now.  You can’t pay attention to yourself if you are regretting the past or worrying about the future!  Self talk goes something like this:  “thank you for sharing, but we don’t think like that anymore.  Now, let’s go do something positive.”  I literally distract the attention of the naysayers in my mind (I call them the little girls) to something more positive.  It’s like distracting a little kid.  I use affirmations a lot too.  Responsible acts build self esteem.  That’s one that I remind myself of regularly.

3.  I have come to a point where I know that I am not my feelings and thoughts.  This is quite a feat for someone who believes, as most people in the New Thought world do, that what we believe, think and feel manifests as outside circumstances.  I do believe that, but what I mean when I say I am not my feelings and thoughts is this:  when, through self exploration and paying attention, I realize that I am thinking and feeling something that is not productive to my good, I know those thoughts and feelings are not the true me, I don’t  have to react to them, and I don’t have to accept them as real.  I can change them.  Sometimes I need help with this, and this is where the mentors come in.

4.  I do not affirm my limitations!  At least not consciously.  It’s working at the deeper levels of course that I must still have some, otherwise I wouldn’t be experiencing limits in my life. 

5.  Faith.  Here’s where I lose some of you.  I know this.  Most of the folks I work with come to me because they see my faith, they see the peace and the happiness I have, no matter what, and they want that.  But somehow when it gets down to it, faith is a difficult concept for many.  How do you teach someone to have faith?  To know, at all levels, without a doubt, that all  is well and all will continue to be well, in spite of sometimes outside appearances to the contrary?