The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
― Gloria SteinemMost people who know me say that I am calm. I think my tendency is to be able to see several sides of a situation and be to accepting. I have a good sense of taking responsibility for myself and looking at my side of a situation and how I have contributed to the problem.
I have been processing the last week. I found…
The Ugly Duckling
“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
November 1843, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Ugly Duckling was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This amazing fairy tale has been read and re-read by adults and children alike, all over the world.
The story, as you probably know, is about a baby bird raised by a mother duck in a flock of other ducklings. The bird was teased and bullied unmercifully throughout his life, because he looked different and behaved differently. As an adult, the bird sought out and joined a flock of swans finding them to be beautiful birds. Although he expected the same abuse, the swans were open to his joining with them and they accept him. One day this ugly duck saw his reflection in the water and realized he was not an ugly duck at all, but really was a beautiful swan. He found his flock and fit right in. He was transformed.
Common to all of us is the desire to be heard, seen and understood. Many of us can relate to this archetypal story of not fitting in and finding ourselves teased, attacked or excluded. We continued to look for and hoped to find “our people”, our flock or our tribe. In the journey of doing so, we often changed our opinions or beliefs. Sometimes we gave up our voice and became silent, all in an attempt to fit in.
So often I hear someone telling another person what “the truth” is and insist on what they “should” be doing or thinking. Communication becomes about what is right or wrong. Opinions become polarized and those who do not agree with either the loudest voice or the group voice can be intimidated, shamed or alienated.
Over the years, the precious beliefs developed as young people get lost in the mass of voices and one’s self-esteem takes a hit. So often when working with clients, the undercurrent of their situation is a feeling of being unworthy or undeserving. How others have treated them guides their beliefs about themselves.
What would happen if, instead of stating your opinion and telling someone what you think, you asked the person to explain more about what they were saying? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how your relationships change if you went into conversations with the sole purpose of understanding their point of view. How would your posture change if you were there just to receive, to just hear the story?
My focus is on Relationship for 2014. Join with me in practicing, “just listening!”
Now, there will be times to share your opinion and have debates of course, and to enjoy the fun and creativity of a dispute, but let’s change it up a bit. Think about a few people in your life that are important to you. Make a conscious choice to have a couple conversations with them where you just “hold the space” for their musings, for their sharing, for how they see the world. Experience them deeply. Look into their eyes and be present to them. Give them the gift of being heard, seen, and understood. Bring them into your fold and see them as the swan they truly are. Allow your loved ones to be transformed by the incredible generosity of your listening.
Candess M. Campbell, PhD is the #1 Best-selling author of 12 Weeks to Self-Healing: Transforming Pain through Energy Medicine. She is an international Psychic Medium, Intuitive Consultant, Speaker, and has practiced as a mental health and chemical dependency counselor for over 30 years.
You can also find this article in the January issue of Live Encounters Magazine!
The Ugly Duckling
“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
November 1843, Hans Christian Andersen’s story, The Ugly Duckling was published in Copenhagen, Denmark. This amazing fairy tale has been read and re-read by adults and children alike, all over the world.
The story, as you probably know, is about a baby bird raised by a mother duck in a flock of other ducklings. The bird was teased and bullied unmercifully throughout his life, because he looked different and behaved differently. As an adult, the bird sought out and joined a flock of swans finding them to be beautiful birds. Although he expected the same abuse, the swans were open to his joining with them and they accept him. One day this ugly duck saw his reflection in the water and realized he was not an ugly duck at all, but really was a beautiful swan. He found his flock and fit right in. He was transformed.
Common to all of us is the desire to be heard, seen and understood. Many of us can relate to this archetypal story of not fitting in and finding ourselves teased, attacked or excluded. We continued to look for and hoped to find “our people”, our flock or our tribe. In the journey of doing so, we often changed our opinions or beliefs. Sometimes we gave up our voice and became silent, all in an attempt to fit in.
So often I hear someone telling another person what “the truth” is and insist on what they “should” be doing or thinking. Communication becomes about what is right or wrong. Opinions become polarized and those who do not agree with either the loudest voice or the group voice can be intimidated, shamed or alienated.
Over the years, the precious beliefs developed as young people get lost in the mass of voices and one’s self-esteem takes a hit. So often when working with clients, the undercurrent of their situation is a feeling of being unworthy or undeserving. How others have treated them guides their beliefs about themselves.
What would happen if, instead of stating your opinion and telling someone what you think, you asked the person to explain more about what they were saying? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see how your relationships change if you went into conversations with the sole purpose of understanding their point of view. How would your posture change if you were there just to receive, to just hear the story?
My focus is on Relationship for the New Year. I challenge you in the month of January, and hopefully throughout the year, to practice “just listening.”
Now, there will be times to share your opinion and have debates of course, and to enjoy the fun and creativity of a dispute, but let’s change it up a bit. Think about a few people in your life that are important to you. Make a conscious choice to have a couple conversations with them where you just “hold the space” for their musings, for their sharing, for how they see the world. Experience them deeply. Look into their eyes and be present to them. Give them the gift of being heard, seen, and understood. Bring them into your fold and see them as the swan they truly are. Allow your loved ones to be transformed by the incredible generosity of your listening.
Response to Racism
This is a response to last week’s blog which I emailed to my subscribers. I received several comments back and this one, from Dennis Thomas I find important to share. I agree with him completely and he said it much better than I could have!
Hello Candess,
I have always enjoyed listening to you or reading some of your work and I am ever grateful that you offer this to me on a regular basis. This message you sent made me pause and consider as I too was raised in a family with a “racist” father as well as two grandfathers that were active members of the KKK and very proud of it. I too went through a time when I needed to make a choice; whether to continue with their stories or to create my own in regards to race and separation. I chose to create my own path, although it alienated some of my family, and moved me towards a better understanding of acceptance. At least that is what I believed.
Now over the many years of observing and watching the goings on of the world, I have moved into a belief that for us to find the Oneness that you mentioned we must not only understand it (clarity) but also experience it (liberation). When we changed our story, which we both chose to do, we decided that racism was bad and non-racism was good. Just a story change, nothing more. When we examined that part of our fathers that we believed was incorrect (racist) and needed healing, we did nothing more than judge one belief over another; my story is more aligned with Truth than my father’s. I am more evolved, more enlightened. In time even that seemed insufficient. I then believed that neither one was wrong. I believed that if I backed away from the “out there” experiences as a silent witness then my state of “awareness” was my actual self and I could see that all of those experiences that were creating happiness or suffering were nothing more than an illusion. I had moved from an actor in the illusion to a being in awareness of the illusion.
A lot of spiritual seekers stop at this point and become observers, believing that all is an illusion (no-thing) and tell themselves that their pain and suffering is not real, yet at the time, it seems real. But the one who has experienced Oneness moves deeper into the Truth and realizes that everything is real and not real at the same time. No-thing, appearing as everything, returning to no-thing. He knows that he is part of everything and everything is part of him; racism, no-racism, terror, pain, suffering, joy, kindness, compassion and so on. All the same stuff, all Truth. No bad, no good, just Being expressing Itself as Being.
We might use the ocean as a metaphor. We are all of the ocean and the individual waves as part of that ocean seem to express a differentiation that leads us towards an idea of separation. Some of the waves might appear as angry and crash into the surf with harsh expression and some of the waves move with the rhythms of the cosmos; in harmony and peace. We want to judge the angry waves as conflicting and disruptive while we accept the others that are more in alignment with our beliefs. But, to find Oneness we must find that part of our Being that knows that all of the waves are nothing more than the ocean itself in its perfection, expressing itself as itself. We must find ourselves in the racist and non-racist, the act of racism, the emotions that evolve from racism and all of the space in between. And, when we find ourselves in all things then we will truly experience Oneness.
I will end this note with a piece from Jeff Foster’s book, The Deepest Acceptance. “The true end of suffering come from the recognition of this total intimacy with life itself- in other words, the deep acceptance of “everything” appearing in experience. In this deep acceptance, mind and heart are one. Nothing is everything; they are never two separate things. Mental clarity and certainty give way to deep acceptance of this moment. And there, the war ends.”
Have a great day, Dennis Thomas, DVM
Wasn’t that great! My deepest gratitude to Dennis!
Candess
The Saboteur’s Moon (Understanding Karma)
I am delighted to share with you this great information about the Saboteur’s Moon by Jon Waldrup, an Incarnational Astrologer. This is especially significant to me because I work with Karma and Clearing Karma. He explains it so well!
The first Full Moon of 2012 is tonight, January 8th at 11:30 PM Pacific Time. This is the Saboteur’s Moon. It wants to help us see how we compromise our heart-knowing in order to be comfortable, functional, accepted, etc. It wants to show us how allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable and exposed by our truth helps to set us free. For whenever we do ignore our heart’s truth in favor of fitting in, we close the karmic loop and make sure we go for another lap.
And with the Sun in Capricorn, what we would prefer to say is that our heart’s truth is always loving and light, so why would we ever disguise it? And how could there be shadow in our hearts?
There are so many angles to come from on that. If Romeo and Juliet is the world’s greatest love story then fatal co-dependence is love? I would say probably not, but it is a story of two people who lived from their hearts. They were certainly not afraid of being vulnerable, were they?
One of the shadow aspects of 20th century spirituality had to do with how many ways we were taught to suppress our karma, rather than live in it. Karma itself was given a bad name – who wants to deal with karma? The truth is that karma is actually the bridge between fate and destiny. It wants to help us to live Alive in Heaven on Earth.
If you are driving your car through an intersection and someone runs a red light and creams you, this is an example of Fate. The karmic piece of it has to do with how you deal with the emotions involved in the aftermath. Fate gives you the opportunity to work with your karma in order for you to grow towards your destiny.
Your karma is the particular tone of the shadow you are working with in this lifetime – rage, depression, dependence, etc. The karmic piece is the emotional piece. Our destiny is to understand the oneness, the perfection, of all of life – including fate and karma. Then we are on the spiral instead of the wheel.
So, it was fate that brought Romeo and Juliet together, so that they could explore the shadows of co-dependent love. And they did! And that is what makes their story so compelling. There is so much about their story that we could call unhealthy – we can look down on such organic, emotional, exposed ways of being.
But is that life? Why did your soul choose to come in to this plane, to have a heart that can be broken, that can lead you astray, that can expose you to shame and torment? Fate gives you the chance to live in your heart. Karma seeks to teach you that Life itself is Heavenly.
What I think is that because he went “all the way” with what his heart was asking him to do in response to the fateful relationship with Juliet, in his next life, perhaps Romeo was able to live quivering inside with gratitude for having had the chance to love so deeply – he was able to taste the anguish of loss and find it delicious. He was able to move beyond regret.
Will you accept The Invitation? Or will you live on the wheel of emotional avoidance?
Here is a smaller example. What if you know one thing and say another? Maybe something that you’ve expressed as truth for a long time turns out to be false. Maybe you’ve put a lot of heart into a certain moralistic stance and new experience points out the failings of your dogmatism. There is real vulnerability in admitting that you were wrong. And yet if you can, if you do, life springs forth from that and you find yourself further up the spiral.
The wisest person I have ever spoken with said to me, “I am most grateful for those times in my life when I was most out of control.” In other words, when the shadows in his heart came out, when he was most vulnerable to that sanitized, patriarchal way of looking at things that wants us to remain “in control” (i.e. Sun in Capricorn). Sometimes we have to say we’re sorry. So that we may grow.
The Saboteur is in us to point out ways in which we hide our truth. The patriarchal response to that is to suppress those aspects of ourselves which are outside the comfort zone. In that way of looking at things, those who live “with their heart on their sleeve” are to be looked down upon.
The truth is in your heart, and keeping it hidden keeps you on the wheel. When you express your truth, you go up the spiral.
This Full Moon, the first of 2012, is helping us to see how we have kept our truth hidden so that we may live within a dying civilization. How many laps on the wheel does it take to show us that the comfortable ways are getting us nowhere?
Tonight at 11:30 PM Pacific Time, the Moon, who teaches us our karma, is in the 19th Degree of Cancer. The Chandra symbol for this degree is, “An opossum comes out into the moonlight.” Let your vulnerable heart be seen. Allow yourself to experience your emotions, and to find life itself through them. Oh, it can hurt! Are you afraid?
Believe in Heaven, and that is what you will see.
Jon Waldrup
Incarnational Astrologer
(208) 290-8578
jon@senseofvisionastrology.com
www.senseofvisionastrology.com
Enjoy the moon tonight!
Bless your heart,
Candess
Changing Beliefs in the New Year
As we think about New Year’s Resolutions, it seems to me in order to end the year with the desires we chart at the beginning of the year, we need to change our beliefs. Valerie Lipstein, a Results Specialist, Certified Coach and Consultant has agreed to share with us about changing Beliefs!
Valerie, there are so many people today who are hoping to make changes in their lives by changing their beliefs. I understand you teach about changing beliefs. What do you teach?
I love this topic and believe it’s one of the biggest stumbling blocks to our success. Our beliefs are so powerful and they affect around 80% of our behavior and the results we get. In fact, the Law of Cause and Effect says that our results are reflective of our thinking yet many still believe that their results are the cause of some outside force or circumstance. It is true that many people want to make changes, however without knowing about and learning how to re-program the subconscious mind imprinting it with what they really desire, most people do not change. They become frustrated and look at outside circumstances as the culprit.
You must understand the concepts first and then have strategies and practices to shift outdated, ineffective and destructive paradigms. Thinking authentically and asking empowering questions are two powerful strategies. Most people think shallow thoughts and their results in life are reflective of this.
Situations occur all the time. We often label them “good” or “bad.” We are unhappy when things seem bad yet once we get in harmony with the immutable laws of the universe we realize that situations are really neutral. It’s our surface mind that attaches the labels which can keep us in our prisons; all the while we only need to push the door open and walk outside.
We look at our beliefs and challenge the dis-empowering ones. We really live in an abundant universe. To know this truth and live from it is very powerful and will create success. It is a practice and takes discipline. There is not a lack of resources on this planet, yet there are millions who live in poverty; all the while abundance exists. The problem is with distribution, awareness, and perhaps greed.
In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles speaks about this being the hardest work we ever can do, “To think what you want to think is to think TRUTH regardless of appearances….To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work man is called upon to perform.”
My mentor, Mary Morrissey, says that “we don’t deny the facts; we deny the facts to control us.” When we allow the outside circumstances to control how we feel and act we are dis-empowered.
Many people do not have a direction for their lives, living by default doing what they have always done yet not really thriving. It’s like sleep walking through life. I experienced this for almost a decade until my wake-up call.
I support people to get a crystal clear vision of the life they would love to live and support them to get their results. Success starts with a strong desire for something. We look at longings and discontent and start there as these are powerful signals that a person is out of alignment with their true nature. We look at 5 domains: Financial well-being, spirituality, relationships, career/creativity and health/well-being.
What are the most important behaviors to assure that changing one’s beliefs can impact their lives on a daily basis?
- Foremost, pay attention to what you are paying attention to. Our subconscious mind reads our attention as our intention. We will create our results from this mode.
- Be in a structure of support, it is very difficult to do this work without support. Mastermind groups, mentoring, being around people of increase awareness
- Study daily and be a life long learner-successful people are open and receptive to new ideas and are willing to challenge themselves
- Practice Gratitude-gratitude is at the heart of successful people’s lives. This is not kindergarten gratitude for things we have or when things are good. This is gratitude in all situations, which is transforming
- Have a daily practice to quiet the mind-Intuition can only be accessed when we are open and receptive.
What is the belief you changed that had the biggest impact in your life?
I was living my life by default in 2005 and felt stuck. On the one hand I had been studying spiritual and personal growth principles and had made some advancement. Yet, I did not fully grasp the concept of how powerful our habitual thinking can be. I was working as a Social Worker at a state agency, making good money with great medical benefits. I looked successful and felt horrible. I was living for Fridays and dreading Mondays. Being raised in a family where safety and security were valued over passion and creativity, I adopted this belief. My parents were products of the depression. You stay at your job even if you don’t like it because you get that weekly paycheck. My rationale mind didn’t agree, yet my subconscious mind ruled. The belief was affecting my whole life, yet I didn’t know it. All I knew was that I was unhappy and felt STUCK. I had lost my passion for social work yet I had excuses and rationalizations for staying.
Bob Proctor said, “You can’t get out of a prison unless you know you are in one.” It took a life changing phone call to snap me out of my prison. My best friend I had known since I was 17 died suddenly, she was only 52. Susan was living from her passion, however, when she died. I had a choice; I knew intuitively I had to take it or I would continue to live in my prison. My prison was my thinking. Once I changed my thinking, realizing that I could create a life I loved and did not have to “settle”, my whole world changed. Now I do work that I love, making a difference in the world by supporting others to live from their passion. Most days I wake up and can honestly say, “I really love my life.” What a gift! I am so grateful for the opportunity I was given to begin again.
What services do you have available to assist others in this important practice?
I offer individual and group coaching programs. They include Think & Grow Rich Masterminds, The DreamBuilder™, Working with the Law™ and Into Your Genius™. Additional services include quarterly seminars and motivational speaking.
You can reach Valerie at
Phone: 509-869-0255
Email: info@inspiredlivingforyou.com
Website: www.inspiredlivingforyou.com