Shifting Relationship to Partnership

Hello Beautiful Infinite Beings!

I have been doing a lot of new inner work with the Divine Mother in the last three months. One of the things She has brought to my attention is the word "partnership" and it's distinctive meaning. Goddess invited me to consider the distinction between what it means to be in relationship, as well as what it means to be in partnership. I sat with each word and contemplated all the associations I have with each word.

As I sat with the word relationship, I noticed there is an inherent lack of choice hidden in that word for me and it is experienced as kind of a "static" given. In other-words, it conjures for me a set of governing rules that I have unconsciously adopted from my family, friends, peers, and the mainstream media. These rules were inherited, not consciously chosen by me. They answer the question, "Who or what am I ... in relation to - that over there. How will I respond to "that over there." It seems to draw lines of separation and urge me to compare this to that, myself to them, the past with the present, and the present with my imaginings of the future. It has a static quality that demands its use in any situation - regardless of the subtle nuances of my here/now experience. It conjures for me a sense of helplessness, lack of personal contemplation, and personal choice. It also seems to bear a sense of duty. Like, "I don't like this but this is what is RIGHT to do." This notion offends my soul.

As I sat with this new word, partnership, a very different set of associations revealed themselves to me. I could see that partnership is inclusive and generates harmony, sharing, flow, commitment, peace, happiness, co-creation, care, attentiveness, responsible stewardship, and active choice. For me, partnership is a set of agreements I have thoughtfully and consciously entered into with myself for how I will co-create with all aspects of myself and the world around me. It honors connection by acknowledging that how I think and choose to act - affects everything around me ... because it is all a part of me and I a part of it. Everything I create, be it words, actions, non-actions, or choices generates consequences for myself and everything else.

So, I began to exchange the word relationship for partnership. When I did this, it transformed how I see and hold my world. It infused me with a deeper understanding of my own responsibility and accountability for what I create. Now I create partnership with all aspects of myself and my life. I have a partnership of emotion which has transformed the way I experience even the most unsavory of these.

For example, I have created and developed a partnership with my fears. Instead of experiencing fear as an undesirable emotion, I now have a relation to it of partnership where it acts as an ally to signal me it is time to shift my awareness.

Sometimes this shift is aimed at creating actions which will transform an area of my life that is out of balance. Other times it acts as a signal to me that I have climbed aboard the worry-go-round and am future-casting or living in a past experience. It reminds me that I have shifted out of the now and allows me to choose to come back into the present moment. When in the present moment, it becomes clear that the fear is unsubstantiated. What was true then, is not true here and now. Just because it was true then, does not in any way mean it is or will be true now. I have choice. I am a powerful creator and I may choose to create my experiences any way I desire. I am not at the effect of my story. I begin from a deep internal sense of Whole and Complete, and I move my energy out into the world through my creations. The outcome I have experienced in the past, is free to be just that. (a past experience)

Goddess showed me that partnership transforms any emotion previously experienced as undesirable, into a powerful ally.

What are some of the ways in which you have transformed difficult emotions into allies?

OR

In what areas of your life experience do you consciously create partnership and when did that way of BEING with your own life begin? How were you introduced to it?

Copyright © 2012 Sophlili Achnil for Xstatic Now

Kids 10 Minute Belly Breathing Meditation

Belly Breathing for just ten minutes a day will add one more tool to your child's emotional toolbox and help them increase their attention span. Your kids will feel happier and more relaxed in 10 minutes or less, and this skill will serve them their whole life. This is an especially useful tool for parents of children who struggle with expressing appropriate levels of anger and are still learning effective methods of self expression.

For children with a longer concentration span, aim to build up to 10 minutes for this exercise.
For younger children and toddlers, even 3 to 5 breaths is magnificent. Make it fun!

Kids 10 Minute Belly Breathing Meditation

1. You may sit or stand for this - it really makes no difference. 
2. Simply make sure you have straight backs, relaxed shoulders, and your chins tucked in a little, to relax your neck.
3. If you are working with little ones, it will be more fun for them when they can see their belly moving. Place your hands on your belly - just above your belly button, and have them do a little monkey see, monkey do. You want the tips of your middle fingers to be touching lightly, as you exhale and your belly is pushed towards your back.
4. As you breathe in, allow your belly to expand your fingertips will move apart.
5. When you breathe out again, your belly will go back towards your spine and your fingertips will go back together. 
6. A variation for bringing kids awareness of their breath is to lay on your backs and place a toy on each tummy so they can watch the rise and fall of the toy.
7. Another variation to the belly breath is the Balloon Breath.  Have your child imagine that their belly is a balloon.  Ask them the color of the balloon.  Have them experience the balloon growing larger, then smaller, with each breath in, then out.
8. Continue breathing together, for as long as they can hold their attention.

If you’re interested in Mindfulness for Kids, we’d love to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter!

90 to Joyful: How to Transform an Amygdalla Hijack into The Joy Response

As we all know, what we think about influences our emotional state. Holding positive thoughts can become a real challenge when our amygdalla (the part of our brain responsible for cueing us to danger) gets hijacked by someone, or something, pressing one of our hot buttons. These hijacks last 90 seconds - during which time, our ability to shut them down is severely impaired, or is it? What can be done?

It's not like we can break in the middle of a board meeting for a 20 minute meditation to bring us back to our joy. Even a two minute break may not always be possible in the moment. When internal worry or external circumstances cause us to experience excessive stress, the amygdalla releases a flood of chemicals into our bloodstream that activate the fight or flight response system responsible for protecting us from harm. When these chemicals start to flow, there is actually a physical sensation that can be observed at the base of the skull. The pulse quickens, the mind races, the breath catches and causes us to breathe shallow in the upper part of our lungs. Awareness of this breath is the key to freedom!
 
There's a reason that so many spiritual traditions direct our focus to our breath. Breath is the regulator of emotion. If you pay close attention, every emotion has its own breathing pattern.

We can learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of an amygdala hijack and use it as a mental cue to check our breath. Practice learning to identify the Amygdala Hijack breathing pattern. I promise, it's pretty easy once you call your attention to it. Once you have learned to identify it, you can make good use of its signals. Once identified, you can use this physical cue to circumvent the hijack and gain a new level of mastery over your emotions. Access to this mastery is found in your breath.

As soon as you notice you are being hijacked, breathe deep into your belly and on the exhale say to yourself: "This hijack is not needed. I choose joy. I choose peace. I am not at the effect of my emotions. I am love."

Babies breathe from their bellies naturally. 

The first few breaths will remain shallow, quick, and uneven. Don't let this worry you. Simply keep Belly Breathing. In the space of a few breaths you will become aware that your breath is calming you. Continue the belly breath until you notice that your anger/despair/fear/distress has passed and you are back in your joy.

If when upset, you tend to be a barker (Say rash things) you're going to need to make and keep an agreement with yourself to "Pause for the Cause". In other words, wait to say anything until you are back in your joy. This may be quite challenging to begin with and you may find yourself needing to stop in mid-sentence. This is OK. It's better to stop here than not stop at all. Go easy on yourself. This takes practice. Stay dedicated to your goal.

As your mastery increases a new sense of confidence in your ability to keep yourself safe will emerge. This in turn will feed your ability to continue your practice. Then one day, you will notice that your response to most stressful situations is no longer panic, and instead, it has been replaced by a joy response.


(The Joy Response™ is a trademark of Xstatic Now. All Rights Reserved. © Xstatic Now 2012)

Water Talk

The Mushroom Cap of Anger and Fear

Making over my bathroom today. Nothing serious, just a little long over-due decorating. The crystals whispered to me earlier today; "We all want to be in your bathroom. You need us there right now. Besides, we love the close proximity with water."

They were right, having them close and at the ready on the fly is exactly what I need. Some of that old pain and anger has been playing trixy with my mind today. Four years of work on this issue and it still gets me sometimes. Surprised, I caught myself deep in "stinking thinking today."

Gosh, how does that still creep in and hijack my amygdala. 90 seconds lost to tripe. Slow deep breaths... eyes close ... more deep breaths as I begin the Gayatri Mantra.

Om bhur bhuvah suvahtat savitur vareṇyaṃbhargo devasya dhīmahidhiyo yó naḥ pracodayāt

The Robert Fox interpretation
"O Effulgent Light of creation! Let the Sun of Truth illuminate my divinity. And meditation allow my thoughts to be inspired by Thee."

I was really expressing some old anger today. Thankfully it was merely to myself. And, even this is not good practice to sit in it for long. I managed to recognize what was happening in the moment and make a shift to joyful living. I pondered awhile though on the strength of the venom I was generating. This, the one thing I still have not faced or allowed many feelings expression over it. This a particularly sour and tough lime to grind.

Careful to steer clear of victim thinking, I allowed myself a structured amount of time to "feel" about the situation. Then, no more. Instead I dove into some tough questions.

• What fear is at the root of my anger?
• Where have I agreed with the situation when a more healthy response from me would have been more prudent? 
• Where have I freely given away my power?
• What is my personal payoff for choosing to give my power away?
• How does this situation serve me?
• What actions can I take on my own behalf that will ensure I keep myself safe?
• If I allow this situation to continue as it presently exists, what might it look like in the future?

These Affirmations come to heart:

• I am fully capable and willing to act on my own behalf to keep myself safe in any situation. 
• I am adept at spotting energy manipulation from others.
• When I call upon my voice, it is always there for me.
• I express myself clearly and well in any situation. 
• It is right and good that I have boundaries. 
• If people choose to cross my boundaries, I have choices. 
• I create my reality.
• I create my experiences. 
• The meaning of the communication is the results that I get. 

I was once taught that if you look deeply enough into any given situation where-in you find yourself experiencing anger ... look deeper still and you will discover that a fear is hiding there.This teacher went up to a chalkboard and drew the cap of a mushroom and then its stem. They labeled the cap with "Anger" and the stem with "Fear."

One of the most helpful lessons ever given to me by an instructor to this day. It's an invaluable self check-in.

I'm so grateful today that I am not at the effect of my life, my emotions, or my thoughts. The most they ever get from me is 90 seconds. That's how long you are duped by the amygdala response system - and after that, you have full choice. My boyfriend is my hero on this one. He's gotten so good at identifying the actual sensation that occurs at the beginning of an amygdala hijack that he can even stop it before it gets started and has a chance to take root. He is often able to bypass the whole event. I'm getting there.

(I'll come back and add some exercises I plan to implement in order to work through this stuff. May it be of service to you as well.)  

Finally I Give in to my Heart

His love falls softly into my heart. It reaches every nook and cranny, every aching place, every particle of hope, every forgotten dream, every burgeoning  expression of my own love. It soothes and whispers to all of me ... inviting a different experience ... inviting my vulnerability.

I'm standing in the kitchen, hands on either side of the sink, heart in a knot, tears just below the surface - tears that won't come. My throat aches with them and it feels like a plum pit has somehow become lodged there. I want it gone. Every part of me is involved in the experience of sorrow and the rage I've carried for four years. I want to be angry. Anger stuffs sadness under the rug. I want ... ohh I don't know what I want. I just don't want to feel this rage. I want peace.

He tells me I've already overcome it ... I'm overcoming it now.

"No I'm not. I haven't dealt with it at all. That's why it's still here. That's why I feel this way. But it's different now. It feels somehow different - like the lid has blown off the pressure cooker and it's all right here, it's all I can see and feel. I don't want this ... I want to be done with it."

 I look up ... across the pass-through counter to him. He's sitting at our dining table. Our eyes connect and I "feel" his love pour into me through them. A part of me wants to turn away ... avert my gaze. It's too hard to let myself be softened. It scares me.

I give in to this fear and go back to cooking our meal ... try to forget ... to distract myself ... to stuff these thoughts and feelings.

Bless his beautiful heart, I should have known he wouldn't let that happen. I turn and he's there. He wraps his arms around me and simply says "I love you."

Something about the way he says it always transforms it from simple words into a healing balm. I feel it. I know it. I can't avoid it ..... and I'm so, so grateful for that.

I cling to him, feeling, reeling, and finally I give in to my heart. I sit down on its throne and all at once the immediate pain subsides. Just like that. I smile at him, he smiles back. He goes back to his work, and I to mine.

I'm standing at the sink again. I think of the water ... live giving ... healing. It's like love ... there's no place it can't go and no thing that will not give way to it's path. Even stone, given time will yield the path for water to travel. My heart feels like that stone tonight, and even it must yield the path for love.

I called this man to me before we even met. I called this love and summoned it forth. I am ready for it. I am willing to heal.

I think sometimes when we resist love, it's not because we "want" to resist it. It's because we want to see what will happen when we do. What will our own heart say? It's kind of like our way of checking weather we are truly ready or not. If we resist our own vulnerability and opening with our actions, will our heart speak up and say ... "I'm no longer willing to resist. I am ready to open."

If you are ready to open your heart more fully too, here are a few things I'm doing that may also support you in your own process:


An Open Heart Holds the Key to Healing
"Until we see with the eyes of the Heart, listen to the roar of the world through the ears of the Heart, and peer into the future with the comprehension of the Heart, we can never know a thing, nor will we ever be whole. The Heart unites us all, regardless of our differences, in this common understanding, and brings compassion to our troubled world. " - Agni Yoga teaching


Yoga that Opens the Heart 
Gentle backbends are a great way to encourage the heart to open as they open the front-body, including your heart, chest, throat, etc. These may be done with the support of blocks and bolsters if you choose. Bridge Pose is my favorite! It really opens me up.

A few other options include fish pose, dhanurasa, and urdhva dhanurasana.

Adding a mantra of your making, or holding an empowering image in your minds eye will really bring a rich fullness to your experience. Mine is simple: "I Am Ready to Open My Heart", and I envision a sunflower. (I used to pretend I was a sunflower growing and reaching for the sun when I was little) It connects me with my child heart.

Vibrational Allies
Working with crystals and gemstones is a great support to me. I use Emerald  & Rose Quartz together. The heart chakra resonates well to the colors of green and pink. Pink stones, such as rose quartz, resonate with the "higher" heart, or thymus chakra and assist in ones receptiveness to divine love, forgiveness, and the release of fear. Green emeralds have a lovely heart based energy and are a powerful aid for women as they bring through Goddess energy. These green stones also help us step more fully into feelings of unconditional love and compassion.

Archangel Chamuel: The Loving One
Another fabulous support to you may be found in working with Archangel Chamuel. This is the archangel of the pink ray of divine love. Simply a light one or more pink candles, hold some rose quartz, and begin praying to Chamuel. Alternatively you may lay back in a comfortable position and place the rose quartz upon your heart chakra.

The Beloved

In the misty early morning hours I gaze upon a solitary pine tree silhouetted against the gossamer sky ... and I knew The Beloved. ~ Sophlili 

Weekly Affirmations: World Peace

I contribute to a world of peace through the power of my word.

With the power of my word, I contribute to the creation of my reality in every now! 

                                      ~ Sophlili Achnil 

Embrace Your Joyful Nowist!™

Ahh, my perfect Joy. It is always there. I often touch it and squeal in glee, marvel that it is me, and express gratitude for being so free. ~ Sophlili Achnil

I used to be weighed down by the circumstances of my life - held back and choked by little fears. Little fears that became huge fears and kept me from my bliss. I was at the effect of my emotions and the world at large on a daily basis. It was surely a personal hell of my own making, though at the time I didn't know I was creating it.

In time I came to understand that I was the creator and co-creator of my universe and slowly, little by little, my fears saw that they too had choice. They could transform their experience and their beingness. They could become all that they dreamed of being. They could join in creating beauty and that they too were love at the heart of them. Once they became aware of their true nature they fell less and less into their old behaviors.

Someone once told me,

There are two kinds of people in the world - 

The Do-Better's and The Joyful's. 

Which one are you being today?

This sparked something inside me. It gave me a way of seeing that I previously had not had access to. For the first time I saw that I had choice in the matter. I could choose to be happy no matter what circumstances were presenting themselves in my life. It followed that soon after this discovery, I made another:

Whatever is in my life, is there because I put it there. 

Whoever is in my life, is there because I put them there.

Whatever experience I am having, I am creating.

I am Cause in my life.  

Once again I had become aware that I had choice! Not only did I have choice ... I was cause in the way my life showed up and the quality of life I experienced. I had come to the understanding that I AM A CREATOR. Wow! That was big news. It carried with it an enormous responsibility. To be frank, I wasn't sure I liked it or wanted that kind of leadership position in my life. Being a victim was just fine with me. It was waayyy less responsibility and work. So again, I started on my process of acceptance. Acceptance - used to take me a very long time to conjure.

What I really had to walk through to allow my acceptance to thrive was that what I really wanted more than anything in the world was ... to be at cause in my life and to offer by BEINGness up to the world in such a way as to assist others to be joyful too.

Due to my relationship with my Mother in my childhood, I had erected a pretty big barrier to accepting responsibility for assisting anyone through life's challenges. When I was young my Mother was quite troubled and I always felt it was me who was responsible for helping her walk out of those troubles and to the other side where she could be free. To this day, I have not yet been able to reach her and she is still suffering. Deep down I figured, "If I couldn't help her, how can I help anyone?" Deep inside, I was holding this as up an epic personal failure, and a reason not to be what I came to the planet to be. 

Slowly, slowly, in its infinite mercy, the Universe brought me through this as well. In time I saw that my whole life had been orchestrated to create in me the tools necessary for me to fulfill on My Soul Truth™.

What a waste it would have been for me to live in sorrow over not expressing my purpose. Once I was able to see this, I was no longer willing to accept my self-inflicted fate as a victim. I was ready to accept responsibility. I was ready to embrace my response-ability in full.

Marcus Aurelius once said:

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; 

again begin this, and thou wilt have finished. 

~ Marcus Aurelius 

This little morsel of wisdom from Marcus has been a great help and inspiration to me along the way. There were so many times in my journey when I felt so overwhelmed and it seemed like giving up would be so much better than facing such an enormous task - such as re-creating my reality. Ooof, it seemed so daunting at times.

I used to walk around in fear and saddness, rarely catching a glimpse of my true self. I used to really dislike my life. This is not the case anymore. I love my life. It is beautiful and full of love and kindness and infinite joy. I am nearly married to my best friend, I have a wonderful, peaceful home - not a house ... a home. I have fully claimed and embraced my unbounded soul as magnificent, and I love being cause in my life!

Suddenly, because oddly it really did seem that way ... I awoke to discover myself a Joyful Nowist.