Divine Discomfort Two

This is the second episode of two discussing the Centers for Spiritual Living Global Theme for February, 2024 on Divine Discomfort.

Where comfort ends, transformation begins.  This episode goes in to how to successfully deal with being uncomfortable.

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Transcript

Fearlessly Feral podcast 

Where comfort ends, transformation begins.

Are you feeling a bit off?  Anxious?  Sad?  Like the other shoe is going to drop any minute now?  Like something is wrong but you can’t put your finger on it?  

In the month of February we are leaning into Divine Discomfort.  Last week’s podcast discussed successfully dealing with change.  Today we are going to talk about simply learning to successfully live with being uncomfortable.  

But first, the intro! 

Welcome to Fearlessly Feral Living!  Broadcasting to you from the Woogie Ranch, out here in the back 40 of northwestern Nevada, where I’m a half hour away from the nearest gas station and grocery store!   

Our MISSION is to provide a strong and unshakeable inner foundation that works for long term successful living.

Our PURPOSE is to activate inner self awareness.

Our VISION is a world in which everyone lives wild and free.

Today’s topic comes from the Centers for Spiritual Living Global themes.  The topic for the month of February is Divine Discomfort.

Where comfort ends, transformation begins.  And I have learned that every time I have transformed my life, or it has been transformed for me, I’ve become a better person for it.  Which means every time I’ve been uncomfortable in my life and then transformed as a result, I’ve become a better person for it.  Conversely, every time I’ve been uncomfortable and denied it, stuffed it, ignored it or gas lighted it, that uncomfortability grew and grew into a monster that eventually turned into either a physical illness or a manifestation of lack or limitation in my life.  

And consider that you are not alone.  Lots of people are feeling very uncomfortable right now. And I don’t know about you, but it is helpful to know I am not alone in experiencing the things I’m experiencing.

I have a perfect illustration to demonstrate this “not alone’ thing, which I also call oneness.

Elmo, yes, that Elmo, of Sesame Street fame, posted a simple question on his X (Twitter) account:  “How is everyone doing?”

And he was inundated with 1000’s of responses, most of which expressed some type of despair. 

Yep. 

A lot of us are feeling it.

Other Sesame Street characters got in on the action, and even the Cookie Monster (my favorite) promised to bring cookies to help everyone feel better.

Turns out there is both a scientific and a spiritual answer to the question of why is everyone feeling this existential angst?  The quantum physics answer is entanglement, and the spiritual answer is oneness.

I first began personally experiencing this phenomenon about 10 years ago.  I was ending one career and beginning another, just finishing up ministerial school and living in a little studio apartment on an 80 acre horse ranch, supplementing what little income I had at the time by cleaning horse stalls.  I would awaken at sunrise, and venture outside to go and clean up about 20 or so horse stalls.  I loved that job!  I got fit, healthy, learned a lot about horses and got free riding lessons.  I also got to fetch horses for the vets, the chiropractors, the farriers and the massage therapists who all visited the ranch to take care of those athletic horses.  I never had a chance to find out what was going on out in the world until much later in the day, because I was fairly isolated out there.  

But something was happening within me.  Some mornings, I would wake up feeling this incredible emotional pain.  Now, ministerial school, at least where I went to school, was designed to shift us and change us, from the inside out.  So I was having major inner shifts at the time.  I was happy for those shifts, because I knew it meant I was on a pathway to something greater.  But like I said,  some mornings I would wake up and feel an almost overwhelming sadness, or despair, or sometimes even anger.  I couldn’t figure it out.

Until one day I realized there was a correlation between the times I was feeling angst and the times when some disaster had happened some where in the world.

At the time I remember thinking that if this was what growing in my spirituality meant, I wasn’t sure I liked it.   

And I’m chucking because I can remember other times in my life when I’ve grown and complained highly about it.  Uncomfortable indeed! I remember a mentor once telling me that things had to be dismantled in life before we could move into the new.  I grumbled about that one too.

But that dismantling is what is happening in much of the world right now. We’ve got a significant portion of people right here in this country, led by a hitleresque madman, determined to dismantle the very way we’ve run this country since we began.  I’ve got news for you folks, they are just as uncomfortable as the rest of us. In fact, I suspect they’ve been uncomfortable for a very long time.  Anyway, hang on for the ride because I suspect it’s going to get worse around here before it gets better.  

This is a perfect illustration of how oneness shows up.  Everyone is uncomfortable!  If you have ever wondered how on earth you could possibly find some sort of middle ground with THEM, you might consider starting with the fact that the person down the street who supports the exact opposite as you is just as uncomfortable as you are.  Begin there.  

Anyway, back on topic:

One of the main foundational concepts in Science of Mind is oneness.  Oneness means that there is only one god, source, power, presence, thing, whatever you want to call It.  And It is everywhere present.  Including in you, and in me.  Which means, of course, that we are all connected.  So when you are feeling uncomfortable, so are a lot of other folks.  You are not alone.

Then there’s quantum physics.  I was ecstatic to learn that through quantum physics is proof that what we teach in Science of Mind is real, it is backed up by scientific fact.  Oneness, in quantum physics language, is called entanglement.  Quantum entanglement challenges our conventional understanding of space and time, suggesting a fundamental interconnectedness exists throughout the universe. Interconnectedness is a key tenet in many spiritual traditions, often promoting the concept of oneness or unity.

If someone is feeling something, we are all feeling it, to some degree or the other.  

And I’ve been feeling it, big time.

Let’s face it.  There’s some very real and gnarly and challenging stuff going on.  We’ve got a guy who wants to be dictator of the United States, making lots of noise. We have a large segment of the population that is determined to dismantle democracy as we know it.  I am seeing it happen everywhere, from my local school board to the state political party to the nationwide one, along with that guy who wants to be dictator.   We’ve got  climate change showing up with harsh winters and deadly heat in the summer and forest fires.  We’ve got covid.  We’ve got people behaving badly, and lots of violence.

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling this stuff.  I’m uncomfortable.  And I have been for a while.  And I’ve been in fear too, lots of it.

But Ernest Holmes said, in the Science of Mind textbook, this: “ Fear brings limitation and lack in its wake and destroys the happiness and possibility of a greater degree of livingness to those who suffer from it.  Fear blocks the more complete givingness of the Spirit to Its highest form of manifestation on this planet, which is humankind.”

The key here is this:  what are we going to do about it?  Continue to be uncomfortable and rant and rave and complain and behave badly?  Or lean into it and learn from it and get our creative juices flowing and come together and create something new and different that works for more people than ever?

This is where the transformation begins guys.  And we can do this on personal levels as well as on societal levels.  But it begins personally, inside each and every one of us.

There are ways to “unfeel” this stuff and move from fear to faith, without going into spiritual bypass or denial, without sticking our heads in the sand.  Because we can’t practice apathy with this stuff, it’s too important.  There is too much at stake.  So we have to be well and accurately informed, but we need to not go crazy in the process.  In my experience, I need to allow those feelings, and process them, but not let them take over.

How do we do that? I have found several helpful things to allow me to embrace the uncomfortable feelings and process them, but not let them take over.

1.    Remember, you are not alone.  Honestly, hearing that 1000s of people responded with very real replies to a cartoon character’s “how are you?” tells me the depth of this issue, and simultaneously comforts me.  Because to be honest I’ve been feeling anxiety to the point where it is making my doctor squawk about high blood pressure and making me think I might just have to resort to taking meds and going into therapy.  Which, for me, are VERY drastic actions.  But hearing I am not alone tells me that not only is there a spiritual solution to this angst, but also reminds me that I have a responsibility as a leader to take care of my own angst so that I can better serve.  And not contribute to the angst of the populace.  This helps me. 

2.    Bubble: this isn’t taught in science of mind, but I began learning about this when I began feeling the angst of the human race and talking about my feelings with my friends.  For many of them, what I was feeling was normal to them.  They said, “oh, you’re an empath!”  Who knew? And proceeded to tell me how it was important to create a bubble to wrap around myself to protect oneself from all those energies swirling around. Honestly, I use this tool sparingly, because I haven’t yet figured out how to screen out the angst but let the sunlight of the spirit through.  This bubble stuff is like vulnerability.  We have to be vulnerable or we aren’t open to all the good stuff that life has to offer.  But not so vulnerable that we become victims. There is a middle ground there that I honestly have a tough time finding.  I suspect this is a result of my own black and white, all or nothing thinking.  I’m working on that one.  But honestly, I’ve been feeling desperate enough to employ my bubble for a while just to get some relief.  How do I do that?  Well, I’m a visual person, so I envision myself being surrounded by bubble wrap.  The kind with big bubbles, that are fun to pop.  Others surround themselves with white light, or golden energy.  You get to figure out a way to protect yourself that works for you.  Just be careful you are not shutting out the good stuff while you are at it.

3.    Treatment:  in other words, affirmative prayer.  In whatever way works for you.  Now, I’m a religious scientist.  So when I pray, I do so using treatment.  If you have listened to this podcast before, treatment is less of a beseeching to an outside entity and more of a powerful way to affirm our good.  Five steps: god is, I am, It’s done, thanks, bye.

We recognize that god is all there is, and that I am a part of that thing called god, and it a part of me.  From the power that I get from that state of oneness, I speak my word, in the first person present tense, feeling and knowing that what I am speaking is manifesting in me right here and right now.  I express my gratitude and release and anchor with that wonderful term: AND SO IT IS!

And in this case, I’ve been treating for release.

I think releasing needs to be added to the official list of spiritual practices in my latest book.  So I’m going to add it.  

Now, you may be wondering why it wasn’t there in the first place.  

Well!

There’s the little question of what we are releasing to.  Because in Science of Mind god is within us.  So I can’t do the Christian thing of letting go and letting god, because that isn’t my belief system.  If it is yours, use this technique in this way and release. 

So let me clarify a bit how I have come to terms with the technique of releasing, being a religious scientist. And back up a bit as well.  Releasing can also be called letting go or allowing.  It’s the opposite of controlling.  Go with the flow.  Releasing is about faith and trust.  Control is about fear.

And there is a happy medium there.  One has to set boundaries, and take care of oneself.  One can’t just willy nilly go along with whatever happens to come along, that just makes one a victim.  

I’ve learned all this stuff through personal experience.  

And to be honest, I’ve never been one to release.  Mostly because my understanding of God is that It doesn’t do things, It doesn’t make decisions for us, It isn’t something that just takes care of things.  God is an energy force that is a part of us, just as we are a part of It, that provides us with the power to do things, make our own decisions and take care of things.  So if I release, I have nothing to release to.

Except I was experiencing some problems.  Unpleasant ones.  Stubborn ones.  Unsolvable ones.  I tried everything, and nothing worked.  It was frustrating!  I kept asking what these problems were wanting me to know, what they were trying to teach me, and I wasn’t getting any answers.  I was just getting frustrated. 

And then, through a series of tiny little events, it occurred to me that I needed to release.  In a whole bunch of areas of my life.

So I did.  

And I got instant relief.

But there’s still the whole question of what I’m releasing to.  

And I still don’t quite know.  But here’s the deal:  I don’t have to know.  I just need to set the intention to release, and let it happen. I don’t need to worry about the how or the what.  

All I can tell you is that when I did that, I got instant relief.  Instant.  

I took my blood pressure, and yep, instant relief. My veins are very grateful I did that releasing.

Yep.  This spiritual stuff is powerful. 

So if you are experiencing problems, try releasing.  Just letting go.  Leave the question as to what you are releasing to.  That is not the point here.  The point is just to release. Let it go. Turn it in.  Allow.  

Simply set the intention. Don’t worry about how to do it, or what to release to. Just release.

Today I release and feel the peace that results.

4.    Faith.  Now, I’ll be honest.  Faith has a bad rap.  I’ve actually experienced people telling me that the word faith triggers them.  They consider it a dirty word.  If the word triggers you, I suggest substituting another word that doesn’t. Having faith is part of releasing.  When we release, we allow ourselves to believe in something greater, we allow ourselves to know that there is all good, all the time, and while we don’t know how it’s going to be achieved, we know it will be achieved.  Ernest Holmes equates faith with an expectancy of good, and that works for me.  It also works for me that if I don’t have faith, I have fear.  Remember, there are only two states of consciousness, fear or faith.  And if we have fear, we are back to the limitation and lack that destroys happiness.  Faith destroys fear.  as to how to get faith when you don’t have any, go back to treatment.  It is that simple.  Treatment is powerful, use it.

So there you have it.  Many of us are uncomfortable.  I’m suggesting to allow that and process it, and then move into a more positive frame of mind and a greater way of living by living in the principle of oneness, knowing that we are not alone, and by using the practices of treatment, followed with releasing and faith.

I am knowing fearlessly feral living for me and for you!

Join me for a book study on trust, based on the book by Iyanla Vanzant.  It is free and begins Monday, march 4, at 2 PM Pacific time.  Each session will run for 2 hours and it will go for 5 weeks.  Contact me with your email to sign up.

I thank you for listening and for your support, and I am knowing fearlessly feral living for me and for you!

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