
The Gift of Letting Go
Living Our Deeper Song
Ashe
(“Ah-Shay”)
The Creative in me honors the Creative in you!
I’ve done some dumb things in my life. It’s not pleasant to look back and wish I hadn’t done them. But what I have learned to accept is that I did the best I could at that particular time. Based on what I knew, based on what I was feeling, I made a choice. Many of my choices were made out of an immediate perceived need or a lack of awareness of a broader motivation or outcome. But that’s just part of maturing and growing up. Your awareness deepens. Your choices become more aligned.
I never did anything mean on purpose, but I may have done some unthinking things that were hard for people to be around.
The fact is it’s over. It was part of your learning process, it was part of your life choice. It’s in the past. So first of all, forgive yourself for the blunders and missteps you made along the line regardless of the reason. And then forgive and release any feelings regarding other people’s choices and actions. They too were acting out of the moment in their particular level of awareness or need.
Live in the present and do the best you can. Don’t beat yourself up for what you don’t manage to do. Feel free to acknowledge yourself for what you do that works. Just keep releasing and moving forward. There is a gift in letting go.
DEEPER SONG AFFIRMATION
I forgive myself for the unaware and unthinking things I did in my lifetime and I move forward with clear and focused intention and awareness.
DEEPER SONG PROCESS
- Notice when a memory shows up that holds something that you wish you hadn’t done. How did it actually turn out for all affected? Take a moment to understand that you did the best you could based on who you were at the time. See if there is a lesson, an awareness, and what not to do in the future. But in general, forgive yourself and move on.
===INNER WORK===
An Affirmation of Wholeness
Create an affirmation of wholeness that you say every day. Even if it is not manifesting on the physical plane. I like “I am whole, perfect, and complete.” Another one I like because of my eyes is “I see clearly within and without.” Those are positive affirmations that send a message of intention to the universe. So as I bend over my walker perhaps I say, “I stand tall and in deep service in the world.” Perhaps in moments of aloneness and perhaps loneliness, I say “I feel the love and support of others on this path of wholeness.”
Can you add affirmations about how you want it to be and add it to your spiritual practice? Create affirmations of wholeness and watch them manifest.
===SELF-HEALING===
Sing a Cathartic Song
One of the qigong suggestions for clearing your lung meridian is to just sing a cathartic song. I had to giggle. What came to mind was “I feel the Earth Move” by Carole King from a long time ago. If you were going to sing a cathartic song, what would it be? Would you dance with it, would you clap your hands? Look around for a song that will release tension and concern and worry and start singing it.
Meridian Points – Kidneys
The bottom of the palm of your hands has access to the kidney meridian. When you clap the bottom of your palms together, you are activating your reproduction organs, your intestines and your kidney function. It’s a pretty easy step to take. See the exercise here.
Yi and Qi
Yi is your mind and it directs the energy which is Chi. It’s very powerful combination. As I study more self-healing Qigong, I realize how empowered I am and how much work I can to do to help myself heal.
I am using my imagination, my Yi, my mind to move energy all over my body. I free it up. I clean it out. I let it go. I rearrange the energy in my body and let the Qi restore wholeness. Most of all I seem to be clearing pathways for the flow of the energy up my spine and in the stuck places in my hips and my Lower Tan Tien. Using your imagination to clear out unwanted stuck energy can replace it with wholeness.
This Stuff Works!!!
As unbelievable as it seems to me, this Qigong self-healing is working on my body. It is making amazing changes, unusual changes, unexpected changes and I am simply doing the focused work, using my mind Yi to focus the energy QI.
There are some actions like breathing out the released energy in the form of smoke. Or cutting out what’s not wanted by using scissors fingers. There’s some hand movements that move the Qi. And it’s working.
I was explaining this to my very conservative son-in-law the other day and realized he was sitting there with his arms folded across his chest in a very defensive manner. It was unconscious of course, but this self-healing with only energy was way too far out for him. And yet it’s working.
If you want to go exploring, I suggest you subscribe to Grandmaster Chuny Lin’s website. You will get a weekly Qiigong self-healing practice. Give it a try and see what you think. I’m seeing progress. Grandmaster Chuny Lin, springforestqigong.com, chunyilin.com
Trust the Process, Do The Work
The words the Indigo Healer gave me in my journey were “trust the process, do the work.” I have found a self-healing method that resonates with me and seems to be effective. I get to trust the process and do the work. Where do you need to place your faith? What path do you need to follow right now at this particular point in time? Do you have your eyes on the right path? Look for guidance. Examine it. Then trust the process and do the work.
===OUTER WORK===
How Do You Manifest a Dream?
Do you have a dream? Something you would like to do or achieve or experience? How do you manifest that dream?
Do you need to do a reality check to get some idea of what is necessary to get you to that goal? If it’s a destination, you need to plan – you have to find out how to get there and what the weather requirements are and where to stay and how much it is going to cost and all those details. Then you can know if that dream is realistic and achievable.
But what if you were looking at a dream that is simply unfolding. And all you get are glimpses and glimmers? For instance, I’ve been writing a certain form of poetry in this newsletter for several months now. And I have been collecting them. Do I want to do a book? I know how to put a book on Amazon. But is that what I want to do? Right now? At all?
I have a goal of walking without my walker and I’m doing many things to help manifest that one. What I get to do in that physical plane journey is to notice what works and what doesn’t work. Experimentation is part of achieving a dream.
Are you dreaming big enough? Are you stretching your imagination to see the potential and possibility that opens before you? I don’t want to blame it on my age but I’m not as into big projects as I used to be. Smaller more achievable projects seem to be more satisfying for now. Honor your inner guiding nudges.
Do you even dream? Do you have a vision of a future experience that you’re going for? Sometimes those dreams are meant to be surprises – an unexpected new friend, an opportunity that you had not anticipated.
I think of dreams as a shape-shifting cloud, always in changing and re-arranging itself. That means I have to stay flexible and aware and I particularly have to notice my response so that I keep myself moving in a direction that works for me.
I don’t have a dream journal but I have a vision board. I have a goal of self-healing that keeps me open to new ways to do that. Adventuring is like being a tumbleweed rolling across the prairie, skipping and bouncing and rushing and slowing down and getting stuck behind a rock, then jumping free to go tumbling again. Are you dreaming? How big are you dreaming? And how are you achieving your dreams?
Know What is Too Much
Know the limitations of your interests, your attention span and your path. I was tempted by a Qigong offering until I realized that I’m full up, it has too much detail for me right now, and it felt overwhelming. So I didn’t do it. It was too much.
When you start to take on a new commitment, a new task, stop and evaluate it for a reality check of how it fits into your life and your time. Take on only what you can complete with joy and satisfaction. Know when it is too much and draw the line.
The Fog Creeps In
Carl Sandburg wrote:
The fog comes in
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
What situation or thoughts or events have you allowed to creep into your life? How long do they stay? Why are they there? When did they move on? Make sure the fog in your life moves on.
===DEEPEN YOUR SPIRITUAL PRACTICE===
Own What You Learn
If I don’t apply what I learn, it doesn’t do me any good. So if I don’t practice the Qigong moves I am learning, I won’t know their benefit. If I don’t make the changes that I decide I want to make, I won’t experience the results. Are you doing the work? Are you exploring and applying and making the changes that take you in the direction you want to go? I love to explore but I also need to turn and choose what I want to apply and where I want to apply it and then do that. Are you owning what you learn? Are you actively applying it to your life?
===BROADEN YOUR HORIZON – EXPAND YOUR VIEW===
What is Your Cause?
I don’t have a specific cause. I care about the environment a lot. I care about equal rights a lot. I care about human rights a whole lot. And all I’m doing is sitting here in my apartment sharing a lot through this newsletter. At 89 I’m not supposed to go out and attend a rally or have people sign petitions. But I can hold High Watch. I can send positive thoughts and wholing energy to those doing the work. I can keep my consciousness raised to embrace those inclusive ideals that are important to me. Don’t let the inability to actively physically participate keep you from doing the work. Use your intention, your consciousness, and hold High Watch for the world.
===OUR EVOLVING FUTURE===
Inclusiveness and Exploration
Why do people try to make other people think the way they do? How do you learn anything if you don’t embrace diversity? As I watch this trend to need to be right, particularly from males, I don’t want to bother to figure out why. I could use words like insecurity, but that doesn’t do me any good in being around it and coping with it and hopefully even changing it. Women by nature are inclusive and compassionate. But I think it’s important that we look at our own beliefs and actions to make certain that we are inclusive and have made conscious changes to include the beauty and uniqueness and lessons found in another cultures. I don’t have any friends from other cultures. But I study eastern philosophies and embrace what they teach – Taoism in particular.
Are you making an effort to learn from people from other cultures, and the backgrounds of their belief systems? You don’t have to embrace it, but it’s helpful to understand its origins and applications and current meanings. That helps make you compassionate and inclusive. Both good trades to cultivate. Go exploring and expand your inclusiveness.
The Scenario of Opinion
As I write this, there are protesters outside the US Department of Justice where the Supreme Court has leaked a document saying they will overturn a fundamental right to freedom of choice over their bodies that women have had in this country for nearly 50 years.
What gives us the right to tell other people what to do?
I’m a vegetarian. What if I wanted to make a law that no one could eat meat because that’s how I feel – that animals should not be killed. As it stands, I have my choice, others have theirs, and I just don’t go to their house for dinner.
At the core is our freedom as women (notice this does not affect men) to choose based on what we need, what we think, and what we ultimately decide for ourselves. It is a fundamental freedom of choice created by men that threatens and affects only women.
I wondered how the emergence of the Divine Feminine would unfold. It’s a lot of anger and hatred at and demeaning of women by the masculine.
I don’t know how it’s gonna play out. I just know that the Divine Feminine continues to emerge, continues to be a formidable focus for the energy we are all experiencing. The feminine is inclusive. She encourages individualism. Those are good traits to encourage and embrace.
When you discover that you have a strong opinion that is totally different from someone else’s, as hard as it may be to do, try to put yourself in their shoes or try to understand where their thinking comes from. And know that they have feeling that are just as strong as yours. You don’t have to change your mind. It just means you broaden your understanding and manage your own life, not theirs.
I write this to myself because I’m super mad primarily at white men in the United States trying to tell women what they can and cannot do. That mindset was around when I was a young woman and I have loved every minute of defying that and learning to stand on my own two feet and standing in my own power. We cannot lose that freedom to be the women we are meant to be. I don’t mean to offend anyone, I’m just trying to put myself in the shoes of someone who feel so strongly about something that they feel they have to tell someone else how to live their life. The feminine warrior is rising up in me and as I have done all my life, I object to being told what I can and cannot do. There has to be a shift in group consciousness. Not sure how it will play out. Women have equal eights! Go Divine Feminine!
===REFLECTIONS OF A DEEPER SONG PODCAST===
Expanding Awareness
How to Deepen Your Cosmic Consciousness
Listen to my
Reflections of a Deeper Song Podcast on
Apple / Spotify / Google
and the
==== DEEPER SONG EXPLORATION ===
This is a particularly powerful message from Sandra Ingerman.
===CARA’S CORNER===
Loneliness
Every time I hit a personal snag, I realize it is mine to fix. No one can do it for me. I’m the one that has to recognize it and fix it.
As I write this it is a Saturday and as far as I can tell I won’t have any one-to-one interaction with anyone until Thursday when my son-in-law comes to help me do some things in my apartment. That’s five days in which I have to fix it. To change it. To find a way to not be lonely. What am I going to do?
I have three friends I talk with on a regular basis. One weekly, one every three weeks, and one monthly. Our interests are so specific and focused, the calls are very stimulating as well as rewarding in the form of friendship.
I am so far into my personal direction there’s no one in this senior center that has a clue what I’m doing.
I’m taking some classes, in fact, my two Qigong classes overlap for two weeks and that feels like a lot.
What do you do when you feel lonely? How do you fix that?
The first thing I’m gonna do is look at my own choices to see where I have decided not to participate that might in fact be nurturing for me. What is available to you right now? And does anything resonate?
Is there an idea nudging you that would take you in an interesting direction? I am so full of learning right now that I do not want to undertake another project or even a finish reading the two books I have going.
I like being alone. I like being able to respond to my own rhythm. But what do I do when I feel lonely? I’m thinking about it. What do you do? How do you keep from being lonely?
===SING A DEEPER SONG ===
Alone or Lonely?
I like being alone but I don’t like being lonely. And I’m the one that has to fix that.
I like being alone but I don’t like being lonely. And I’m the one that has to fix that. I must find the focus. I must find the activity. I am the one who must reach out.
I like being alone but I don’t like being lonely. And I’m the one that has to fix that. I must find the focus. I must find the activity. I am the one who must reach out. I sit and look out my window and do nothing. Tag. I’m it.
Cara Lumen, May 2022
We create our future with every thought we think, every action we take. Move forward mindfully as you sing your Deeper Song.
Namaste,
Cara
Come Sing a Deeper Song
I help adventurers who are ready to explore the new possibilities in the emerging energy of the Divine Feminine to align their dreams and choices with what is emerging as possible today so that they go beyond their own expectations.
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