Hi Everyone, Trying out this topic for those who could use help right now with emotional support. Perhaps the political climate and the climate climate are getting to you. Or perhaps you have a way of coping that others could benefit from hearing about.
Or perhaps you are intuitively sensitive, maybe very empathic, and feel like an emotional roller coaster trying to cope with a stressed out, sometimes distraught, and often chaotic collective conscience.
Or you struggle thinking about the suffering of those who are being marginalized these days, or victims of climate disasters. Or you are worried about your children' s futures. Whatever the problem, there likely are a few of you who can lend a sympathetic ear and/or even help with ways to ride the waves of stress.
At least once a day I read something in the press that makes me furious, sad, or terrified. What fears pop up for you? What sadness? And what really pisses you off? How do I cope? I have many ways, including just reading this site, and feeling the connection with all of you. Often I have my dog take me for a walk. I follow her cue and just hang outside, breathing in the air, immersing myself in nature. Or I read over the positive predictions. Breathe. Make a gratitude list. If all else fails, watch something really funny. Or go for a swim.
So how are you doing today? Feel free to let it rip.
There's no doubt in my mind that the recent eclipse and Mercury Retrograde stirred my stuff and wrecked havoc on communications in my world. For example, I lost years of work I had on a hard drive. I could just feel the nasty static of it lift and roll away the other day with a big whew. Life is really hard right now for so many. Maybe it's a matter of location and age, but I feel grateful for how kind life is to me right now. I'm really grateful that I have employment that allows me an opportunity to serve others. I keep pondering the Forum topic about personal change during this period of time and thinking about it. For the first time I'm entertaining the idea of aliens and not just dismissing it. For the first time I'm thinking about how primitive I am as a human being living in a world with other human beings. I'm also thinking a lot about how and why people are so polarized and what can be done to heal division. I know things are politically and environmentally awful right now, but I want to invest in hope.
I'm new and posted this last night under wrong topic. I meant to post here. I have been following this website for a few weeks, just reading and looking at what everyone is saying. I have had dreams, feelings and words out of no where telling me of what is about to happen or future events. I have felt different or strange. I have kept quite or not told people. I journal but am afraid to write what I hear because it might happen. I heard a voice last week say calm before the storm and thought florida. I refused to write it down in my journal. I was afraid what it might bring. I am looking for direction. What am I supposed to do with these feelings?
Hi Cbluefairy, welcome! And thank you for posting. You've raised two of the most common challenges intuitive people have-- dealing with scary premonitions and feeling different or strange. I hope it will help to join this community. You certainly won't feel different or strange here.
As for scary premonitions, that's something we've discussed in some classes, and there is a premonitions class coming up on December 4th in which we will talk about it. How they happen, what kinds we get, the good ones, the scary ones. What they mean. And how to deal with the scary ones so you are not living in perpetual anxiety.
I hope others can offer ideas for you in this forum. So glad you decided to join us.
Gracesinger, Everything you have said resonates with me. The shift in thinking about aliens, sensing that our minds are primitive, etc. I find myself thinking about how primitive we are, but I can't get my mind to advance.
I want to heal the divide but I don't know how. I feel the Republicans are clueless sheep following wounded greedy oligarchs. I feel sorry for them all for the awful karma they carry, but am also seething at the damage they've done to us all. I can't let anger drag me down, though. I go forest forest bathing everyday with my dog. Let the trees heal me.
By the time I was 40 it seemed like life had visited the most distressing challenges on my mother's five children. She sat on my back porch and marvelled at our ability to roll with the punches. She said that she had learned to trust the next generation to be able to have the tools they needed to demonstrate resilience in the face of adversity. I look at my daughter, nieces, and nephew and all of the young adults I encounter. They all seem so naive and vulnerable, but I see their strengths, too, and they need all of the love and help we can give them, because they're going to have to navigate such an uncertain future. We have to give them the gift of trust that they were born for this time and place to meet the challenges with tools we don't have. We got them this far. They'll dream up getting through the next leg in ways we can't imagine. That's not a cop out; it's a gift; it's hope. Jeanne you've shared the most lovely vision of community. An article in the latest issue of The Atlantic describes the iGeneration as a throw away generation, but look at the seventh generation at Standing Rock, the youth in the Black Lives Movement. They're an utterly lonely generation yearning for just one special friend and they're going to create loving communities. I see your vision and I believe. What a blessing you have given me through your sight. Blessings on you, dear heart!
Hi, Jeanne:
You spoke to exactly the thing I struggle with that is the worst: Rage at the damage being done to the country by lying, selfish, greedy oligarchs.
It doesn't do my health any good to seethe with rage, or imagine what I'd like to do with it. Fries the nervous system, in fact.
What has helped: Before I fall asleep, talking with my dead Grandfather about forgiveness. Requesting the angels of my better nature take this anger from me. Avoiding foods that 'heat the system' like hot spices. Getting out in nature and listening to the trees. Loving my cat up real good. Remembering that nature is remarkably resilient and will recover from our species.
The other thing I do is to watch the patterns of what is actually happening very carefully, and look down the road at the results.
I either heard or read this today--that in an upside down kind of way, the situation we're facing has had the enormous benefit of pulling us together. Resistance is NOT futile--it's giving birth to the new world. The crap we're going through as a species is the same terrifying squeeze through the birth canal that we each faced as infants. At the end of the long, hard squeeze is a new life.
What helps is looking for evidence of that life being born.
-R1-
Love this, RuneStoneOne. Thank you.
My family who treated me horribly after Trump was elected (they are huge Trump supporters) are in the middle of Hurricane Irma, and frankly, I don't even care what happens to them.
What can happen to cause someone like me, who I consider to be so compassionate and caring and loving, feel that way towards a family member?
It scares me how cold I feel in regards to them. Maybe I have a much larger shadow self than I want to admit.
My family who treated me horribly after Trump was elected (they are huge Trump supporters) are in the middle of Hurricane Irma, and frankly, I don't even care what happens to them.
What can happen to cause someone like me, who I consider to be so compassionate and caring and loving, feel that way towards a family member?
It scares me how cold I feel in regards to them. Maybe I have a much larger shadow self than I want to admit.
Maybe it's a survival mechanism and you're doing what you need to do to ensure your own self-protection and even survival.
So true, D.
Paco - You are a kind compassionate person, but it hurts too much to feel. So you feel nothing. They must have hurt you very badly, so you disconnected from them. But deep within, you still care. You still love them. The remedy is to take really good care of yourself. Practice loving kindness on yourself. Whenever and if ever you find yourself putting yourself down, stop it. Pick yourself up like a small child who has been yelled at, and treat yourself tenderly.
I read somewhere that when Trump won the election the Obama daughters were devastated, like so many of us. President Obama said to them and I'm paraphrasing " listen it's no the end of the world, the end of the world is the end of the world. This isn't the end". I found this to be both comforting and positive, life will go on but adjustments need to be made. The world is changing and it's happening fast, maybe for some overwhelmingly so. But we mustn't lose sight of how powerful we are. When I read and see on the news all the negative stuff that's going on, I take a deep breath and try to figure out how I might be of help, where in my life can I make positive changes. It's like what Trump has unleashed in America was deeply buried and now we need to look at it. Not just get angry and continue the hate, but where can we be better. Frankly, i think he makes me want to be a better person and he has reved up all of our humanity. I see it everyday, people helping each other and I know that Jeanne has mentioned that local gov't and individuals will be the ones to take care of the needs of the people, not those in Washington. I have great hope that we will see someday a better world and a people deserving of this beautiful planet.
Wow. Lola. Thank you.
When I read how the Koch children were raised - the incredible abuse they experienced from a Nazi nanny. (She was literally a Nazi who loved Hitler so much that she finally quit the Koch's to move to Germany during the war and celebrate Hitler's success.) And their father Fred was very harsh. His wife Mary was terrified of him. The kids must have suffered. As they grew up, they hardened.
When I read the Koch brothers I see their hearts are cut off. They are numb to the pain they inflict. I find it hard to empathize with them because of the lives they've ruined and hope to ruin. But when Paco said she was numb, and when I feel that same numbness, I at least understand that, deep inside the Koch's, they have hearts. And when people experience abuse, bullying or neglect, or they see others suffering from this, their hearts can close.
Thank you Jeanne for creating this safe haven and your gifts! I love coming here and reading everyone's insights, intuitions and ideas. It feels positive and hopeful, even when the visions are scary.??
Poet David Whyte on trying to find a path into the unknown in his poem Santiago. He talks about writing this and another poem here. He was inspired by his his 23 year old niece's 500 mile walk to the sea in Spain where he road ends at the sea, dropping away with only sea in front of you after your long journey. The groundless sea, he muses, is the future. It's the unknown.
Santiago
The road seen, then not seen, the hillside
hiding then revealing the way you should take,
the road dropping away from you as if leaving you
to walk on thin air, then catching you, holding you up,
when you thought you would fall - and the way forward
always in the end, the way that you came, the way
that you followed, that carried you into your future,
that brought you to this place, no matter that
it sometimes had to take your promise from you,
no matter that it always had to break your heart
along the way: the sense of having walked
from far inside yourself out into the revelation,
to have risked yourself for something that seemed
to stand both inside you and far beyond you,
that called you back in the end to the only road
you could follow, walking as you did, in your rags of love...
Excerpt from “Santiago”
From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte
©2012 David Whyte,
That's absolutely beautiful, Jeanne!!
We may find ourselves stripped to the essentials, but if we can keep heart, we will make it through.
We now have the opportunity to strengthen ourselves by responding to the needs of the hurricane-torn. It gives heart to aid others.
-R1-
Oh, I've been thinking a lot lately how I have been coping with all the scary events and energy that seem to swirling around our country ( US) and the world lately. For me, since I am an artist I've been channeling my anxiety into creating artwork that symbolizes how I feel and depictions of angels protecting me, all of us - humanity, the earth, and positive words of affirmation. I hung a huge 6'x3.5 embroidered tapestry on my stairwell wall of an angel - contained in the body are words and embroidered images of love, hope, strength, care, soul, etc. I also put images of things scaring the crap out of me in the body of two serpents, and the angel wings larger than the serpents engulfing them. I use it as an anchor- and I look at it and sometimes touch it as I am walking up and down my stairs. I am trying to be aware of the news, send light and pray everyday for leaders of the world to consider love and loving responses as a political action and I've been active volunteering, calling my reps, and meditating. Some days are better than others. But I am trying to be aware of the darkness, but to dwell and promote the light. Whatever your skill, your talent, your means of service do that with the best of intentions and the conscious awareness you are setting off ripples of light. Every little action helps. Having a community to be able to express yourself and help one another out processing these times is very helpful. Thank you so much Jeanne, and everyone on this site!
Absolutely beautiful, wonderful, and perfect in so many ways, Shawn!
It is a great blessing to be able create in any creative art form and to share with others. Members have shared under a number of forum topic categories from "Coping...." to sharing "Dreams..." to sharing "Poetry..." to sharing "Angels..." and angelic visitations in our lives.
For many of us these reinforce hope as well as faith in a better world and future during trying times.
Love even the beautiful imagery of your tapestry on the stairway ❣ I have a simple textile prayer flag that I made hanging along my stairs that I pass many times a day and your post illuminated my own subconscious use of a bird/its nest etc. So thank you! Sometimes "hope IS a thing with feathers" whether its avian or celestial❣
Joanna Macy has helped me with these issues. Just listening to her speak inspires and heals me. Here's the trailer to a movie one of her students made about her. He was so inspired by her that he went out and learned how to make a movie, then created an amazing film https://vimeo.com/91432290
She also spoke about the Shambhala Prophecy, which also has inspired me. https://vimeo.com/191169785