Have you ever planned something important to you, only to find out too late that others involved in the planning had different ideas than yours and were not really on ‘the same page’?  That your definition of the ‘thing planned’ was not the same as the other person’s? A pretty crucial mistake if you are building a house, planning a marriage, taking an epic journey, or even just planning a special meal.

While earnestly taking on anew my Christ Consciousness journey, I realized I did not know exactly what it meant to BE Christ Consciousness. I fully understand the need to ‘claim it’ so that the desire is formed and released to be manifested. What had me stumped was the actual meaning of the ‘live like a Christ’ part. Not that I didn’t have plenty of my own ideas, and a multitude of sources to peruse, but where were the clear instructions that said, “This is what living like Christ Consciousness entails”?

Of course there are innumerable sources that list what ‘someone else’ says it is: religions, spirituality websites, spiritual development courses, mediums channeling “The Whole Truth” and blogs, videos, and movies galore. But as the term “Christ Consciousness” is used so frequently among those on the Ascension Journey, I thought some clarification for myself would be useful.

Take the word ‘love’, for example. It can be a noun (Love is wonderful), a verb (I love you), or the most masterful aspect---a state of being, which is vibrational and connects with the harmony of the inner Heartsong. It is decidedly a multi-faceted word that is more commonly associated with holidays like Valentine’s Day and events like marriage than with a lifestyle.
While contemplating what a valid Christ Consciousness template might be, I had a flashback to 4th grade, when I vehemently declared to myself, “I will never get married nor have children.” (Both of which I have done, by the way.) WHY would a 4th grader make such a strong decision? Based on what? Both my family life and school life back then were just fine. So where did that idea come from?

Sunday School….where I was taught The Life of Jesus, who---according to the teachings at that time---never married or had children.

Therefore, if we were supposed to strive to ‘be like Jesus’, then I should not imagine marriage (which I NEVER pined for) or having kids (NEVER dreamed of being pregnant). I preferred my Barbie Doll to be single, never played “house” as the mother or wife, and never was much interested in dating during high school, as I was very busy living the Jesus Journey of life that I thought I was supposed to follow. Be nice; be kind; be good; become smart; help others; feed everyone but yourself,  hang out with the people at the bottom of the social ladder; and above all don’t get married or have kids.

THE DAWNING OF THE LIGHT……

If I had those kinds of limitations within my subconscious that denied me the full manifestation of Christ Consciousness because I married and had kids, how many others might have the same? AND, more importantly, what else was within my memory storage keeping me from manifesting my goal?

With our minds, we might believe we know and understand fully what it means to live as The Christ Light, but we don’t achieve it if we have hidden programming limiting our Heart/Mind expansion.
 
 

Procrastination Paradigm Shift...

Sitting in the hot tub on a cold, crispy country morning during a Paradigm Shifting Retreat, my friends and I were talking about the constant upkeep needed on old houses. “Have I got a story for you” beamed Sheila, the co-teacher of the workshop. “It is the perfect example for what you will be learning about this weekend.”

"Last month, while I was walking past our septic tank at our lake retreat, I noticed it smelled. I told my husband who said he would drop some ‘treatment’ in. He also reminded me that he knew he needed to fix the pipe that was crushed by workmen over a year ago.

"I asked why him why he hadn’t done so already and he told me he was waiting for a time when we weren't there for a while so the pipe would be dry on the inside.

“Sounds like a sturdy, reliable, wise answer, right? Except that we had not been there for about 8 months. So I asked him how long it took to dry. He said about a week or two!

Everyone in the tub laughed, probably remembering something like that in their own lives.

"Well, he went on to tell me he didn't want to do projects anymore but no one else could do it right and if all the pipes were brittle it would be a big job.

“OK, so he didn’t want to do it, but no one else could, either! Stalemate! That was the typical conversational exchange we had about things that needed repair in our 36 year old country lake house."

To my surprise, many heads nodded a sympathetic yes.

"The point is" Sheila continued, "that when a PATTERN of behavior emerges in our lives, that is the time to look for the paradigm or the habit patterns that are adversely influencing NOW.

“I have been an excavator of old thoughts and feelings that limit our NOW since my early twenties, and my wonderful husband has endured 25 years of mental/emotional weed pulling and paradigm shifting, but I’m sharing this one with all of you right now because it involved old reactions to women and teachers, both of which I am.

“I challenged my husband to explore his reticence for quick and effective repair on house issues. The small amount of light that had been in his eyes vanished, and he turned quiet. When I said to him that was not the reaction I would have had, he asked for an example of how I would respond. In the midst of my animated demonstration of ‘Yes, I want to be free of this feeling’, he realized that his reaction had been to retreat within.

“Using a technique you will learn, we found his retreating began when his school teacher made him stand with his nose touching the blackboard, inside a little circle drawn with white chalk. As a dyslexic 50 or so years before it was recognized in schools, he was simply thought to be stupid.  The woman, the teacher humiliated him in the midst of learning. All he could do was retreat within.

“I asked him to go farther back from that memory. He just laughed and said he probably has been a Muslim and that he had been told he would make a good one. I laughed but then he said six little words that revealed his procraastination paradigm: ‘I need to let this percolate’…the perfect way for him to try and avoid making any changes because it was a woman and a teacher who was guiding him in that moment.

“So I hope you can see from this example that even the small attitudes we harbor in life can come from past influences. I could have logically accepted all the reasons why my husband was right about putting off getting things repaired. This happened in the middle of winter, so why not wait until spring? Or summer? Or fall? Or next year when we might find someone qualified to do the work?”

Catching the sarcasm in her last question, I piped up, “The procrastination pattern was becoming dangerous to the healthy longevity of your house, your retreat. WHEN would the roof missing its shingles get repaired? WHEN would the drainage prevention happen? WHEN would the two year old deck get its needed railings? WHEN would you get a safe water system installed, right? It was the school year trauma and the residue from a former life that kept him from seeing the God within that helps create the right now. His sense of power was to prohibit and put off. You couldn’t have it done, but he wouldn’t do it either.”

“Exactly” Sheila said with a sincere smile. “Since the future is a nebulous 'sometime', NOW is our true moment of decisive action. Getting free of that old influence allowed my husband to not only move beyond the last vestiges of masculine superiority that conflicted with his heart’s true feeling of gender equality, but he could do so without feeling humiliated.