Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Diaries

  • Dream Group Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    Loss & Suffering – Sometimes dreams are an escape from the unbelievable horror of existence. In that case, they are our art form, and we must curate them to prepare a bearable future.

    Ugly World – every religion and philosophical system has to account for the misery we see around us -storms, flood, volcanos, disease, human frustration an animal predation. Do your dream explore inner and outer pain? How much is fear, how much is anxiety, how much is collective unconscious and shared human history? We fear everyone CAN’T be happy at once. How do we educate ourselves to surf this intolerable dilemma? Let’s get out our Dream Journals.

    What’s the happiest dream you’ve ever had? Why? – How could it even more satisfyingly responsive to your present crisis?

    Lucid Dreaming –  Is dreaming when you’re aware of it. it’s trying to guide the dream and use it to replenish your spirit. Your psyche is accessible in dreams to those you choose to include. What spirits do you invite?

    Pain is Joy’s Shadow – Joy is an excess of feeling and so is suffering. When we long to “numb out”, we numb everything. If we live our lives in fear, we avoid the potential excitement of holding breath on the edge of discovery.

    Challenge – What would become of us if we allowed ourselves to feel it all? Poets feel they must indulge – artist of all kinds explore and expand the edges of perception and assessment. Possible philosophical coping mechanisms can be Buddhist – “It’s all illusion” “Practice taming the wild mind” or religious –  “Suffering brings us closer to God in developing compassion for all creation” and “Birth pangs are necessary to bring new life.” Any way we can keep our mind and soul responsive and deepening benefits the whole planet. Cultivate Dream Partners. Share your dreams with them.

    Danger – Too much suffering breeds helplessness. Our angel needs to recover from her burns and acquire some new feathers. If we stop even trying to better our human situation we attract predators to such easy prey.  Even worse, we become predators ourselves, bragging to the godless that we are the new potentates. Cruelty breeds endless cruelty. There must be a way to step off this treadmill – there’s enough suffering going around without manufacturing more.

    Opportunity – Imagination itself comes from discomfort, even misery. We see a need to expand our mental repertoire, to magically increase the very dimensions of thought that seem to imprison us. As a species we have broken through this many times. There must be further epiphanies awaiting. How does this apply to you? Ask your dreams. Open and relax your mind.  Keep track of your dreams in your journal – not just actual dreams, but your thought possibilities in reflection. What if you could not fail? Turn to your dream partners for ideas. Who are we really? Who could we become?

    Models & Mentors – “You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered”

    – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

    “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”

    – A.A. Milne

    “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can suffer such deep sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heal them”

    – Leo Tolstoy

    “What we once loved we can never lose for it becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

    “Death is not the greatest loss in life, the greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live”  – Norman Cousins

    Meditation –

    #Haiku: Acceptance without Exception

    Join us!

    Compassion

    Greets

    Suffering;

    Blends;

    Evaporates

    Tears

    Gently.

  • Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    CREATIVITY – If your dreams are particularly imaginative and enjoyable, you are probably an artist. You have launched yourself already on the absorbing quest of reinventing the confusing realities that buffet us.

    We keep trapping ourselves in the maze but there is always a way out. Close your eyes. Breathe. Don’t we all possess inherently the goddess’ power of making Something out of Nothing? Think. Feel. Give yourself permission to explore. Look at the tactile world around you and reach out yourhands. You are the pilot of your own life. Create your own dream.

    Artists are immortalized by their own thought and effort. If their productions are intriguingly beautifulthe rest of us are drawn in and our critical senses – our rejection and our fear – are tranquillized whilewe allow the artist to work their magic upon us. Artists aspire to be magicians of the mind and soul.

    CHALLENGE  –      If you create something unforgettable you will never be forgotten. You have thepower to open hearts, minds and brains as yours were first opened, when you looked upon this amazingworld for the first time  and tried to understand what you saw.

    DANGER – There is possibility here for such overweening pride that you place your own psyche aboveCreation in importance.   If you seek worship your own soul will be hardened unto death.

    OPPORTUNITY – You will join the gods in creating something really new that the world cannotlive without. The joy of sharing, the rapture of being known, the ecstasy of expression, of beingunderstood, will be yours.

    Models & Mentors – “Creativity is seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.” – Albert Einstein

    “Creativity can’t get used up. The more you use the more you have.” – Maya Angelou

    “Creativity is just connecting things.” – Steve Jobs

    “There is no innovation, no creativity, without failure.” – Brené Brown

    “What’s so fascinating about life is the constant creativity of the soul.” – Deepak Chopra

    MEDITATION –

    #Haiku: Creativity

    You: Immortalized;

    Fireborne

    Force majeure

    Create

    Become –

    Exalt

    You.

  • Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

    REGRET – Many anxiety dreams are about regret.  When we try to impartially study our dream content, the moods flood in, rocking our precarious stability.  Why are people so afraid of lookinginside? Because of Regret, that’s why. The things we’ve already done that we can never change. Seemingly hopeless sorrow builds – now we are helpless, we hate ourselves and we can’t fix anything. We are in for a bad, cold, frigid winter of discontent.

      YOU CAN LIGHTEN YOUR OWN LOAD – No one can do it but you. When you serve as prosecutorin your own life – guess what? – that’s not fair. Fundamental Attribution Error is people blamingindividuals for actions that were the result of systems; mass decisions or circumstances over which theyhad no actual control. Look into it, if you want to. (Sometimes we need to.) Or you can just forgive yourself and move on. After all, we’ve got the future to think of.

      CHALLENGE – Let’s get out our Dream Journal. What would you change NOW? How doyou WANT to change? Forgive yourself. You were held hostage by fortune (we all were)and you went full-on Stockholm Syndrome and identified with your attackers and tried toplease them. (We all did. It’s called Society.) Now you’re madder at yourself than you areat them. Forgive yourself. We’re starting a new life. One where it’s US who’s in charge.

      DANGER – You’re in another part of the forest. Surprise! This wasn’t the plan but here you are. TheDanger is always that you’ll give up. Surrender. Don’t. You can easily see from every fairy tale andhero’s journey you’ve ever studied that now we’re getting to the Good Part. By testing your muscle, youGROW your muscle. If your muscle is never tested, it withers. So let’s go!

      OPPORTUNITY – We don’t know everything. Even Jesus demonstrated surprise about the way thingsturned out. Be gentle as a dove, he advised, but wily as a serpent. Serpents can get out of anything. (Aska herpetologist.) And so can you. It’s just a bigger world than we knew – both inner and outer – so getmapping. I guarantee you – IT GETS BETTER.

      Models & Mentors –  “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than the things I haven’t done.”

      – Lucille Ball

      “There are no regrets in life, only lessons.” – Jennifer Aniston

      “We have only one life, and the second life begins the moment we realize that fact” – Confucius

      “I was designed by my Creator to not only feel pain and love but to become whole inside it. I am a Warrior” –Glennon Doyle

      “Autumn, the year’s last, loveliest smile” – William Cullen Bryant

      MEDITATION –

      #Haiku: Regret

      Coulda

      Woulda

      Shoulda

      Didn’t. Now you

      Wish

      Things

      Different.

      Clean slate.

      Write.

    1. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

      DREAM CONTENT – RELAX – Take a deep breath as you face the content of your dreams.  

        YOU HAVE INNER RESOURCES – FOCUS your power by closing your eyes and – relaxing. Are youafraid you might fall asleep? So much the better – we need these dreams to be our map and guide.Dreaming of hot summers, beach, umbrellas, ocean, sand? You are longing for a “getaway” and the verybest and most refreshing vacation is to disappear inside yourself. Let’s learn to “see” with that Third Eye– the Wisdom Eye. Like every effort, it takes not just concentration but practice.

        DREAMS OF REAL EVENTS –  Is your brain flipping through its memories, disguising them, trying to make sense of them or imagining horrific detours? These are anxiety dreams. You fear that the causality of existence is basically nonsensical and cruel. The cure? Develop a “human flourishing” worldview. Use your models and mentors to investigate the requirements of life enhancement. What about love? When your dreams fear it doesn’t exist, you need to develop loving relationships in your daytime life.

        DREAMS OF FICTIONAL EVENTS – Are you trying to process fiction read about and seen (often dystopian). Your shy heart is shocked to its core and your inexperienced brain is trying to make sense of it. But we know much online fiction is a race to the bottom, trying again and again to go over the top.

        PRACTICE SELF-CARE – Prioritize your well-being. If you spend four hours a day watching or playing nonsensical vitriolic junk, you should spend equal time on your improvement and self-soothing regimens. Think of it. EQUAL TIME. Obviously you need to start developing self-care regimens that are way more pleasurable than passive viewing.

        CHALLENGE – Check your immortal soul. Don’t think you have one? No wonder you’re scared, if you reduce yourself to chaff like yesterday’s lawn clippings!  You are certainly aware that all of human history has been devoted to exploring whether we have souls, where they come from and what happens to them. Probably you like – everyone –  is turned off by the idea that in order to have a soul you need to follow some religion’s requirements, laid down for you by its boss.

        But seriously, think about it. If part of yourself is immortal, with supernatural capabilities, doesn’t it, by definition, exist OUTSIDE all that stuff? Who put them in charge? If your immortal soul is the freest part of you, set it free indeed.  Use your imagination to imagine THOSE possibilities, instead of scaring yourself almost to death. And then – relax. 

        Inside yourself is you find everyone you have ever known, everyone you have ever loved, is there. Ifthat’s a tough one – and I know it’s making you gulp – here’s one tougher – everyone you ever WILLknow is in there too. You can learn to reach forwards as well as back. No, it doesn’t come immediately. But the exciting news is – you have all the time in the world.

        DANGER – You fear you will lose yourself. The worst fear is that you have no self to lose. You areyoung at this, and fresh, naïve and simple. A beginner. Accept that power. It is a wonderful thing whenthe baby begins to see. But what about Evil?  Isn’t that a thing? If I have Everything inside, then don’t Ihave Evil, too. And the mystic answer is Yes. But it can’t hurt you if you don the armor. The armor isLove, and I recommend you begin to study the subject. It isn’t strong enough yet, but you can strengthenit by Will. You must educate your will.

        OPPORTUNITY – You realize now that our dreams are forcing a choice – it really comes down to thatone thing – you must choose between Evil or Love. Evil promises it will “get the job done”, it will offer“special” unique opportunities, single you out for goodies, bring you hostages and slaves. But here’s theFact about Evil – it breaks all its promises because IT BREAKS YOU. Love promises Eternity and Joy,and it takes effort. It takes discernment, knowledge, commitment and growth. Love asks you to enter aprocess. Evil says you can just “take”, or even lie inert and be showered with benefits. One choice makes you beautiful, an athlete of the Soul, the other makes you hideously ugly, a blot that sucks in lightand depresses all who look at it.  Will you make mistakes? Inevitably. But we have been assured by the greatest minds of all time that we cannot lose. So, relax. 

        Models & Mentors: “Everything you want is on the other side of fear” – Jack Canfield

        “What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you become” – Buddha

        “You can’t stop the waves but you can learn how to surf” – Jon Kabat-Zinn

        “It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a world where exhaustion is a status symbol” – Brene Brown

        ‘You are the silent watcher of your thoughts. You are the stillness beneath the mental noise. You are the joy beneath the love and pain” – Eckhart Tolle

      1. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

        Danger – Risk –

        Do You Fear Sleep? Afraid of nightmares? Do you wake up gasping and trying to forget what you’ve just experienced?

        Nightmares mean you’re paying attention. Life is scary, but we need to grow, and growth requires we learn to cultivate risk if we are ever to expand and venture outside our comfort zone.

        Challenge – Study risk intelligently. No point being afraid of dragons if dragons are only symbolic. No point being “afraid” of “foreigners” if the man telling us to be afraid has a reputation for befriending people and then fleecing them.

        Evaluatng Risk :

        1. Don’t rely on rumor and innuendo
        2. Dangers provably Real
        3. Dangers Historically verified by data: “How likely is injury?”
        4. Assemble Risk avoidance strategies that have performed well for others in your situation.
        5. What exactly is your situation? Quantify.
        6. Know who your friends are
        7. Be prepared to alter strategy to maximize success and to learn from mistakes

        Opportunity – You get to find out who your friends are. Friends want the best for you, but the relationship must be reciprocal. You have each other’s backs. Know the difference between a Team and a Gang. Gangs work to suck power from individual members and concentrate it in one individual. Teams work for the success of all. Coach can’t win if the team doesn’t win.

        Surrender is The Worst Alternative – Be alert to the danger of trauma bonding in which we try to pacify attackers by taking their side. Doesn’t work.

        Models & Mentors – “Extreme Fear can neither fight nor fly.”
        – William Shakespeare

        “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear”

        – Mark Twain

        “If you try to get rid of fear and anger without knowing their meaning, they will return stronger” – Deepak Chopra

        “We’re more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than reality.” – Seneca

        Meditation –

        Haiku: Risk

        Regret
        Fear of
        Fearlessness: Launch
        Wise adventures

      2. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

        THE GODDESS – POWER

          DO YOU DREAM OF MAGIC?  Magical people, animals, happenings? It is the purview of dreams to manifest supernatural happenings. The Goddess represents the power – the force – to get things doneand to bend unfriendly circumstances to your desire and will. If dreams are wishes, this is understandable, because isn’t that what we all want – a little magic?

          BEHIND THE WISH, LIES THE FEAR – Do we long to be the 8-ball, to control the 8-ball or to be under the 8-ball? Don’t we fear all these at the same time?

          RECOGNIZE YOUR POWER – You are iconic. The Goddess suggests your yearning to discover theinherent magic that is especially, irreplaceably You. You have a power no one else has, incorporated inyour being, your possibilities, your desires and your memories.  This takes a lifetime to accept becausewe all fantasize being Someone Else and experiencing existence through the armor of Having only an Outside instead of just the very vulnerable Inside in which we all feel imprisoned. Your dreams bring allthese passions together as psychic poetry, elucidating what you think you want, what you hope you wantand what you are afraid you want. The ultimate magic is to seize conscious control of this potent powersource. Invite the Dream.

          CHALLENGE OF THE DREAM – The challenge is to truly connect with others, reveal our worldInside, and avoid blasting their apparently impenetrable Outside with our terror, our longing and ourfear.

          DREAM DANGERS – We must never take hostages and we must never become a hostage. Freedom is afine line to walk. If we wish to reach out, we must treat others with respect and claim like respect forourselves. Accept your dreams as “experiments”; do not fear them but learn to look at them, impartially, as messages from the Other World. Allow them to take you where you need to go.

          DREAM OPPORTUNITIES – There will be stumbles and terrors aplenty, also successes that LOOKlike stumbles and terrors, but which we only realize on reflection were real leaps forward. This is whywe must carefully assess our daily efforts without being harsh with ourselves. You are your own MostBeloved Child. Speak gently to yourself as you would to a most treasured child.. It is not selfish tocommit to this belief, it is simply placing the oxygen mask over your own face FIRST so that you canadminister this life-saving force to others. Find someone with whom you can share your dream journey,without fear or judgment. This connection will teach us everything we need to know about how toconnect with others. Explore Models and Mentors – this is how we learn.

          “I awoke to find the rest of the world still asleep” – Leonardo Da Vinci

          “Marvelous the dream and great the terror: we must treasure the dream no matter the terror.” – Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh

          “In dreams we betray ourselves

          In betrayal we discover ourselves

          In self-discovery we lose our innocence

          In loss of innocence we gain knowledge

          In knowledge we gain wisdom

          In wisdom we recover innocence.”

          -Brother Antoninus 

          MEDITATION –

          #Haiku: The Goddess

          Manifest your

          Brave,

          Burnished; brutalized

          Carapace.

          Gaze.  Accept.

          Love.

        1. Dream Group – Dream Journaling with Alysse Aallyn

          FOREST DREAMS = THE LIFE FORCE, ENERGY

            ARE YOU LOST?  Do you dream of nature, forests, trees, overgrowth? As you you’re your eyes and fall into the moss, does the forest speak to you, become your friend?

            DEFEATING NIGHTMARES – In your terror, the forest is a hostile place, determined to punish you for invading its magnificence. Fear is a reaction, but courage is a choice. Speak to the forest, apologize for the cruelties of the past, and promise to listen to its song in future.

            JOURNALING –  You need to find yourself. Your own map is the only way through. These dreamspulse with an energy that is gathering within you as you ready yourself for some great task.

            YOU ARE A POWER – You struggle to find your force. You feel the power and strength of undefinedwishes and the longing to create your place in the world. No guide exists to this wilderness, you willhave to map this forest yourself. Be brave.

            CHALLENGE – There are plenty of traps ahead. Do not become discouraged. Accept that the flow ofenergy pulses with your every heartbeat, with your sleep/rest cycle, with the obligations you willinglyseek to smooth your path.

            DANGERS – Some of these obligations become too heavy, others seek to deter you from your setcourse. Still others offer false maps that seem to promise the ease of “I don’t have to do this alone.” Weare all alone inside our heads and you – and only you – must be satisfied with the map you create. If youaren’t there’s no fellowship or wealth that can compensate you for that loss. When the forest loves you, you must love it back.

            OPPORTUNITIES – We revel in and with our fellow travelers. There could be a soulmate among them– for a time or for a life. Accept the wisdom of others, the wisdom of the path, consult other maps indesigning your own. Be prepared to alter your map – joyously – with each new and fresh discovery. There will be many. Open your Dream Journal. Close your eyes. And draw your future. Salut!

            MEDITATION –

            #Haiku: The Life Force

            Energy

            Resurge

            Depower dread

            Repower health

            Refocus

            Aim

          1. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

            The Path – Goals –

            Do Goddesses Have Paperwork? – Plenty! – The path of an evolved, enlightened being is littered with maps – theoretical, hypothetical and under construction.

            Goddesses Dream of a Better World – Do you dream of paths diverging in a yellow wood? Checklists? Maps? Are you talking to yourself as you follow your routine? What IS your routine? How has your routine evolved? What efforts have you made to change it to newly perceived needs and discoveries? Or is your routine formed outside you, for the benefit of others?

            Goddess Dream of a Responsive Universe. If you talking to yourself throughout your routine that self-talk needs to be positive. Goddesses are accustomed to being alone during peak experiences.  They must record these for history because as Virginia Woolf reminded us, nothing has happened until it has been written down. Become an encouraging coach.  Don’t hold yourself hostage or nobody can complete the steps.

            If You Have No Goal, Any Path Will Take You There – But you won’t like where you end up. 

            Goddesses are Goal-oriented. As you become more adept at change, you realize that dividing effort into “steps” to achieve a goal is critical. It won’t happen fast. Your conscious, subconscious, unconscious and collective unconscious (not to mention your pre-conscious!) are going to kick up a helluva fuss. But aligning these is the most interesting part!  Change is guaranteed.

            Goddesses Are Sore-Muscled Athletes – Day 2, thinking, I CAN’T DO THIS. Guess what? EVERYBODY THINKS THAT! Expect it! You treat yourself with loving compassion and cold compresses, hot baths and massage. In other words, there is an established map, a way to GET THROUGH THIS. The challenge is to CUSTOMIZE your map.

            Being is Movement. As we shape the Path, it shapes us. Even the most anti-social creatures are constantly making paths for others to follow.  Such delight when we uncover a ready-made Path because path-making is exhausting!  A ready-made path is a mysterious invitation.  All paths lead Somewhere.  Every Path, Visible or not, speaks of the existence of The Other.

            Paths Speak of Destination, Intention, Design, History. Paths are our Robinson Crusoe footprint. They represent Hope: this Path worked not just once, but many times.  We are proud of being Path-makers, Ice-piercers in our turn, Long-distance voyagers.  We lead the weary, frightened traveler of the future toward confidence and reliability.

            Goddesses Use Models.  We need a constantly evolving pit crew of helpers. A side effect of routine remodeling is “crazy thinking.” We all need somebody to talk us off the ledge, somebody who is familiar with not just our goals but what we are going through. Your id is always scheming to hold you hostage, and you need an experienced hostage negotiator.

            Waves of “Fear” Surfacing from your collective unconscious require symbolic release and expression in art, dance, love-making, sport or theatre.

            Disowned Longings from Your Subconscious threaten your secure sense of self and may require therapeutic intervention.

            Unconscious Drives from Depths no one’s ever plumbed can’t be faced without the courage of a Friend or Soulmate.  So, don’t try making it through this crisis without a buddy AND a coach.

            Halt! AA has a useful  acronym – HALT –  representing:

            Hungry

            Angry

            Lonely

            Tired

            These are the Emotion States of Bad Decision-making. So, when you see these conditions developing – Halt. Call your hostage negotiator immediately.

            Models & Mentors – “Setting goals is the first step into turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins

            “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not people or things”

            – Albert Einstein

            “A goal without a plan is just a wish” – Antoine St. Exupery

            “Always remember your focus determines your reality” – George Lucas

            #Haiku: Facing the Boogeyman

            Mimics dread

            Mocks goals

            Derails

            Ambition;

            Seize him and

            Laugh

            In his face

          2. Becoming a Goddess – the Goddess Oracle by Alysse Aallyn

            The Moon – Influence

            Goddesses Plan Their Path. Time to re-calibrate your subconscious influences and bring them into mindfulness. What subconscious influences? You don’t “know” this pressure with your rational mind, but you can “feel” it down in your animal soul. Something is pressing on you, like gravity, the way the moon’s pressure rolls and presses on our tidal waters.

            Goddesses Understand Their Secrets – You begin, like everyone, as a secret to yourself.  Your subconscious has the answers. Yet she only reveals herself covertly. Time for some dream interpretation. Object dreams are fear dreams, people dreams are love dreams, motion dreams are future dreams. Don’t look for rigid accuracy – we seek connections, not edges, interpretations, not walls and blocks. The purpose of dreaming is to splinter blocks. If you are a writer, automatic writing reveals what you think about. Collect pictures that speak to you and collage them from insight. Try to name the figures.

            Goddess Are in Tune with the Universe – The opposite of fear, remember, is attraction, the opposite of love is hate and the opposite of forward yearning for the future is stasis. Each life pulse contains its opposite. Goddesses must learn many languages, of which the most important are non-verbal. The sky, the moon, the stars, the animals, history, the past, the plants, the dead, the future – all are reaching out to you. Be unafraid to listen and interpret.

            Goddess Are Aware of the Unseen – We are all under influences of forces we have never even heard of, yet the Goddess’s Quest is to own their Self and present it in its most beautiful incarnation, to God, as worthy of  Immortality. To understand who we are at our core is to perfect our obligation of thriving and giving.

            Goddess Danger – We seek to heighten, not damage, your self-will. Others in your life – relative, friends, advertisers, politicians – are trying to take control of you. Don’t let them. The way to stop that is to take control of your fears yourself, so that you will never be ruled by them. Always seek a way upward. The direction of the spiral must always be UP.

            Some influences are demonic and purely destructive. We stand up to them, we name them, we reject them. We learn their weaknesses and their targets. If necessary, we will battle them.

            Goddess Challenge – Recognize Health, in yourself and others. Promote growth in yourself and others. Goddesses may refuse to engage, but they never cut people down. Take time for retreat, to build yourself and your powers and to recognize and name where you have come from and what you have battled. Treasure your Goddess Journal, share it, learn to profit from the trainings and maps of others. Build partnerships. Work on your Gratitude Practice – this is a glorious universe the God/Goddess deigns to share with us; from Love alone.

            Models & Mentors – “Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars” – J. R. R Tolkien

            “Like the Moon, come out from behind the clouds. Shine!”– Buddha

            “Everyone is a Moon, and has a dark side he never shows to anybody”- Mark Twain

            “The moon gives pure solitude and tranquility”

            – Haruki Murakami

            #Haiku: The Echo

            Sharp night; cold

            Moon; shush your chatter.

            Naked

            Pond consecrates

            Abandon.

          3. Becoming a Goddess – claiming your Superpower by Alysse Aallyn

            Summer – Relax

              Can Goddesses afford to relax? Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Well, Lesson #1 is that being a goddess is Counterintuitive. Other people rush away from the burning building – planning on being EVEN MORE SCARED the next time. Well, we are going to master our fear. We are going in.

              Everybody Panics  – I had a panic attack at age 5 (I  got lost outside a movie theatre) and another at age 11 when I descended deep, deep, deep into a cave. (I think the guide was deliberately trying to scare us.) I didn’t know at the time what these episodes were – my parents and sisters saw them as embarrassing annoyances – but looking back it’s clear what was happening to me physically as a result of what was happening to me mentally.

              Relaxation In the Face of Panic – Learning to tolerate psychic dissonance, to be interested in it and challenged by it is what we’re all about. It’s a sign that we’re in the presence of the Deep Stuff – the things that galvanize our deep subconscious and if we can just seize control of that, we’ll access our true power.

              Learn Relaxation Techniques – There are so many and you should experiment with all of them! Learn what works for you and – key – what you enjoy. You will find yourselves using these techniques all the time. To get to sleep, to get through difficult experiences or just to access your subconscious when you have a question.

              Breathe Deeply – The very first thing is mastering control of the breath. Pregnant women learn all kinds of helpful breathing techniques in Lamaze; panting, counting; deliberately slowing down and speeding up your breathing. In yoga you will learn Lion Breaths to make you feel powerful. They are very similar to the gasps and shouts in martial arts and will affect your opponents. Watch the Maori war dance on YouTube.

              Get Out Your Training Journal – write down the techniques and your reactions. Appoint a time to practice these every day. Your breath connects you to the universe and all living things.

              Models & Mentors: “The first thing to learn is the breath.” – Confucius

              ‘Breathe In. Let Go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure, and give thanks for that.”

              – Oprah Winfrey

              ‘Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor” –

              Thich Nhat Hanh

              “While we breathe, we hope” – Barack Obama

              #Haiku: Every Breath You Take

              Life isn’t numbered

              By breaths you take but

              Moments

              That take breath

              Away