My “Two-Minute” Video for this Week: Be Your Real Self!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: You Are Not Your Stories
September 19, 2014 — RosemaryHow many times have you heard yourself repeating a story about something that happened to you, or that you learned about yourself as a child, or that some parent or teacher convinced you was true and, yet, inside, there was a niggling doubt that that story is still true about you today?
Or maybe you keep telling that story without even realizing that it belongs to the past and no longer holds any truth for the you who is showing up in your life today?
It is so easy to ‘story ourselves’ into our victimhood and we hide behind our stories until it becomes difficult to find the real person behind the mask of story.
Years ago (okay, decades ago) I sold cosmetics at home parties part time (yes, your guess is right about which one!) and I had a woman attend her neighbor’s party to try out the new cosmetics. She came in wearing orangey makeup over deep pockmarks and sat at the table with the others to follow the program, removing her makeup and trying on what I was offering. After hearing her friends around the table exclaim over her new look and how great she looked, she requested some additional cleanser, got out her bag and reapplied her orangey stuff before she walked out the door to cross the street to her home.
The hostess was embarrassed and apologetic but I assured her that it was okay with me. Each of us needs to feel comfortable about the way we show up in the world. This woman needed that mask before she could even walk across the street to go home. She ignored her friends compliments and went behind the familiar mask, even though the new cosmetics were more flattering.
How easy it is to wear what’s familiar, even if it’s not the best for us? We sometimes find comfort in the familiar when it is painful just because we don’t want to move into new energy.
What is your security blanket? What mask do you wear that keeps you hiding from your beautiful real self because it is familiar and comfortable, even if your real self is more beautiful?
Uncovering the real self behind the mask is the work of personal growth. The transformations can be amazing! And it means letting go of the old masks, the old stories that we hide behind before we can shine the light of our real self out into the world.
I have a problem with some of the support groups out there that have you staying the victim of your story by repeating it over and over again. Your story is A story. It does not define WHO YOU REALLY ARE. The only reason to tell a story is to show how you’ve grown beyond it so that you can help someone else experience the same growth.
Listen to yourself and your chatter. Notice that your stories might be repeatedly keeping you the victim instead of being stories of empowerment. Notice that you might be hiding your inner light behind a mask that you can shed now.
You are not your stories. Let the light of the real you shine into the world without a mask!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Possibilities Are Right in Front of You
January 22, 2014 — RosemaryThe ‘possible’ is constantly under attack because someone thinks it is improbable, or impossible, or difficult, or ‘not the way we do things.’
This year, embrace ‘possibilities’ as your theme. Search for the possible. Learn to recognize the possible. Talk about the possible. Catch yourself cancelling an idea before you’ve explored the possibilities. Catch other people trying to squash your dreams of what is possible for you.
So often we start out making a plan, setting goals, creating ‘resolutions’ because we think we should. The first rule of goal-setting is that it be realistic. ‘Realistic’ can be the enemy of ‘possible.’
Now, realistic can also just be realistic. But I have seen too many dreams crushed under the accusation that they are not realistic and therefore must be discarded.
What would happen today in the US if the President were to suggest that, in a decade or less, we would walk on the Moon? And, yet, despite all the naysayers, this country made that happen. (I know, there are those who say we didn’t really do that but, remember, I worked for NASA on the Hubble Space Telescope Project and I don’t think they can create a coverup that big!)
Possibilities draw us up to our greatness. Possibilities stretch us beyond what is comfortable and realistic to the former you and invite you to grow, to expand, to explore beyond what you already know into the possible you.
What is possible for you to consider? What dreams do you have that you can pursue?
In working with clients I sometimes have to catch them speaking a belief as if it is a rock-solid truism about how the Universe works. When we address that belief AS a belief, the world of possibilities can open up for them and the excitement starts.
Who is limiting you? Not ‘what’ is limiting you, but ‘who’? The answer is YOU. Even if you think you can list a bunch of folks who are holding you back, the real answer is YOU. You are believing the limitations of the past, the definition of ‘realistic’ that someone else has planted as a truism. You believe of yourself that you might not be able to reach for that dream and so you decide not to reach at all, rather than suffer the indignation of a potential failure.
There are so many possibilities and they are lurking right in front of you but they might be hiding behind that veil of illusion. Take some time alone to reach behind the veil and see what is there. What might you do if you forget about how you will accomplish it and just seek the possibilities? What dreams may lie beyond the veil that you haven’t dared to dream because you didn’t think they were realistic?
Our stories and myths contain all sorts of impossible things happening. Cinderella marries the Prince. Rodgers and Hammerstein even wrote a song for their version of Cinderella titled ‘Impossible’ that contains the line, ‘Impossible things are happening everyday.’ Rumpelstiltskin thought it was impossible that the miller’s daughter would guess his name but guess it she did.
There are possibilities right in front of you but you may have donned your filter-glasses so that you can’t see them. Take off the glasses. Part the veil. Reach for the possibilities and stop listening to anyone who tells you that you can’t do it.
Reach for the Moon. Impossible things are happening everyday!
ROSEMARY’S EXPLORATION: Brain Science, Storytelling, and YOU!
May 15, 2013 — RosemaryRecent studies of the science of the brain are showing us that we can create new neural pathways by thinking new thoughts. And the more we think those new thoughts, the stronger those pathways grow. By the same token, old pathways can break down with misuse or get rewired.
Wow! That means you can give yourself a new brain by thinking new thoughts! As The Scientific Mystic, I think this is cool science!
Of course, if you reinforce old thoughts, old patterns, you strengthen those pathways. Hmmmmm… That means that if we keep telling the same old stories, thinking the same old thoughts, we dig ourselves into deeper trenches in our brain that make coming out of those trenches more difficult than they need to be.
This is bad enough when we keep retelling our own stories. Do you know some people who seem to be stuck in their victimhood because they keep re-telling their story and they never change the ending to claim their power now? It’s as if they are magically drawn to the past and they somehow get stuck there. We do that to ourselves unconsciously, too. We hold onto grudges because we keep reliving that past hurt or anger or upset and we reinforce the patterns of old.
We don’t need to keep doing that, however. Many survivors of horrendous abuse can tell you that, although it is extremely difficult work, therapy has helped them to move on from their victimhood. In my coaching practice I can see amazing progress in the clients who work to shift their stories into being the empowered hero of their own lives. As a matter of fact, I don’t work with clients who are unwilling to write a new story because we have so many tools to facilitate the shift that there’s no need to stay stuck.
The most insidious stories are those that come down the family tree, or from a parent or authority figure from our childhood. These we accepted, as children, as absolute truth and haven’t brought them up to be re-examined in light of our adult understanding. They run the program of ‘Me’ at the unconscious level and we don’t even know whose story is creating our life.
The first step in becoming the hero of your life is to look at your stories. What are they? Are they true? Or do you keep re-deciding to believe something that might not be true in the present moment? You are always at choice about what to believe. This is an active process. But first you must bring your beliefs into the open so that you can decide with consciousness whether or not you want to keep believing that way.
What you thought about the world when you were 7 years old just might not be true for you at 37 or 57 or 77. Maybe it’s time to re-decide?
How exciting that brain science in the 21st Century is helping us to shift! We have amazing techniques available to shift our neurology by thinking new thoughts, writing new stories. We can live a conscious life by examining the thoughts we have, the stories we tell ourselves and others, the beliefs that underlie the choices we make.
I recently heard Candace Pert, PhD, a molecular biologist, speak about science and spirituality. She wrote the book, Molecules of Emotion: The Science Behind Mind-Body Medicine. I love what she said about the Brain: “The Brain works by making up stories. People sometimes rent out space in their brains to people who have been dead for years by telling and clinging to old stories.”
Make sure YOU are the one who decides which stories to tell and which ones to evict!
PS: Here is a fun way to find out who might be renting space in your brain: join me for a Conversation with The Other Side. Next Monday, May 20, at 7:00 pm I am offering an online Conversation where we talk to anyone from your past who has crossed over whose story you may be holding on to. Get more information and registration details at TheScientificMystic.com
MYSTIC MESSAGE from The Divine Feminine: Once upon a time…
October 2, 2012 — RosemaryDear Ones,
Every day of your life is a Fairy Tale Day. It starts with ‘Once upon a time…’ and you write the rest of the story.
What are you writing today? Is there an ogre? A villain? A fairy godmother? A prince or princess? What perils will your main characters encounter? Will they choose might or diplomacy to solve their problems? Will there be a ‘happily ever after’ ending to today’s story?
Do you understand the responsibility of being the author of this fairy tale story? You are not only creating the script for yourself to follow today but for all those around you. And every morning you start over with a new ‘Once upon a time…’ beginning.
The original fairy tale stories that you were told as a child and that you have told to your children started as illustrations of life on Earth. There was a parallel to the lives of those who lived at the time of the creation of these stories. There was always a villain or an ogre lurking around the corner. There was always a rescuer waiting to swoop in and rescue the powerless. Some original stories did not have ‘happily ever after’ endings.
Now you live in the 21st Century Earth world that is crying out for the hope in the ‘happy’ fairy tale stories. What will you do to contribute to that longed-for hope?
If you are feeling that your life seems like one of the stories without the happy ending then you have not yet embraced the concept of yourself as the author of your own story. Whether or not you have doesn’t alter the circumstances but it does affect your power to write the ending.
Look around you at your life and notice that all the characters are in some way a reflection of a part of yourself. This is not to say that every ogre in your life means that you are an ogre toward others. It is merely to say that there might be a part of you that is bullying the rest of you into seeing circumstances as if you are the victim of outside ogres.
The truth is, Dear One, you can change the details of the story to reflect the life you desire rather than what you feel you have been dealt. You are not the victim today. If there is someone who is abusing you, then get yourself out of that situation and move forward with your life. But if you are honestly looking for your point of personal growth, it will probably not be at the hands of the fairy tale rescuer that you might wish would charge up on his white steed and swoop you into a happy ending.
You are your own rescuer. You have the power to ride your own white steed into the situation and change things. Claim that power. Visualize the circumstances shifting around you to support your own ‘happily ever after’ ending for today’s story.
And if you find yourself moving into distress over the past or the future, then you are not authoring today’s story, and this is the only page in the book that you have control over. You cannot change the past nor can you define the future until you take the actions called for by today. Your choices today define your future, so make your choices about today in the direction of the future you desire.
Not every circumstance can be changed in a day, but your story today can have great impact on your tomorrow. Write the fairy tale you want to live within, today.
And so it is.
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Mystic Messages 
You Are Not Your Stories – Richard’s Commentary
September 24, 2014 — RichardHere’s the core of Rosemary’s Exploration from Friday:
It is so easy to ‘story ourselves’ into our victimhood and we hide behind our stories until it becomes difficult to find the real person behind the mask of story.
I love this little phrase: “story ourselves into victimhood.” And sometimes the stories are not even our own, but our parents’ stories or even multi-generational stories passed along through time.
An example of this is my parents’ stories from the era of the Great Depression. My Dad had to quit school after the 8th grade to go to work to help support the family. My Mom tells of a Christmas when she got an orange in her stocking as her only gift! Those times were tough, no doubt! And, for Mom they created a deep sense of insecurity around money and a sense of fear around not having enough. Yet, growing up on a Wisconsin dairy farm we always had enough.
My mother’s sense of “lack” has been passed along in my unconscious mind and I continue to work with this story. I have always had enough – enough to eat, comfortable shelter, great jobs, a fabulous family – everything a guy could ever want. But there is a little voice in the back of my mind that still says things like: “we can’t afford that”, or “maybe someday when…”
As I look back I have been blessed, taken care of, never experiencing the “poverty” my mother spoke of and carried forward in her stories. But a small piece of her story is alive in me. I am not that story and I work on moving it out of my life, catching myself in the feeling of lack, remembering I am not lacking in anything and sensing a deep trust that I will always be taken care of.
Rosemary adds: The only reason to tell a story is to show how you’ve grown beyond it so that you can help someone else experience the same growth. I can safely tell my “money story” because I have grown beyond it. And I continue to grow beyond it!
We are in California now visiting our newest grandson, Tristan. A few days before leaving I checked our financial accounts and mentioned to Rosemary we would have to be mindful of the budget on the trip. Within two days she booked a client for a year-long program, paid in full! Trust is always preferable to any sense of lack! The reminders just keep coming.
It’s OK to remember the stories, just don’t get stuck in them. Remember the lessons and move on.
And enjoy the New Moon, Wednesday, 2:14 am EDT.