"The attribution of reality to that which arises in the mind is the cause of all human suffering." ~Krishna Menon
No one worth their salt, who's danced a few dances all the way to completion, would ever say that clearing karma is easy. Worth it? Absolutely! Easy? ...For the deeper karmas (imprints of past conditioning)? Rarely.
Why is that?
Because it takes standing in a more expanded level of consciousness with Awareness...a consciousness more expanded than that of the imprint being cleared, to release the past.
For example. As any of you who know me well, or who've been following this blog, know...I've been working diligently around releasing the energy stored in my financial debt (illusions around self-love, money, value, worth, and debt) through conscious awareness, conscious choices, and conscious actions in every area of my life.
Getting on the phone with any of my creditors or bankers can be a profound exercise in being more conscious in my awareness, choices, and actions. I have to know that any of these calls can be laden with opportunities for me to feel frustrated, angry, dis-respected, and under-exchanged with. If those feelings arise, and I'm not conscious of the arising, these feelings can come through my tone, words, and strong psychic energy...the underlying feeling of attack from a position of victim could arise.
My job in these interactions is to stay clear and grounded, to keep choosing to stay open, patient, and in self-love. When I wobble (which I have), when I reach for heavy-handed energy and speech to get my needs met (which I can), I must back-track...return to self-love...apologize to the human being on the other end of the phone...and restore the interaction to the best of my ability, back to a human interaction....an interaction where I'm not unconsciously making anyone feel responsible (or irresponsible) for navigating my finances....where I'm the most educated and committed person on my financial team.
I just got off of one of these types of calls with Chase about the long-weekend and the availability of one of my deposits. Here it is five days later, and the deposit still won't be available until tonight at midnight. After the funds-clearing law changed a while back, banks made it known that they'd be instantly collecting on funds. For example, if I write you a check and you deposit it today, your bank instantly collects that money into their accounts, but waits a full business day or more until making that money available to your account. There is a lag time between when the bank collects the money and when you get to use it. As a former Washington Mutual customer (before Chase bought Wamu), all my deposits were credited to my account on the day they were deposited (based on my established good banking history with Wamu). Now that it's a new bank and a new day, the rules have changed.
It's up to me to get clear about the new rules and plan accordingly. Regardless of whether I feel the rules are fair and just, or not, if I choose to continue doing business with Chase, it behooves me to know and align my business practices with their rules, or leave and find another bank. Being angry and upset isn't going to change the rules of a huge behemoth of a financial institution.
Being clear and informed will change my relationship with the institution.
I did start to get upset with the customer service person on the other end of the phone when she couldn't give me specific information about my funds availability. I did begin to leverage a strong amount of psychic energy and could feel my solar plexus tighten, letting me know I was moving towards a battle of will.
While on hold, I took myself and the phone up to my roof garden. I cradled the phone between my shoulder and ear, while holding the thick green vibrant stems of the tobacco plants in the garden. I opened my heart, felt my feet grow roots into the ground below, and gently asked the spirit of the tobacco to help give me the spiritual strength to release all attachments to the past around self-love, money, value, and debt...to root deeper into self-love, my faith, and exchange with the Universal Energy Flow....to open my Heart wider and ground this opening into my thoughts, words, feelings, and actions.
When the rep came back on the line, I had softened. She gave me the clear, relevant, and specific information that I needed. Then I spoke to her very personally. I let her know I appreciated her help...that I apologized for getting intense with her, that I realized she must get a number of these calls everyday in this economy, that it must be difficult to interact with. I was using this time to call back any intensity I had sent her way, to call it back to myself to be digested and released.
She softened as well. She apologized for not giving me the information I needed, for herself being short and frustrated. I was her last call of the day after a very long and wearing day of similar calls. She said that she had learned a lot from our call. I could hear the humanity coming back into her voice.
We were two human beings connecting openly.
I truly believe these intentional exchanges add up and heal relationships and groups of all sizes over time. I had to choose to reach past my frustration, past the need to be right (all loaded into the energy of the past) and extend a hand to this living breathing human being. It felt challenging and uncomfortable for a a couple of minutes, but as we both opened, the flow in the opening lifted and expanded us both.
cool!
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