Author Archives: Jane Rothfeld

Thought Directs Energy

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Someone posted a recording of a Byron Katie workshop  – circa 1993 – on YouTube.  Katie talked about living on the street.  I do not know how long or under what circumstances she did this.  She talked about a night when the weather was bitterly cold.  Despite the weather and her circumstances, she was inside a building, warm, sipping a hot drink.  She watched a man – also living on the street –  sleep outside in the bitter cold.

The only difference between them was their beliefs.  She did not let the limiting belief of “I am a homeless person and therefore undeserving with no options” stop her from finding a warm place to hang out.  The man slept outside in the bitter cold.

This example is powerful because it illuminates the principle of how our thoughts can direct our energy (and life) in such a bare, alarming way.  She had nothing more than the man in the cold except the ability to live beyond belief.

May we all develop that ability.  May we all live beyond belief.

The case for living in the Now (#1)

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There is a place in life for planning.  I question whether it is the “absolute necessity ” we are told it is, but I still make plans.

One of the advantages of planning is that it can be like a tuning mechanism, a tuning fork – harmonizing future and the time-based present in enjoyable, uplifting ways.

One of the disadvantages is that it can confine.  Planning – and sticking to a plan – can be an attempt to control.  Planning, by definition, relies on time and space.  These bandwidths can be limiting.  Also, it lives, perhaps, where life is not.

Many a wise teacher has said that life only happens in the Now.  The only reality is the present moment which exists beyond (or behind) mind constructs, from which all planning springs.

What possibilities might we see, what energy might we access if we put down our calendars and dropped into the Now?  Just for now.

Finding the Infinite Bank (#1)

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Most techniques and philosophies about creating money and abundance don’t go far enough. Creating vision boards and thinking positively about desired things are helpful, but these tools can be incomplete.

It is easy to build up inner charge (and tension) around the so-called positive. If there is any sense of avoiding the negative or clutching the positive – a state seen as desirable by many schools of thought – there is no inner freedom. There is still tension and a sense of limitation.

I have only ever found inner freedom to be the most “abundant” state. It releases the attachment to what we decide is “abundance” (if you can’t abide not having it, how are you free?) which opens up tremendous energy.

It calls forth the part of us that is beyond all concepts, attachments, memory and outcomes, including numbers in our bank account. It doesn’t discount or deflect any outcome – we tend to think it does – it just doesn’t grab.

That aspect of Being is already free. Be “that.”

Mission Statements

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I am working on a mission statement for my business. After trying to make its different aspects (some are still in development) fit into one statement, I decided I would need two, maybe three mission statements. One for each part of the business.

The class I teach: gives creatives tools for more empowerment..
The one-to-one facilitation: I hold the space for you to create art despite resistance.
Books: I give children a sense of hope and joy about their world..

If I boiled down the details to their essence, I would say:

Your soul is already free.

and…

Life only happens NOW.

Saying Yes – Part 2

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At Work – photo by Stanley Zimney

While creating our art, there is often alot of thought-chatter in our heads.  Some of these thoughts may be fresh, valuable ideas about directions to take our art.  Chances are, most of the chatter is negative and unpleasant.  This chat is likely full of doubt, self-recrimination, fear and perhaps hurtful words spoken by others at a particular time in your life.

These voices tell you you’re not good enough to be an artist.  They critique your art and warn you about going in the creative direction you’re going down to what strokes to paint, words to write and materials to use.

Which, if any, of these thought-voices do you listen to?  How do you choose what you will listen to?  How do you weaken the negative chatter? How do you resist it?

First, you keep creating your art.  You get on a regular schedule and even if you give it 5 minutes, you give it 5 minutes.  Nothing…..NOTHING substitutes for this.  If you talk about it, think about it, do “shadow” activities (writing the most eloquent FB post ever!) instead of creating, you feed fear and resistance.

With resistance strengthened, the next time you think about creating, it will be easier to put it off.  The next time you actually do create, there will be a thicker layer of pain to wade through before you are in flow with your art.  It will make you cry.

First, show up for your work.  Create.  No matter what.

Second, meditate.  Meditation has a powerful ability to quiet the mind for hours after you do it.  One of the benefits I notice is it makes thoughts shorter.  It makes them less thread-y and tenacious.

Find a practice you like and even if you give it 5 minutes, give it 5 minutes.  Every day.

Saying Yes – Part 1

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I recently read Michael Singer’s book The Surrender Experiment.  I admire his intense commitment to discover the nature of spiritual reality and not live within the dictates of his ego brain (chatter). His willingness to say “yes” to whatever appeared in his physical reality is astonishing.

If something showed up in his life, he trusted it was sent by “life” and therefore worthy of his “yes.”  If his ego chattered about it (or anything), he would ignore it.

While I do agree it is useful or even necessary to say “yes” to more in life, I do not agree that everything that shows up in life deserves a “yes.”   If someone just up and started living on my land – which happened to him – they would encounter the most decisive “no” you can imagine.  However, as artists (of all kinds) how do we use his technique of ignoring ego/brain chatter?

First, we must identify what this “voice” is.  This is your first task.  You do this by observing, by listening to what is going on in your head.  If it helps to take a few minutes (o.k., maybe one minute) to write down every thought in your mind, do that.

Also, sensations invariably accompany thoughts, so watch what feelings are coming up.  Once you get the hang of it, see if you can trace the feelings to the thoughts.  Thoughts are very (very) fast, so you might need to work on this a bit.

(More to come…..)

Is it quantum or not?

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Is the nature of reality – including everything we see in the physical world – quantum or not?  If it is, then the basic “stuff” of Creation awaits our command.  It has no predetermined inclination, characteristic, preference or even physical attributes – like being a wave or a particle – until we show up to observe, i.e., direct, it.

This energy has no God-given attributes, other than to be usable by us.  It is not immutable.  In fact, it is highly mutable.  That is what it is there for.  It is there for us, not the other way around.  How would you like to shape Creation today?

Wallpaper

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Wallpaper by lilfairy

At times I have found it is easy to release on the subject of money yet still miss some of the fundamental beliefs.  It can feel so freeing (and delightful) to chuck out the whole subject!  But beliefs and reality constructs that have pain attached can stay unexamined, like wallpaper in a room.  They seem “just there.”
It’s necessary to drop attachment to (what seems like) the whole subject of money and identities related to it, but it’s also necessary to be aware of any hidden beliefs that appear to be “just the way it is.”  No condition or belief is “just the way it is.”

What beliefs might be your “wallpaper?”

 

The Carver

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hand_sculpture

“Words do not label things already there.  Words are like the knife of a carver.  They free the idea, the thing, from the general formlessness of the outside.  As a man speaks, not only is his language in a state of birth, but also the very thing about which he is talking.”

– Inuit Wisdom