Unleash the Power of Your Intuition

I could never tell if it was Opportunity or the Wolf knocking.
– Anne Ellis – The life of an Ordinary Woman (1929)

Taking On The Challenge

I came across a humorous piece of writing years ago that made me laugh out loud. The author was talking about his desire to jump on the bandwagon of personal development and take on the task of revitalizing and transforming his life.

His biggest stumbling block, however, was that all of his time was spent fulfilling his responsibilities to life commitments that he made in his early twenties, before he had any idea that he could choose with more discernment.

The funny part was in the way that he overviewed the predicament he was in. Underneath the humor, he was exposing a common problem that runs rampant in many lives.

We often avoid taking a deeper look into our present conditions because of our inability to endure intense feelings. Instead, we reactively go into action to fix the situation, often throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

When we think in terms of good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, we can perceive only fragments of reality. The full truth of the situation can never be found, because of the overwhelming harshness of our self-judgments.

When we still our minds enough to allow our usually unconscious longings to speak, we begin to sense that another, more fulfilling, and a larger capacity to experience life, must exist.

If we allow ourselves to become aware of this inner voice, we may hear it telling us there is much, much more to our lives than we are presently experiencing. We may also begin to become aware that we are in some way stopping ourselves from opening to the fullness and richness that surrounds us, here and now.

How can we find clarity about what is real and what is false about our deepest longings?

When disturbing feelings about the state of our lives begin to surface, it is a wakeup call. It is an invitation to wakeup and get ready to expand our limited viewpoint, so that creative expansion can bring new vitality and life to areas that have degenerated into flat, dismal, and common gray reality.

It takes courage and bravery to take this journey. We must be willing to visit our personal truth room, centered in the core of our inner being. The task is to find our real self, which resides underneath our pretenses and fears.

This takes bravery of a different kind than normally understood. It is the bravery to show up in the world without the pretense of being better than, or less than, anyone else. It means that we find the courage to drop the protective armoring that attempts to keep us safe and cocooned. We begin to question the ego-filled notions that tell us that it isn’t necessary to assume responsibility for our present state.

We refuse to remain lulled into dullness and lethargy, hoping to receive a new and better life by being a good, obedient follower of the status quo. We stop settling for living with the hope that life will somehow supply good things to us, as a reward for our compliance.

The longing for a fulfilling life is realistic when we start from the premise that the clues to fulfillment must lie in us. We can then earnestly set out to find the attitudes and beliefs that prevent us from experiencing our lives in a fulfilling and meaningful way.

Do you believe fulfillment is supposed to be given to you? Are you unwilling to look at the areas of yourself, and your life, that you would rather avoid? Do you react to painful life situations with rage, self-pity, complaints, and other defenses? These attitudes and behaviors are some of the ways that keep us from experiencing our bottled-up pain. As a result, sadly, we also remain ill equipped and incapable of accepting and sustaining a sense of wellbeing and basic happiness.

Fulfillment and richness of experience exists on all levels: spiritual, physical, emotional and mental. There is an illusion that seems widespread in our society today. It is the temptation to use spiritual practices to grab happiness and fulfillment, while avoiding already existing negativities, confusion, and pain.

The longing for a full, rich and rewarding life is valid. There is a state in which you can live without painful confusions and where you can function on a level of inner resilience, contentment, and security. You can become capable of deep feelings, and of meeting life without fear.

This state can only be reached by facing and taking ownership of your orphaned fears and misconceptions. The true challenge is to no longer fear you.

The reluctance to be truthful with ourselves applies to all of us. If we want to begin to unravel the mystery that surrounds our lack of enthusiasm for our lives, we can start by becoming aware of what we spend our time doing. Our life is ultimately defined by what we spend our energy on.

What is your attitude towards your work, your home, your relationships, your family, and yourself? Do you experience your duties and responsibilities as a burden and an energy drain, as a blessing and energy gain, or something in-between?

Is your self-definition used as a straightjacket to keep you in line or as a springboard to generate new insights into how to participate more authentically and fully, in the creation of your life?

Do you demand and command that life owes you and act as though you are entitled to all benefits, while paying no prices? Do you treat your life and yourself as though you are endlessly to blame for all the misfortunes and unhappiness surrounding you? Do you behave as if it is your responsibility to figure out what is wrong with everyone around you? Do you use your life energy to fix problems that you didn’t create, so that you can avoid dealing with your own life?

Asking the tough questions can bring great opportunities with it. In order to take off the leash around your neck, you must be willing to look deeply into the areas of your life where you are most bound up and most anxious.

In order to liberate our real selves, it may be time to confront our fear of the wolves of pain, disappointment, and emotional numbness so that we can contact and connect with the warmth of flowing emotional energy.

Taking on this challenge will gift you with a wellspring of vital involvement from deep within your soul.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. The next six-week seminar series start in September. Call to find out how to register. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: www.susanvelasquez.com.

Inner freedom is not a matter of adding anything. It is purely a ridding experience.
– Vernon Howard (1965)

Accomplishment Overload

We have been gifted with four ways of experiencing our lives. At birth, we get a physical body through which we can move, speak, hear, see, taste, and touch. We get an emotional body that gifts us with the ability to receive and experience a vast range of feelings, and to fully engage in our lives with receptivity, enthusiasm, and curiosity.

We have a mental body that gives us the ability to imagine, accumulate knowledge, make plans, focus our attention, and problem-solve. We also have a spiritual body that houses our inner blueprint and our connection to the wellspring of life’s source energy.

Let’s imagine that at a young age, you observed the people around you and, as a result, landed on the idea that the purpose of life is to keep busy and accumulate. Get as much as you can get. Use your physical, mental and emotional energies to get as many possessions as you can.

You set about learning how to successfully use your physical energy to do whatever is necessary to have as much as possible. Mentally, you continue to acquire as much knowledge as possible, in as many areas as you can. You make plans and persistently follow through on them You supply vast amounts of focused mental energy, and use your imagination to set bigger goals for future achievements that will add to your growing list of accomplishments.

Emotionally, you experience the tumultuous roller-coaster ride of a wide range of emotions. You experience the thrill of winning and the agony of losing. You weather painful disappointments and defeats as well as exhilarating and ego-inflating successes.

All of your actions are intended to fulfill the underlying and unchallenged dictate to accumulate more, bigger and better possessions and experiences.

The next question that naturally surfaces is “What about my spiritual body? How can I use that energy to accumulate? Interesting question. Can spiritual energy be harnessed and be used to accumulate material goals?

Many are diligently giving that a try. It seems to me like putting the cart before the horse. You can use the horse to push the cart. It just isn’t right use of either.

Perhaps there is a better way. It is perfectly fine to fill your cart to the brim if you choose. It is just that what is in your cart is your personal preferences and doesn’t have much to do with anything more than that.

You can only eat one meal at a time. You can only integrate one experience at a time. Therefore, the amount of things and experiences you accumulate has to do with how much you choose to manage, at any given time.

Imagine that your spiritual body is like a still, fathomless, body of crystal clear water that beckons you to come and rest for a while. As it welcomes you, it asks you to gaze into this pondering pool. As you settle in, you begin to see the essence of your core being reflected back to you.

The purpose of this respite is to assist you to let go of your tight-fisted grasping at life. Shift your external focus inward and begin the process of opening your mind, softening your heart, and deepening your willingness to receive guidance and new directions from a deeper source.

Perhaps it is time to turn your attention away from external lusting after outcomes for a little while. Allow yourself to rest and refresh your tired, problem-solving mind, your weary, and overworked, emotions, and your depleted, physical body.

Go to nothing. Breathe in and out. Rest in the arms of the present moment. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Let go of frantic.

Allow your innocence to return by acknowledging your basic goodness and the basic goodness of your life. Surrender into the healing waters of the present.

Be right here. Right now.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. The next six-week seminar series start in September. Call to find out how to register. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: susanvelasquez.com.

Sidestepping Mind Fields

During times of outer instability in our economy, fear of the unknown begins to grab hold and contaminate our peace of mind with unsettling imaginings of the worst possible kind. These are times when the dragons and demons of fear take hold. Unrealistic expectations come calling and self-doubts increase.

The chances of relationship explosions with family or friends during these stressful times are high because the currents of emotion, both positive and negative, are over-stimulated.

Heightened emotional stimulation sets the stage for drama. Every good drama has three main characters that must be present and engaged before the drama can begin.

There must be a victim. There must be a persecutor. There must be a rescuer.

These three positions interact to create intrigue, mystery, and mayhem on television, in books, or in the movies. Unfortunately, when the same dynamic plays out in our lives, it often causes us confusion and pain instead of bringing enjoyment and entertainment value.

As a matter of fact, you may be an unsuspecting player in a confusing drama of your own right now. If so, perhaps it would be helpful for you to know how this drama triangle, formally known as the Karpman Triangle works, and more importantly, how to get yourself out of its trap and back into personal sanity. Here is the setup.

You or someone close to you feels victimized. The game starts here with the victim. In order to be a victim, a persecutor must be identified. The season, the government, the weather, the abusive, mean, uncaring and unfeeling parent, husband, wife, boss, friend, or institution all qualifies for this position.

There are specific rules to this game of chaos.

Rule #1: Each player will eventually play all parts. This means that the players switch positions. Let’s use the rapidly changing economic situation as an example.

Misfit Mike is depressed about his fluctuating finances. He is single, has no family nearby and has been so busy with his career that he doesn’t have a social life that gives him a change of mental scenery or a place to let down. Mike is our designated victim.

Socialite Sally lives next door to Mike. She hardly ever sees Mike, but since his business has slowed to a trickle, he is home more often lately. She decides to try to cheer Mike up by including him in a social gathering that she is hosting at her home. Sally is the rescuer. The doomsday economy is the persecutor.

Mike comes to Sally’s party, drinks too much, has underdeveloped social skills, and tells inappropriate jokes at odd times, to cover up his discomfort with being in an intimate setting with strangers. Sally’s friends are appalled at his behavior and let Sally know it.

Mike is now the persecutor. Sally is the victim. Sally can’t bring herself to tell Mike to go home because she invited him. Besides, he lives right next door and she will have to face him again after the party. Frank, whose name fits his personality, comes to Sally’s rescue and tells Mike it is time for him to leave and unceremoniously pushes him out the door, while Mike protests loudly and abusively. The party comes to a screeching halt and everyone leaves shortly.

Socialite Sally is now depressed and makes a firm resolution that this is the last party she will ever have and the last time she will ever reach out to anyone. She started as the rescuer. She ended up as the victim.

See how simple it is to have well-meaning intentions turn into a dramatic nightmare?

Rule #2: The only way out of the drama game is to let go of trying to keep up an image of being the good, right or perfect person and to tell yourself the truth.

Now back to our drama. Sally got caught up in deciding to “make a difference” by trying to change Mike’s attitude. She was willing to extend herself to Mike, more out of the concept of caring and concern than her actual true feelings for him. Actually, Sally has an investment in keeping up an image of bright and bubbly and Mike’s long face was starting to bum her out. She forgot that she has no control over other people’s behaviors. The real truth is that she doesn’t know him at all and probably made a bad judgment call by including him in a party for her close, intimate friends.

Mike stayed an outsider with little hope of fitting in with an already established group of friends, so part of the deeper truth is that Sally helped set this disaster up.

The moral to this story? When dramas begin to build around you, revisit this information. Notice which part you are playing. Are you the victim, the persecutor or the rescuer? In what way are you invested in seeing yourself as “one of the good guys”?

Here is one more useful bit of information. In times of heightened stress, we are fully capable of activating this drama triangle all by ourselves within our own mind. We start thinking and feeling victimized. We then criticize and persecute ourselves for thinking and feeling that way. Next we try to rescue ourselves through various distractions, avoidances, denials or manipulations. Then we criticize ourselves for sinking down into all time lows and the inner explosions continue from there.

The antidote is the same, whether internal or external dramas are raging. Stop the cycle by taking a deep breath and settling down. Tap into your intuition by asking for higher guidance regarding what is right action. Let go of trying to be right. Admit that you are neither the Master nor the Mistress of the Universe.

A little humbleness and humor inserted here will go a long way to uncovering a workable perspective and will begin the process of inviting discernment back into your life. Tell yourself the truth.

Lighten up and notice that your self-respect will soon return and bring with it the ability to access, honor, and act on your wisdom, once your knowledge is based on a broader understanding and acceptance of the part you have played in the creation of the drama.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Call to find out when the next seminar series is available. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: www.susanvelasquez.com.

As Americans, we highly value independence. We take our rights for granted. We expect, we assert, we demand, we stand up, and we speak out. The American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are legend around the world. Our lifestyle is attractive to some, and repulsive to others, because of our independent stance.

When I was delivering weekend personal development seminars to large groups, I noticed an interesting phenomenon. As we moved more deeply into the experience, there would be two distinct attitudes displayed by the group as a whole. A large percentage of the participants would become actively enthusiastic, alert, participatory, and clearly on the ride.

From a presenter’s point of view, this would be the time to start congratulating oneself, and then pump up the volume, to get the rest of the troops on board. Instead, I started to get curious about the quieter ones. I noticed a pulling back, a reticence and hesitancy, that wasn’t as easily discernable because of the rapid-fire participation of the outwardly expressive people.

The benefit of presenting seminars for as many years as I have is the opportunity to discover and explore the not so obvious aspects of group dynamics. I started noticing that there is a critical time when the new learning experience starts taking hold, and begins its transformational magic. At that time, the extraverted, outgoing personalities get more outgoing. At the same time, the introverted, introspective people recede into themselves and start probing deeply into their fears and apprehensions, asking new questions that begin to highlight dormant parts of their self-awareness.

The extraverts display their excitement about knowing the answers so that they can climb the heights and reach for the stars, while the more introverted plumb the depths into new internal territory to deepen their self-understanding. Extroverts would be better served by letting go of collecting answers, in favor of asking themselves deeper questions. Introverts would fare better if they let go of self-questioning, in favor of owning and valuing those answers they have already discovered as workable for them.

Usually, the extroverts get recognized and encouraged to continue their turned on, enthusiastic climb towards more, bigger, and better. The introverts get advised to get over their reluctance and simply dive headfirst into the exuberant end of the pool. Therefore, they often quietly make themselves wrong, commit to goals they don’t really care about, and try to hide as best they can, the sinking, depressed feeling that envelopes them when subjected to the ranting of manic, supercharged, ‘I want it all and I want it now’ energy.

Our society values extroversion, action, positivity, upward mobility, and independence. We hold introversion, negativity, contentment with our present moment, and dependence, as suspect and problematic experiences to be altered, figured out, and fixed. When independent is held as good and dependence as bad, we are forced to lie to ourselves about the fact that we are dependent, as well as independent. When we value our extraverted behaviors and devalue introversion, we are unable to access the skill of introspection and therefore can never grow into our true wisdom, and self-knowledge.

Those of us, who define ourselves as independent, simply have a case of ’selective perception’. We conveniently minimize or take for granted all the people, and situations, that support and sustain us in our pursuit of happiness. Those of us, who define ourselves as dependent, are deluded also. We fail to lay claim to our strengths, unique gifts, and contributions, often because of the denigrating habit of self-invalidation and defining our worth in terms of external monetary production.

When we broaden our perspectives to acknowledge and own that we are both independent and dependent, we can begin to cultivate interdependent relationships. When we embrace both masculine and feminine, active and receptive, power and service, and introspection and extroversion, within ourselves, we can then take on the intriguing task of establishing mutually beneficial, empathetic relationships with our loves, our friends, our neighbors, and ourselves.

We can create more peace and harmony personally, by broadening our self-definitions. By broadening our nationalism to a world vision, we can value and respect all countries and all people, inhabiting our globe.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Call to find out when the next seminar series is available. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: susanvelasquez.com.

All things are perceived in the light of charity, and hence under the aspect of beauty: for beauty is simply Reality seen with the eyes of love.

Evelyn Underhill – Mysticism (1955)

Subtlety

In our fast moving, marketing and advertising driven world, subtlety is a dying art. Even the spelling of the word evokes a certain kind of curiosity.

I have always had an interest in advertising. I have noticed that the field is producing louder and more blatant messages that bombard our senses. The messages are filled with heavy-handed slogans with the intent to turn optional products into necessities that demand us to react, the faster and sooner, the better.

By the time I wade through the copious mail offers that promise an instant fix to problems I didn’t know I had, I am numb with exhaustion.

Years ago, during a water shortage, an ad that is a great example of the essence of subtlety appeared on billboards throughout the Southland. It depicted a person taking a shower and all it said was: “Sing shorter songs. “

When we approach ourselves and our lives as a problem to be solved, we put ourselves in danger of being assaulted by a never-ending influx of internal criticisms that increase our anxiety levels and flood our nervous system with static, until we lose contact with our innate ability to successfully manage our day to day affairs.

We begin to treat ourselves like a product instead of a process that is meant to unfold in communion with the subtle shifts and changes that come to us as opportunities for right action. When we overly identify with a perfectionist mind set, we lock our creative energy into a chokehold of commands, and demands, to perform and deliver outcomes that are driven by a frantic lusting after unattainable static results.

Reality becomes distorted with unexamined opinions, and judgments, that shine a harsh light on our accomplishments, as too insignificant to warrant any acceptance or acknowledgement of the rightness of our world, exactly as it is.

No wonder most of us are depleted and numb to the natural beauty that surrounds us. When we approach our lives prefacing every action with an unconscious lead line that: “Things go better with more…money, love, attention, beauty, possessions, friends, vacations, clothes, etc., we become calibrated to a way of being that continually grasps, clings, commands, and demands that we stay ever-ready to pounce on every opportunity to elevate our image of ourselves, to new and glorious heights, for fear that if we let go of striving, fixing, and figuring out our next move, we will fall behind into oblivion.

There is another approach that, if embraced, brings an instant shift in our way of seeing. This new perception can only be utilized by developing a taste for the subtle side of reality.

When we approach our life situations as a reality to be experienced, rather than a problem to be solved, an interesting transformation takes place.

Imagine that you find yourself walking down a long hallway. There are many doors on either side. At the end of the hall are two doors. The one on the left has a sign on it that says: Problems to be Solved. The door on the right is marked with a sign stating: Reality to be Experienced. Out of habit, you are naturally drawn to the problem door. It is your normal way of approaching your life situations, so it feels more comfortable and familiar to you.

Go ahead and open the problem door. Enter in and take a moment to look around and make note of the most blatant problems that you are currently facing. Only stay for a short visit; just enough to assure yourself that everything is exactly as it was the last time you looked. Now come back into the hallway and place yourself in front of the second door. Don’t open it yet. Take a few gentle breaths and allow yourself to call on a deep sense of calmness. Feel yourself actually begin to settle, and still, your racing energy.

Remember that when you open this door, and enter in, there is nothing for you to do other than to allow yourself to be open, and receptive, to seeing yourself and your current life situations through more loving and accepting eyes. Now reach out, open the door, and step over the threshold.

Feel yourself subtlety, easily, gracefully, and quietly beginning to open to a fuller awareness and acceptance of the sense of rightness in the various aspects of your current life situations. Bring to mind people you love, experiences you cherish, and open to a deepening acceptance of your basic goodness, and the goodness of your life.

Trust this inner knowing, and feel it begin to permeate throughout your felt sense, as you gently breathe and feel yourself softening, surrendering, and opening your heart and mind, to allow the beginnings of delight to take root. As you stand, ready and willing, to widen your arms to encompass all aspects of your current reality just as it is, a new reality begins to dawn.

Perhaps, by courting subtlety, you will begin to discover and bring a new sense of lightness and ease to your handling of your life, as you realize that what you are seeking is also seeking you.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Call to find out how to sign up to join. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: susanvelasquez.com.

Greetings from Laguna! Our experiment on susanvelasquez.com is yielding amazing insights. Go to the page: susanvelasquez.com/blog-road-to-real to check it out. It is designed as a “practice run” to increase your ability to glean timely insights from your surroundings. Your contribution is two-fold. Be willing to sincerely entertain the picture presented. Follow the directions given by sharing what insights and awareness’s are triggered in you as a result of your intention to see more deeply. We reached our 25 comments and so a new picture is posted this week. Be one of the first to respond. Share your immediate imaginative perceptions and be a part of contributing to others seeing with new eyes. Don’t be shy! Also, invite friends to join in- it is open to everyone! Warmly, SusanP.S. There are a few seats available in the next six week series. It starts on Wednesday evenings, July 23rd through August 27th. Call me at: 949-494-7773 and make your reservation now.

It is beauty that will save us in the end.

The Temple of Memory

Imagine that your past occupies a place in the attic of your mind. As the years fly by, memories of past challenges, defeats, upsets, and delights brought to you through family and work experiences, friendships, loves, and losses, are packed away in boxes, taped shut, and placed into the storage space in the far-reaches of your mind.

Whether your daily life routines have stayed fairly constant or you have moved many times into brand new situations, the memories have come along as a consistent frame of reference and a testimony to where you have come from.

Today, I want to invite you to make a shift in your perceptions so that your past can be opened up to, dusted off, and activated as a valuable inheritance of experiential wisdom. Your memories, approached correctly, can help fund the creation of a vibrant future, grown from the fertile seeds of your unique past experiences.

Attics and basements were a staple of most houses on the East Coast, where I was brought up. The attic was often stifling hot, cramped and suffocating. You would ascend a steep, narrow stairway, a storage box held precariously in hand, and deposit it in the nearest empty space, relieved to get down the stairs as quickly as possible and back to fresh air.

The basement was a different experience but similar to the attic, in that you only visited it when you absolutely had to. The basement was dark and dank and had either cement or wooden steps that creaked, leading down into the land where spiders and other creepy-crawlers made their home. The temperature was usually quite a bit cooler than the living space above. Not the cool that spells refreshing, but the kind that chills your bones and sets your teeth on edge.

Luckily, today I am only asking you to court the contents of the attic. We will save the basement for another day.

Since attics tend to be used as a place to store things that we have no immediate use for and want out of sight and out of mind, we need to move your stored memories to a better location.

As a first step, I want you to use your imagination to conjure up in your mind’s eye, a temple, a sacred space, and put it in a location that is pleasing to you. It may take the form of a church or a temple that you have visited in real life, or a place that you have seen in a photograph, or a movie. Once the temple is formed, stand outside of the entranceway. Do not enter inside just yet.

Your stored memories will be transported to this new location without you needing to do anything at all, and they will arrange themselves inside your temple, in whatever way will be most beneficial for you.

From this moment on, your memories, whether you have held them as mistakes, heart-hurts, achievements, validations, or disappointments, will now be housed in this sacred space.

This means that whenever you visit your temple of memory, you will practice the art of Spiritual Non-Interference. You will treat yourself with great tenderness, kindness, and compassion, and will finally let certain aspects of your life alone, so that healing can take place.

Many of us can be compassionate with others but are far too harsh with ourselves. Moving your memories to this sacred temple will allow a new kind of light to permeate your soul.

Your past is not gone but it has been boxed, labeled, hidden, discarded, and abandoned in your memory. Relocating your memories in this sacred temple will allow the wounded places in you to experience incredible healing.

Begin to soften and open to newfound levels of warmth in your soul.

Stand in front of the entrance into your sacred temple.

Step through the doorway and position yourself in the center of the room. Take in all that surrounds you.

Know that at this very moment, you are surrounded by the multiplicity of all the directions you have traveled.

The circle of your life is being brought together, right at this moment.

You are standing in the presence of timelessness. From this sacred point of view, your past, your present and your future are here and now.

This present moment is pregnant with your freedom to choose. Choose to own your freedom to embrace all that is beautiful about your life. It is beauty that will save us in the end.

Thoughts?

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Call to find out how to join. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com. For additional information or to sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail go to: susanvelasquez.com.

Why is it that people who cannot show feeling presume that that is strength and not a weakness? At Seventy
– May Sarton

Play It Again, Sam

My Father taught himself to play the piano.

He started with the beginner’s book and practiced every night after coming home from his Manhattan, New York commute.

Book number one addressed the right hand placement. Next his left hand was included in the mix. One full year of practicing went by and Dad felt confident enough to seek out his first piano teacher.

He quickly discovered one serious flaw with his self-tutoring. None of the books told him that the right hand carries the melody and the left hand creates the depth and transfers the nuances of emotion.

Treating our mental and emotional lives as though they have the same purpose is similar to using both the left and right hand with the exact same tempo and timing, when playing the piano.

The result in music is a consistent, predictable, indistinguishable, jumble of noise.

In life, the result is a consistent, predictable, indistinguishable, personality.
The intellect is a comparative tool. Bigger than, smaller than, more than, less than. Today, compared to yesterday. Past, compared to present. Intellect is opinions, facts, data, and information gleaned from past experiences and accumulated external information.

Emotion provides the tone and timber of the life melody being played at the time.

A person with no emotional tone can be understood, but is often experienced as monotonous and less than stimulating. On the other hand, when you infuse every note of your life with emotional inflection, your listener becomes bombarded with over-kill energy that hopelessly clouds whatever message you are trying to convey.

This approach is best described by the old adage ‘who you are speaks so loudly, I can’t hear a word you are saying.’

When you play your life one handed, from your intellect only, it is usually because you were taught that the unpredictable, unruly, messy business of acknowledging the spectrum of feelings that reside within is a mark of weakness.

You decide it is better to rely solely on the intellect.
The reality, however, for those of you that predominately live out of the intellect, is that if you are honest about it, you wrestle with intense feelings of boredom, isolation, and disconnection, due to lack of intimacy with yourself and others.

No surprises, no intrigues.

In the beginning stages of personal growth, when you decide to take the plunge and open to the disowned, repressed, emotions hidden beneath the surface of your life song, you can get stuck in the seductiveness of too much emotional expression.

Endless re-runs of ‘The Perils of Pauline.’ When this happens, every incident has a meaning. Every memory has an emotional component.

Intellect begins to collude with emotion and then is held hostage in its service. The left hand, emotion, is now over-playing the melody, and the right hand has become the provider of depth and nuance. This does not create a pretty rendition of ‘Life Is a Song Worth Singing.’

Julia Cameron, the author of The Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold, uses a definition of God that I find intriguing. Good Orderly Direction.

When our life song is imbued with good, orderly direction and our life experiences, both the painful and exhilarating, are accepted and digested, we can then truly possess the skill of living our lives gracefully: fierce with reality.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Reservations are required. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. by going to: www.beyondintellect.com. Please visit www.susanvelasquez.com for more information and to have friends sign up to receive weekly articles by e-mail.

Greetings from Laguna! Instead of talking directly about fathers this Father’s Day, I simply pulled up one of the clear memories about my own father from my childhood. I learned responsibility from him because he modeled it consistently. My wish however, is that I could have given him the gift of freedom from excessive anxiety and worry and the ability to let down, let go, relax and enjoy the fact that, though we were all kind of scared of him, we loved him fiercely. I don’t think he ever got that experience. For him, life was hard and to me, he died too early. If this Sunday is your day, relax, enjoy and be revitalized by the love of your children and family on this special day. Warmly, Susan

For the rational, psychologically healthy man, the desire for pleasure is the desire to celebrate his control over reality. For the neurotic, the desire for pleasure is the desire to escape from reality.
–Nathaniel Brandon

Out Of Balance

At the core of many of our troubles is the unconscious quest for the one decision that can be made once and for all. The one that will yield all benefits and no prices.

They lived happily ever after. The perfect job. The perfect mate. The perfect children. The perfect house. The perfect body. The perfect person.

Of course, the perfect job runs into some snags. The exact qualities that attracted you to the perfect mate now drive you crazy. The perfect children rebel. The perfect house gets termites. The perfect body breaks down. The perfect person lives in denial of reality.

“Denial? Not me. Why, I am standing up to all of my responsibilities and am diligently tackling each and every one of them to make them right. I shoulder my responsibilities.”

This is the ‘life is hard and then you die’ model of perfection. Life is a problem to be solved and you are going to do it, single-handedly, and make everyone else tow the line also.

When I was a pre-teenager, my father, who was raised in an orphanage during the depression, took great pleasure in interviewing any of my friends that came to play on Saturday mornings. The ritual went like this.

My mother and father would be having breakfast, reading the paper and visiting. I would bring my friend in to introduce her to my parents. This was a manner’s requirement in my household. My father would look over his newspaper, take great pains to fold it neatly, cross his legs, light his pipe, all the while looking at my friend while she squirmed under his penetrating gaze. Then he would say: “Well, Nancy, it is very nice to meet you.”

Pause, pause. “Now tell me Nancy, what kind of work did you do today?”

Nancy would stutter and stammer through a litany of ‘I made my bed, cleaned my room, helped my mother, etc.’ Another long pause and my father would deliver his punch line. “So Nancy, you actually call that work?”

By this time, I would be rolling my eyes and dragging my stunned, humiliated friend by the arm and out the door, trying to explain that the third degree treatment was my father’s idea of fun.

My father, the most responsible person I have ever known, died at fifty-nine just at the point when he was starting to give himself permission to enjoy some of the privileges earned from all his hard work. His responsibility/privilege ratio was severely out of balance.

Another perfection model goes something like this: “What, me worry? I just take life as it comes. I take the path of least resistance. I take whatever I can get. I am deserving because I am_____. Fill in the blank with beautiful, intelligent, handsome, charismatic, funny, from the right family, the right race, the right religion, the right neighborhood, the right college, etc. and therefore, the world owes me. Who I am is enough to qualify me for special privileges.”

This is the type of person that is never satisfied, has an insatiable need for attention, and is prone towards jealousy and resentment of other’s good fortune; stuck in the never-ending cycle of never being as good as they think they are, nor as bad as they think they are.

Sometimes it is difficult to uncover the underlying privileged premise when it comes packaged as a person who seems to be chronically victimized.

The key is consistency.

Consistent anything takes discipline and effort. No one is destined to have only bad breaks. It takes real brilliance to be a 100% loser/victim 100% of the time.

The total victim is a powerhouse of one. Superior in their inferiority.

This person refuses to take any responsibility for creating a happy, interesting, or worthwhile life. The ‘I am tired, sad, mad, depressed, broke, bothered, unhappy, irritated’ litany never ends. A special case. Privileged to wallow in pain and suffering and to side step true responsibility. After all, what can you expect from such a miserable, downtrodden person?

Every responsibility brings privileges. Every privilege brings responsibilities.

Take some time to review your present life situations from the privilege/responsibility perspective. Balance this equation and you are on your way to creating a balanced and fulfilling life.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Reservations are required. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com.

It is something big and cosmic. What else do we have? There’s only birth and death and the union of two people - and sex is the only one that happens more than once.
Kathleen Winsor - Star Money (1950)

Kissing Cousins

The topic of sex and the topic of intuition have a lot in common.

When I first decided to highlight intuition, sixteen years ago under the heading of Unleash The Power of Your Intuition, it was received by most with innocent curiosity.

Most people had heard of intuition, didn’t understand much about it, and wondered how it would enhance their lives if they connected to it.

Intuition wasn’t a common topic of personal growth seminars, so it was new and exciting for most people. It was received very similarly to the way healthy adolescents approach learning about sex. The topic of sex, like intuition, sparks curiosity and though it seems like it might be complicated to learn about, once you include it into your life, it will transform your sense of yourself and everything that you perceive from then on.

Today, intuition, like sex, is much more common as a topic that people claim knowledge of and expertise in. As a result, intuition is now shackled with some of the same misunderstandings that abound regarding sexuality.

Everyone has the ability to be sexual and to be intuitive. Sex is the usual requirement for procreation. Intuition is required to create new insights and ideas.

Sensuality, the awakening of and right use of the five senses, produces a sixth sense. This sixth sense, intuition, is the blending of the five senses working together to form heightened insights and new awareness.

The awakening of and right use of the five senses, expressed physically, creates sexual expression. Intuition, like sex, exists as a force of nature. It just is.

You can amass all the tools and tricks that can be passed off as an otherworldly ability to receive extraordinary information, but that is often empty posturing to establish an elevated power-over position. “I know and have access to information that you don’t” is often image management, not intuitive knowledge.

Over the top “I’m too sexy for my hair” posturing is usually a similar attempt to gain elevated status as extraordinary in the physical realm.

If we approach both intuition and sexuality with honor and respect, since both have the power to create through conception, here are some of the attitudes that can yield increased connection to yourself and the significant people in your life.

Celebrate the unknown. It takes courage to stay open and receptive to the reality that what will happen next is unknown. It takes alert, awake intention to approach both your life and your relationships as a mystery and an adventure that is happening moment by moment.

Let down. Soften your hold on believing your habitual story about how your life is or isn’t going. Let go of your relentless striving to make things happen. Breathe out. Let down. Come back to your senses. New insights and a fresh perspective will begin to form in the void that is created when you stop pushing and aggressively prodding life to make whatever you are “lusting” after happen for you.

Restore your innocence. Elevate lightheartedness to a sacred place. Strip off the accumulated cloak of cynicism, and the despair that it fosters, in favor of opening your mind and softening your heart.

Strengthen your resolve to thrive. Renew and revitalize your connection with your five senses so that you can activate your innate ability to conceive.

Embracing these four attitudes will give you a new starting point so that you can begin again, renewed and refreshed. The adventure starts as you consciously walk on your own personal life path, creating one step at a time.

The sacred point of power is conception. Once you realize your ability to conceive, then you can wholeheartedly believe that the achievement of your highest and best personal contribution is unfolding, exactly as it should.

Susan McNeal Velasquez teaches mentoring seminars locally on the topic of how to Unleash The Power of Your Intuition. Reservations are required. Her new book: BEYOND INTELLECT: Journey Into The Wisdom of Your Intuitive Mind is available at Latitude 33 Bookshop, Laguna Beach Books or on-line at: Amazon.com. Go to: www.beyondintellect.com.

Common sense is a very tricky instrument; it is as deceptive as it is indispensable.
– Susanne K. Langar, Philosophical Sketches

The Easy Way Out

A blonde doesn’t have enough money so she decides to kidnap a little boy and hold him for ransom. She goes to the park and grabs the first little boy she sees and tells him that she is kidnapping him. Then she writes a note that says: “I have just kidnapped your son. Put $10,000 in a brown paper bag and leave it by the big tree at the end of the park, no later than tomorrow.” She then pins the note to the little boy’s shirt and tells him to take the note home to his mother.

The next day, the blonde goes to the tree and finds a brown paper bag with $10,000 and a note that says: “How could you do this to another blonde?”

This joke tickles me for the same reason that faulty life logic intrigues me. The blonde knows what she wants and decides how to get it as fast, easy, and hassle-free as possible. Her plan even produces results. Her scheme works, not because of her sound reasoning, but because the other blonde unquestioningly does what she is told, and has an unfulfilled and consistent expectation that life should be fair but isn’t and there is nothing she can do about it. They are a perfect match for each other.

This joke outlines a common logic trap that can easily seduce us into making decisions that might seem to work, short term, but ultimately lead us far a field from a creative, productive life. Most of us, at some time in our history, have opted to act on a short term quick fix decision, that led to outcomes that evoked the question: “What was I thinking?’

These decisions would fall into the category of trying to take the easy way out. Here’s how this works. Imagine we are going down the road of our own lives and a thought begins to take hold. Something like this: “Maybe something else would be better. Something that isn’t so difficult. Something that will solve all my problems and will take less time and energy. Something that will make me more comfortable and free of worry and stress.”

So, we are in the midst of a creative endeavor and feeling anywhere from bad to good about it, because we have no guarantee that what we are doing will work. We are just making up our lives as we go along and doing the best we can. Then, seemingly out of the blue, this notion washes over us, something that says: “This is pretty hard. I shouldn’t have to work, strive, or struggle with this. Look at that beautiful something or other over there. That looks easier, better, more compelling, and will instantly provide me with quick relief from my pain and give me guaranteed comfort and freedom from striving.”

Then, we marry the wrong person because it makes our economic lives easier. We give up the new project we are working on because we land in a place that seems too hard to continue and we hate the experience of staying in ‘not knowing’ until new answers surface.

Faulty logic usually comes dressed in a sleek, slick package that says: “You are special. You deserve everything. Instant gratification. All benefits and no prices. All you have to do is find and make that one big decision that will yield happiness forever after.” The problem with this kind of thinking is not housed in the desire to have our lives be easier. Ease of living is something the ego naturally desires. The faulty thinking comes in when we ingest the idea that there is some magic, once and for all, choice we can make that will hermetically seal us in a cocoon of comfort, forever free of any disturbances.

Ultimately, the only guarantee that life gives us, legitimately, is the right to constantly choose. When we give up this birthright, we allow ourselves to be lulled to sleep by a lifeless pre-packaged value system that says behave yourself, don’t make waves, don’t think too hard, don’t get big ideas, just keep a low profile, be a carbon copy, be nice, say yes, even though it hurts you and don’t worry, someone else that is smarter, more gifted, and more sure of themselves, will show you the way.

When we are disconnected from our true needs and desires, we adopt a persona that either sleepwalks in step with external rules and roles that keep us ignorant and small-minded, or we try to grab all we can from the free lunch counter and sell out our basic integrity in the process.

When we take on the sometimes difficult task of exploring our deeper yearnings and creative urges, we can then claim our true birthright, the commitment and ownership of the authoring rights to our own unique, one of a kind, hand made, home made lives.

Susan McNeal Velasquez
Unleash The Power of Your Intuition Mentoring Seminars
http://beyondintellect.com