Letter 4/16/20

Virtual race starts tomorrow. It is 10 days. If I complete 100 miles, I get a buckle. In the mean time, the hoody, t-shirt and number arrived today. I am wearing the hoody already.

My feet are ready to go. I\’m looking forward to focusing on miles. I plan to get at least 15 miles per day. But if I can stay blister free, I\’ll do more. It is supposed to rain all night and snow early tomorrow. We\’ll see what time I go out. Too cold out there to wear a t-shirt.

Yesterday I ran 10 miles. I did it along the Missouri River. I hadn\’t see it for awhile so I enjoyed the image of power and strength. Running or walking feels good. This good feeling alone is a good reason to do it.

In the middle of social distancing, it is awesome to have something exciting to do.

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Letter 4/9/20

UPDATE 4:10 pm — /success. 60 minutes on the elliptical this afternoon burned calories but didn\’t at all annoy the left toe.

A lovely day, chilly, sunny, windy. I went for a 6.2 mile walk this morning. A slow walk. A slow walk to anticipate an upcoming event. I signed up for a 100 mile virtual race. I\’m pretty excited to earn a belt buckle and remember this period of self isolation. For a real race, I\’d be tapering in order to be very fresh on race day. But now, I still want to go outside and enjoy hours of walking because walking is part of how I stand self isolation. But, I have one tiny injury problem that needs to heal before I unleash myself on 100 miles. Hence, slow walking.

Doing massive quantities of miles is a dream of mine, carried out with varying results over the past 18 years since I heard about ultra running. And every time I am off work, either between jobs or on vacation, the time has been used to do miles. Heck, every vacation has been to races. I love this. However, I have a fat short big toe which always gets blisters if too many miles are done. Since my last day at work in March, through today, I have jogged 264 miles, 95 miles just this month. So today, I decided that whatever exercise I took, it would be non-aggravating for the toe. Success so far.

Would you walk 100 miles to get a buckle? Well, I am.

The Great Rebooting

This corona time is a time of rebooting, not pandemic.

I have been participating in a series of conversations at Abraham Now. It has been incredible. Abraham was talking about this being a time of rebooting. You know, the computer gets glitchy, and locks up, so you reboot and it starts working fine again? Now, during this time of social distancing and time off work, is a time when you can restart you life: body, mind and spirit. Not new software but return to the software you came with. So…I\’ve been doing my spiritual practices in isolation and receiving from non-physical. Then…

Holy eff! I woke up this morning rebooted.

What does rebooting mean?

Rebooting means: Rebooting is to suddenly have this original understanding of my self-conscious mind/ego default network plus the deep mind/primary consciousness plus the inner being/spiritual consciousness equaling a unity of being. I suddenly woke up this morning with a self-conscious/ego mind willing to understand that it is a receiver. Rebooting means that my ego I has been unseated, no longer alone as an I, but now I am a whole system of a being.

Rebooting means that I suddenly am able to sit quietly in meditation without the continuous checking by the self conscious mind: am I doing it yet? Am I enlightened yet? Suddenly, I am trusting and believing that my self conscious mind will receive thoughts as needed because I am at one with the greater part of me. \”Meditation\” is for quietly sitting in communion with the other parts of me; not about achieving enlightenment.

My ego mind is accepting the role of self-consciousness as a receiver from the greater system and not angry about the threshold place beyond which the self-conscious mind  really can\’t go. I just need to stand at the door and what I need will come. It is not a door to keep me out but a transition place for receiving thoughts into physical reality.  My whole world is turned upside down by this understanding. I\’ve been seeing everything backwards and been pissed off about it.

I can trust this. The trusting is is important. Previously, I was unwilling to accept the role. Unwilling because my self-conscious ego mind thought it was somehow less than, and so was fighting to become something more than it is. Being a receiver doesn\’t mean that I, ego, am less than anything; it means I am part of a system. In this acceptance of being part of a system, I have access to the whole system. Rebooting is that now I am accepting and understanding all of me, and appreciating that the whole of my consciousness is always available, always standing at the door. I\’m not pissed off that self-consciousness can\’t go through the door. So, really, there is no door. Just receive and be happy. I am whole (suddenly brought to tears of appreciation).

All this without LSD. Amazing!

Beginner

Isolation can change you. If you are intentional, the outcome is different than if not. By \”not,\” I mean, merely being busy, just using up time. I have been using up time in some ways. Yes, indeed.

But also, my mornings start with spiritual reading. At the moment I am reading \”Silence: A User\’s Guide\” by Maggie Ross. I have had the book a long time and did read it years ago. Reading it again, i am in a new place and realizing new things.

This morning I read some astonishing information about meditation, as well as information about the self-conscious mind versus the deep mind. About meditation, she mentions that life transfiguring meditation is not about 15 minutes a day but a whole life of transfigured perception. You are not trying to get anything out of meditation but discovering your own unique unfolding truth. Letting go of ideas of myself which came from the outside and waiting in complete openness for the emergence of the deep mind.

Quotation: \”Many teachers limit themselves to various techniques of meditation–in effect making meditation in itself something of a panacea, a goal, even an idol, and therefore a dead end. The primary reason for this limitation is that both teachers and students are unwilling to pay the price, which is not monetary. They are unwilling to let go of their ideas of themselves; unwilling to let go of a sense of belonging to a special in-group; unwilling to wait in the dark in complete willingness; unwilling to turn away from noise and static in their minds whenever they notice it in order to reach into the dark; unwilling to seek solitude and silence; unwilling to radically simplify their lives in order to sustain the context in which the riches of the deep mind may emerge. Willingness to change one\’s life is not the condition of entry in to the silence; rather, once entered, the silence itself elicits such changes. It is the same with so-called asceticism: it is not the condition of entry, but rather the condition for sustaining the process; it arises organically.\”

So, my own thinking this morning. Not in a hundred years or more has so much of humanity been forced into isolation. In my isolation without TV and very little news, I have more silence than ever and less outside influence than ever. My life of \”stay at home\” is necessarily simple. I am with me. I can now see my idols. I can become without idols and let the deep mind speak to me. My whole life has become really nothing. I am forced to admit that my life is a human life with value from the deep mind; or my life is nothing. What is my intention for meditating or spirituality at all?

I am at a kind of bottom. My self-conscious mind is at the moment without possessions. I have nothing to show for me. I am nothing to the world at the moment. Only my inner being can have meaning. I can only listen.

Self Isolation Perspective

I have been in isolation since I left my job 14 days ago (not including today). Yesterday, my employer extended the pay period to May 3. So I still have 31 precious days. My isolation is in a rhythm. I speak occasionally to store clerks and I nod hello to people on the trail. An occasional text. Conversations are very few, maybe 3 in the past 14 days. Despite these pandemic times, I enter the silence of isolation with a quiet mind and the ability to maintain inner peace. This quiet mind stands out as a difference from other times when I have been unemployed. The occasional intrusion of bad news or frightening headlines gets fed into the stream of well being, which flows quietly through me, and I watch it float away.

I\’ve wanted to be a hermit for a long time, since I learned about solitaries in the monastery. Right now is the first time in 61 years that I have achieved such emptiness as I have now. I don\’t need to worry about getting a job. I\’m not going to class. There are no AA meetings. An empty life. I am coming to see how I am in my natural state, outside of societal programming or interaction.

I like sleeping, morning coffee, the view from my kitchen table, the apple blossoms popping out, the forests in which I walk or jog , lifting weights, eating well and little, spiritual reading with meditation and writing.

I learned a new word today: elision. Elision is a deletion, like elision of my social life. Does this leave me with only my soul for company? Yes, I think. My ego doesn\’t really have any plans or things to compete for or people to push against. And I feel at peace with that, surprisingly enough. My ego has little to say.

I\’ve wondered if I should impose some more aggressive schedule on myself. So far, I\’ve let the natural rhythms exist.My ego wants a schedule to show that I\’m not wasting my life by merely existing. Using my isolation to merely exist, to commune only with my soul, cannot be shown to be productive.

I\’ve always wanted to know the value of \”just being,\” mere existence. What does it mean to be human if you are not engaged but isolated? Does my life only mean something if I achieved worldly notoriety?

I am uplifted and inspired by this intense focus this morning on communion with my soul. I sometimes call my soul the Christ within, even though the word Christ comes with a lot of religious baggage. The word Christ within came to me from contemplatives of times past. I allow the Christ within to be free of religion and just represent the inner truth of my human soul. I feel thrilled by this open door to my inner being.

March 30 Letter

I haven\’t been to work since March 18, with essentially no social activities and limited trips to the store. What is going on? Miles. Since March 18, I have jogged or walked 155 miles. I don\’t think that is a record or anything, but it is a lot more than when I go to work. I am reading other people\’s books and editing my own and writing morning pages. I lift weights too.

The grass is green. Leaves are starting to show. The apple blossoms popped yesterday. The birds are chirping and fooling around with one another.

Yesterday was a day filled with inspiration and awe. Not only did I have a big revelation detailed in my last blog, but a little later, while I was out running, it suddenly struck me that I understood vibrationally the words of Abraham: get out ahead of it. I mean, my head came up and I uttered a \”holy crap,\” as I ran along. But I didn\’t have words to put to the knowing. I just knew. The run itself was a spectacular 16 miles.

Today, I ran 10 miles in a quiet, off the beaten path, park. I ran 2 mile loops in the sunshine. It was a good run, but no great revelations. I need to eat more if I am going to keep up the running.

This evening, a thought from A Course in Miracles went through my mind: I am not a victim of the world I see. I\’m not going to explain what this means. But if you do know anything about creating your own reality, then that sentence will help you.

I have been alone for 12 days. Today, I tried to engage with an online meeting. But found it jarring. I didn\’t realize how silent I have become and how focused on forward looking.

Corona Virus and Dopamine Rewards

This message is for those of us sitting on the sidelines, not sick.

In my morning meditation, I was struck by an incredible metaphysical situation. Punch line: Human minds focused on corona virus and getting dopamine hits from the news are actually creating the thing they don\’t want. You always get what you think about. So think about the solution. Think about good feeling things unrelated to the problem. Change the channel.Stop creating what you don\’t want. Think about and create what you do want.

More details please.

Lets start with the familiar information that human brains get small dopamine hits from \”likes\” on social media or that scrolling through apps on your phone is addictive.

“Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry.” (American Society of Addiction ASAM Definition of Addiction – American Society of Addiction Medicine )

Every human brain loves dopamine and other neuro substances, and goes after feel good substances relentlessly. The human brain is an addict’s brain. The human brain is an addictive system. To be human is to have an addictive neurology. Every brain loves rewards and will go after them with a passion. Rewards, or lack thereof, rule our emotions and we seek dopamine to feel better. Most of us become addicts of one sort or another, ruled by the drive to get dopamine rewards.

“Somewhere in human history, we were conditioned to think that the feeling we get when dopamine fires in our brain equals happiness” (The Craving Mind Judson Brewer page 55). Getting a dopamine hit from a corona news story equals happiness to your brain.

Continuing the semi-addictive dopamine rewards of corona virus news ( like face book, football, TV, eating, shopping, working) is like a continuous low grade fever which will eventually have to be overdosed with real disease. 

Become conscious of corona obsession. Obsession is emotion. And, it is known that the amount of drug necessary to achieve the reward always increases. The brain is attempting to get the body to carry out behavior of finding bigger badder corona problems so it can have a dopamine reward. Therefore, you who are addicted to corona news always need bigger badder stories of corona problems. Thus we are perpetuating the problem ourselves. We create reality with our thoughts.

Become an observer who does have the power of thought choice. Make the decision to choose good feeling thoughts unrelated to corona. You aren’t in life for the dopamine. You are in life for genuine love, for yourself and humanity.

Yes, find out the rules of the Governor, the Mayor, or the County Health Department, but don\’t spend your time there. Get your dopamine hits on some other topics.

March 27 Letter

Today is the 8th day off work (of 32). Today I went by my Starbucks (which is closed) to see my manager and pick up papers. My manager is very compassionate and a giver. My manager has such a good heart. She had some resentment towards Hobby Lobby for how they are treating their employees at the moment. In contrast, Starbucks is awesome.

Note that despite the insanity of the human race, spring is coming. Yesterday I noticed that tulip trees, another flowering tree, and daffodils, are in bloom. I also saw two baby calves. The redbuds are not quite popped. Today I saw this tulip tree.

When I was a little girl, my father used to like to take my picture every year in front of a tulip tree. It was one of the few times that I felt like I was his special little girl.

I have been getting in lots of miles. Usually I have been running 6 to 8 miles in the morning and then going for a 5-6 mile walk in the evening. This has been going on pretty much for the last 8 days. Plus some weight lifting in the evening. Today, I did a 15 mile jog all at once. It went really well. I was feeling very energetic at the end, and no problems with joints or tendons. So….

The marathon I was signed up for in April has gone virtual. The real event is cancelled. Also, I have learned of a virtual event which I probably will enter. A 100 mile challenge which takes place in the time frame just before I am scheduled to go back to work. So it would be my grand finale. If you are a runner, check it out: https://www.aravaiparunning.com/aravaipa-strong/

I can get a belt buckle for 100 miles done within the time period. And I\’ll probably buy a hoody. In Missouri, it is hoody weather most of the year.

I am amazed at how much time I am spending on spiritual studies and well being. This break from work has given me a chance to take a breath and figure out where I am with my life. Yesterday afternoon, I could feel non-physical energy down loading a vibration. I knew that infinite intelligence had communicated. Today, my meditation was calm. At the end of it, I realized that the virus is a consciousness, just like all the cells of my body. Therefore, the virus can be dealt with vibrationally. Any vibration can be integrated (yeah, engineer speak to the max). Drink some water and think about vibration.

The Stream of Well Being

There is a stream of well being in the universe. It is easy to pause a moment, think the words \”stream of well being,\” and feel well being begin to flow through you.

It feels good to tap into the stream of well being. I can tap in first thing in the morning and have a good feeling day, regardless of circumstances. It is easy for me to imagine this stream of well being as a consciousness and to have a relationship with it. It is easy for me to let the stream of well being be my higher power. It is easy for me to imagine riding the stream, even laughing with joy as we go together along my life\’s path. The Stream of Well-Being is a spiritual resource. Let it flow.

In my life, I have had several phases. These phases were marked by periods of time where I lived in a certain place or worked for a certain company. Last night I had a dream about one of these past phases. In the dream, I coincidentally bumped into some people of that phase. I hoped they would mention me to their cohort and that I\’d be asked to come back. This line of thinking caused me to wonder how much I want my life of two weeks ago back. And then, was I grateful enough for it when I had it?

Rather than go down a black hole of feeling bad because I wasn\’t grateful enough in the past, I changed the channel and began to truly feel appreciation for the now. If I want to feel better, I change the channel to the running channel and what is coming up on the horizon. Then expand to appreciation for spiritual inner resources, or non-physical powers active in my life right now. I appreciate a teaching on how to feel joy regardless of circumstances. Spontaneous appreciation feels good. It felt so good to have appreciation after appreciation flow out of me, for all that the universe or my inner spiritual resource has done for me.

Remember the stream of well being.

I am going to sign up for a virtual 100 mile challenge. The time period is the last few days before I will return to work, a grand finale to this paid corona-cation. I can get a belt buckle. I love those running belt buckles.

Letter March 25, am

Today, my morning meditation was very calm. Well being abounded.

Yesterday was an amazing day: I got home internet. This is an amazing story. I have been using the hot spot on my phone for internet access, and using library when I wanted to down load something or use a chunk of gigs. The phone works great as far as speed goes, until you get to 20 gigs, when it slows down dramatically. Being home and also signing up for an online class 3 times a week, I was using a gig per hour for the class. Too much. The library is closed.

After worrying about this last week for a day, and not wanting to pay ATT high rates, I looked at Spectrum. Wow they were much cheaper. So I pushed the shop now button. I could even have a self install option. I picked to have the equipment shipped to me because I thought the store would be closed or I couldn\’t get a technician to come to my house.

Then I realized that the local Spectrum store was near where I planned to go running, so I decided to drive by and see if they were open. They were open so I showed them my order and they gave me the equipment. I brought it home but couldn\’t get hooked up because the wire outside weren\’t connected anywhere. But, hey, they scheduled a technician for Tuesday (yesterday). That guy came and quickly connected the wire to where it needed to be. Then the modem would not boot up so he got another out of his truck. Quickly, I had internet. Today, I got an e-mail saying that the equipment I ordered shipped was delayed.  So had I not gone to the Spectrum store and not followed the trail of getting the technician, I\’d still not have internet and probably have to wait until next week or later. I\’d be out of gigs!

Underlying the series of lucky coincidences, a path of least resistance, was my relationship with my Inner Being. I intently work daily and all day with listening to the inner resource, reaching for better feeling thoughts and having a vibration in alignment with my Inner Being and the well being of the universe. I was allowing well being and thus attracting the cooperative components necessary to get what I wanted. It works! Following the teachings on Law of Attraction by Abraham Hicks was my spiritual process. I was following an intuitive trail, small intuitive thought by small intuitive thought.

Without my relationship with my Inner Being, I\’d go around with a bad attitude all the time and hate life. With the relationship, I am guided by intuitive thoughts and everything works out for me. Life if more joyful.

Yesterday was also because my run was amazing. I ran 8 miles, but it was running.It was the first long run since my January injury where I felt like I really was running, not slow jog with walk breaks. Thanks also to the local city who put up \”Play it Safe\” signs indicating that the trails are open but to social distance. I\’m going running again today, thankfully without yesterday\’s rain.