A Week of Epiphanies

I am participating in a two-year masters in spiritual psychology program through the University of Santa Monica (USM); we are heading into the final stretch. As has always been true to a greater or lesser degree, I’ve spent the last few months beating myself up regarding how much more I could have/should have done during the last two years. I could be so much further along in my life, in my growth as a person, as a writer, as an actor, as a human being. Then, a week ago, my niece ran a 5K race for her college. For almost all of the 16+ minutes of the race, Ari was toward the back of the pack, but in the last two or three laps, she began to pull ahead, and in the end she streaked past the stunned leader and won by a second – long in race time.

Ari – you are my metaphor.

I had another defining moment solidifying my intention to move to the front of the pack (my own pack – consisting of only me – let everyone else run their own race). I experienced that when I look out at the world, I see only myself. When I see peace and loving, it is because I am living in peace and loving, and when I see judgment and annoyance, it is because I am experiencing judgment and annoyance – against myself.

I am not much for jewelry or other adornments, but I tried on a USM class ring. It was a magical experience – Harry Potter finding his rightful wand. This ring was at home on my finger – my wedding ring finger, but I decided it was an unnecessary expenditure of money and walked away from the table. For the next 10 minutes or so all I saw around me were people ignoring me, people looking at me funny, and I started to feel insecure and drop back into my loner self. Then it hit me, I had ignored myself, I had ignored this ‘uncommon’ desire to own something. I realized I had to purchase the ring and at the next possible time did so. Later that day, I won a raffle for an evening valued at $1,000 dollars.

I honored myself.

Last night I went to bed weary to the Soul; I could barely stand up. It didn’t feel like I was physically exhausted though it was manifesting that way. It was, as I have come to realize, spiritual exhaustion. I woke up remembering a dream – a bad one – I never remember my dreams. My meditation was an exercise in negative thinking – lots of dark thoughts – as a matter of fact, there have been a plethora of negative thoughts since I got off the plane yesterday, and then it hit me. I had, once again, ignored myself and my Self was getting exhausted from me not listening.

The morning had been great – I got on the plane – getting to the gate just as my group was getting on. I got my perfect seat in the back by a window, and later a nice gentleman sat on the aisle. Then the plane started to fill up and at the end, there was an African American family – mom, dad, and two young boys – who were all going to middle seats. In a rush, business men and women rearranged themselves to sit in middle seats so that this family could sit together. My seat mate, another frequent flying business man, moved to the center so that the dad could be on the aisle just one row behind his family. I was touched and started to tear up. I was moved by the kindness of strangers – in Orange County; white folks inconveniencing themselves to be kind to black folks. I was moved and called to write about it right then. It was so present in me, but it was inconvenient. I didn’t have the paper and didn’t want to dive into my backpack for it; I figured I’d remember it and write about it later. At one point during the trip the baby seated right behind me started to scream. She screamed and screamed and when I could no longer block it out, I looked over my seat and made unfriendly eye contact with mother and aunt. I wanted to strangle the kid. The rest of the day was uneventful but never felt quite right, the class I had flown from Orange County to Oakland to attend that night did not have the juice it normally did for me. The evening back at home with sister, brother-in-law, and boyfriend-in-law was empty and exhausting and I needed to go to bed. I woke up still tired and cranky.

I made myself get out of bed; I made breakfast for my brother-in-law and myself, and then sat down to e-mails and other things and the realization that once again, I had not listened to myself. It seemed so simple, and went by so innocuously, I didn’t write when called to write. And so I looked at everything else and realized there was an e-mail that I had to write to a few people I had done a process with at USM last weekend, and I had to write this experience down, and I had to commit to following my intuition and do what it tells me when it tells me or I would be going against myself and not pulling up as I said I wanted to for those last two winning laps. My dreams, or one of them, is to follow my intuition, to follow ‘my truth,’ to listen to myself and obey it – obey myself – not someone else telling me what to do, but me telling myself what I really, truly want. The affirmation I have been using this year is: With loving discipline, I am following and honoring the truth of my heart, embracing my dreams, and living them fully and playfully with enthusiasm and authentic self-expression.

Not sometimes, not even most of the time. It is time to win this race by listening and following all of the time (or at least as all of the time as my humanness will allow).

Victory Dance

You are at a meeting in Santa Monica with your much adored University of Santa Monica project team, and the universe has conspired to have you forget that you are in a two hour parking space, so you never go downstairs to move the vehicle. You will need the lesson that is still six days away. You do, however, at approximately the time you are receiving the ticket, feel disoriented and call out “Earthquake,” not realizing that this is an earthquake of the inner world.

After a delightful nearly four hours, you walk to your car basking in the energy of the meeting. Your masters in spiritual psychology weekend is to begin in just over an hour and life is good. Arriving at your car you see something under the windshield wiper. You grab it, plop into the driver’s seat, and look at the document. It is a $61.00 parking ticket.

Your inner victim is unleashed even though the two-hour parking sign is just feet away; you want something or someone else to be responsible. You remember that the last time you’d gotten a parking ticket was in Santa Ana and wonder if perhaps you should avoid cities beginning in the word – Santa – and perhaps, you muse, it has something to do with your bah humbug attitude about the man of the same name.

Although the ticket did portend the bit of emotional victimhood that you experience during the weekend, you do have a good class. The days after class go smoothly, and you feel your inner world shifting.

You are paying bills when you take the parking ticket from its envelope and see that there is second ticket. You accept your part in getting the first ticket, but the second creates a state of confusion.

At first you think this must be someone else’s ticket, but when you look more closely it is a $35.00 ticket for a missing front license plate. With your victim-self up front and center, you move swiftly into denial.

You run down to your garage and notice that you indeed have no front license plate, and actually, you have no way to attach a front license plate. You are angry because a front license plate will ruin the beautiful Cars look of your Cube, so you do the first thing you can think of and call your Nissan dealer.

You ask about the necessity of a front plate and hear that in California you do need one. You ask in a most snippy manner how one is supposed to put a license plate on a car that has no place for a license plate. You are told that you should have brought the car in when you received your plates eight months ago, and that if you bring in the plate they will install it. You ask if there will be a charge; you do not get a straight answer.

You want to make them pay for the ticket and perhaps burn at the stake, but you don’t know how to logically put the oweness (which you don’t know how to spell) on them because you realize that you are in crazy person overdrive and you also have a niggling feeling that perhaps you did know but ignore this because you didn’t want to ruin the cuteness of your Cube’s face.

Perhaps it is your fault, but rather than moving into loving forgiveness, you successfully, habitually, and quickly move into self-loathing and frustration on a magnitude of the earthquake you felt six days earlier. You remember the words of your writing group telling you that you are way too hard on yourself, but you are just not in the mood for a lecture – or to feel better. You cry and scream and wonder how you will find the plate placed God-knows-where nine months ago. Nine months you think, what are you giving birth to?

You are aware that if you do not find the plate you will probably have to pay for a new one. You catastrophize about how you be unable to drive your Cube until you have received the million dollar plate from the incompetent DMV hopefully by the time you are 60.

You decide that it must be somewhere, and you begin the tear-filled hunt. You look in some obvious places such as the filing cabinet to no avail. You run into the garage and look around at the multitude of boxes, many of which you’ve been through and know it is not there. You decide to look on the movable shelf anyway. You pull out a plastic milk carton filled with miscellaneous bruhaha from the family room before you changed your floor to the stupid tile which makes your bare feet freeze in the winter. You find, amazingly enough, the cat brushes you have been wondering about and semi looking for during the past several weeks.

Your positive energy begins to return as you marvel at your ability to emotionally yoyo. You reason that just as the brushes were around, so must be the license plate.

You remember that part of your spiritual psychology second year project is working with your intuition and you are aware that you have a golden opportunity. At first you just follow a few “logical hits,” but they are all disappointing; however, you are not willing to give up (you are now on the manic side of life). You wonder if you should just let things percolate, but then realize that perhaps this would be a good opportunity to actually use your intuition intentionally.

You sit down, close your eyes, take a breath, state your intention out loud – “I want to find the second license plate for my Cube” – and then you let the question go. You take in a breath and move to your gut. Immediately, you feel something heavy – something on top of something else. Then you move your attention out to the borders of your body and you see, clear as day, the lower kitchen cabinets next to the pantry. Your first reaction is “I would never have put it there.” But you are not going to look this gift horse in the mouth, and you run down the freezing tile staircase and into the kitchen. You start with the cabinet nearest the fridge opening each door and rummage though. When you get to the last cabinet you open the door. There sticking out from under a load of serving plates you never use, is the license plate. You have some trouble getting it out because the plates are heavy.

You laugh and feel like a nutcase for having put it there in the first place, but holding the license plate facing you in both hands, and pumping it up and down, you do your victory dance around the house while singing “Yes, oh yes, oh yes, oh yes!”

You go lightly upstairs to your clean desk, excited to pay the $35.00 ticket for this inexpensive class that is moving you forward on your path to being more consciously in tune with yourself.

Days later your inner vampire takes hold and starts to tell you that you put the plate there yourself no matter how unconsciously, so of course you would be able to get that information. You begin to sing the song “Die Vampire Die,” and your inner Dracula swings his boney, cape-covered arm in front of his face. Only his eyes show as he backs his nasty life sucking body away. He may return someday, but you are prepared. You found the license plate. Next stop the lost keys, and then maybe actually touching base with those who are gone from this place. Your hope springith eternal because you just never know.

copyright 2010 by Nancy Grossman