Healing Self Curses (Cancel/Clear) August 26, 2010
Posted by gerrystarnes in Healing, Society.1 comment so far
Exerpted from the upcoming book,
“Spirit Paths: A Shamanic Pathway to Healing and Changing Your Life”
by Gerry Starnes, M.Ed.
For the most part, belief filters are based on learned behaviors that arise from past experience. You may have had a traumatic or frightening experience with an abusive bully, for example, that set filter for you that muscular men are bullies. However, this is not always the case.
From a shamanic perspective, it is also possible for other people to influence your beliefs directly by cursing you.
“You will never be able to sing.”
“If you keep acting like that, no one will like you anymore.”
“Why can’t you keep your mind on track like everyone else?”
“You are such a screw-up.”
Each one of these statements are curses, and there are millions more that you have heard or even that you might tell other people. They are like darts fired into the person’s energy field, and given the right circumstances, they stick and begin to spread their poison. Every time you throw an angry insult at a driver who cuts you off, every time you think ill of someone you don’t like, you toss a curse at them.
Fortunately, most curses in this culture do not actually affect their targets. It is as though, like viruses, you need to have a receptor in your energy field in order for them to attach. If someone tells you that you are fat and ugly and no one will ever love you, and you have a receptor for that, the curse will attach. If not, the dart bounces harmlessly away.
Where Do Curses Come From?
While many curses come from everyday life experiences, curses may also be brought forward from past lives, particularly if the person was cursed in their last moments or died as the result of a curse. Curses may also be generational, passing down invisibly from parents to their children.
Again though, as adults you are protected from those tossed at you during the course of your day. As long as you do not have a “receptor” belief about yourself, most of them bounce off harmlessly.
However, this is not true for young children who are completely open to whatever they are told is true about themselves by their parents, teachers, pastors, significant friends, and the like. Until they have a fairly intact sense of Self, they are very vulnerable. Even afterward, the disempowering beliefs they have about themselves will continue to allow the curses of others to affect them.
As a result, you have most likely been cursed as a child. Most are not intentional, of course, but their effects are the same. When you think poorly about yourself, you are most likely reflecting a curse that already exists in your life. And when you repeat that curse, you effectively reinforce it – you curse yourself.
Self-Curses
Know, too, that you may curse yourself. Every time you tell yourself something demeaning, perhaps repeating old curses given to you in childhood, you curse yourself. These are often said or thought so often that they go unnoticed.
“I always forget something when I travel.”
“I can never find my keys when I need them.”
“Every time I try to get something done, I get sidetracked.”
There are millions of different kinds of iterations of these self-curses, perhaps dozens of which you repeat to yourself every day. And each one of the have the effect of dimming your spirit and giving away some of your power.
Curse Healing
Curses can be removed by experienced shamanic practitioners, and you may be able to identify and remove some of your own. The exercise below is one way to approach self-healing. However it is the curses that you don’t know about that cause the most damage. You may stalk your curses for a very long time and not be able to identify some of them because they are well hidden, much like missing soul parts.
Curse healing is an energetic, ritual process of locating the curses, extracting them, and the repairing the imprint of the curse in the energy field. Once curses are removed, they no longer can interfere with the natural function of the energy field. As a result, more energy can flow through to be available to you.
This exercise focuses on a pervasive way that you curse yourself on a daily basis with your words. Words have power, and every time you express out loud or in your thoughts a demeaning idea about yourself, you curse yourself by reinforcing your limiting beliefs.
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Stalking Your Self-Curses
Stalk your words. Set an intention to pay strict attention to the messages you are giving yourself, both negative and positive. Most importantly, though, just attend to your words.
People tend not to pay attention to what they say, either to others or to themselves. Some people talk incessantly about nothing at all. Others functionally curse themselves over and over, and then wonder why they feel so badly about themselves.
Your most important first practice should be to identify those curses you put on yourself. You do. Accept it. Pay attention to what you tell yourself and you will quickly see how damaging you can be.
You might take a small notebook with you and write down all of those self-directed thoughts: judgments, put-downs, limiting beliefs. See how many pages you can fill with all those curses. Really work at it. Set your Wolf Mind the task of tracking even the most subtle ones, those you ordinarily would not even consider to be curses – the ones disguised as self compliments or those wrapped in compliments to others.
Let your Wolf Mind gnaw on that bone until it is clean.
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Cancel/Clear!
What do you do with all this information? Remember this phrase: “Cancel – Clear!” Rather than trying to figure out the proper words to use to offset the curse or “rewrite the script,” say the canceling phrase immediately each time you catch yourself in the act. The more quickly you cancel the self-doubt or putdown and clear the energy of it, the better.
Just “Cancel – Clear!” and move on. Do not give the curse one more iota of your energy, one more instant of your time. Starve it to death. Over time you will notice that you tell yourself that curse less and less, and each time you do, you catch it and cancel it. One day you will notice that it is no longer there for you.
Above all, do not beat yourself up when stalking your words traps a curse, either to yourself or anyone else. That is just another way to judge and demean yourself. Instead, congratulate yourself on being diligent!
Healing Deepwater Horizon June 20, 2010
Posted by gerrystarnes in General, Healing, Learnings, Society.3 comments
Following the explosion and collapse of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform on April 20, 2010, the world watched in helpless horror as an environmental catastrophe unfolded. It was alarming at first to think of the thousands of gallons of oil, gas, and silt spewing unbridled from the ground. And yet, there was a sense that although it would be dreadful for many, it would be contained and ultimately “fixed” once the right technology was applied.
Yet as days now grow into weeks, as all efforts to stem the flow so far fail and the estimates of daily contamination skyrockets, abhorrence and dismay turn to rage. Images of brown tendrils of oil drifting among boats desperately dragging collection booms, apparently uselessly, behind them illustrate the helplessness of the workers who struggle to combat the disaster with outdated equipment. Blackening beaches and birds overwhelmed by oil drive home that this catastrophe cannot be avoided and will not go away.
While it is true that vast amounts of oil leak naturally from fissures all over the planet, nowhere has the amount of oil so quickly flowed into the seas in so localized a deposit. The pollution is spreading throughout the interconnected oceans. Inevitably, it will affect all the sea creatures in one way or another.
This is a global catastrophe with effects well beyond the Gulf and the surrounding countries and populations. There will be financial effects worldwide, and environmental effects also will spread steadily throughout the biosphere. As such, everyone on the planet has a stake in how the disaster is managed.
What Can I Do?
There are many actions that we can take to advance the healing of the effects of Deepwater Horizon. Not all are easily palatable, given the state of our social outrage. Even as we grieve the effects on the Gulf and wildlife that depend upon it, we also must look forward into the possible futures unfolding. How we respond can heal or destroy.
Let Go Of The Outrage
Participation in the torrent of curses projected upon the management and organization continues the darkness. There is enough of that. Legal and political responses are in place to hold accountable those who created the disaster. Let them do their work while we do ours.
It is better to focus light and energy on opening the way to healing and enabling solutions. Powerful studies show that one person holding love for another will offset the ill-will of dozens. Let go of the outrage and instead allow the balancing strength of spirit to pour through you for the good of all.
Part Of The Tribe
Not everyone in the Tribe can act in the same way and be effective. For all of us to descend upon the coast and begin cleaning birds will clearly not be useful. We must remember that, as part of a global Tribe, we all have our roles.
It is the role of the Elders, the Wisdom Chiefs, to hold the vision of a healed Mother Earth, and remind us that She is really not in danger from this event. She survives hurricanes, floods, volcanoes, and all other kinds of natural and unnatural disasters. Everything will return to perfect balance in time. They hold the Eagle vision.
The Medicine Chiefs can pray and hold in sacred safety our brothers and sisters of the sea, as well as our human relations. Not all will survive, and the way ahead is long. The many who practice the medicine way can best serve by daily practices that include the healing of all in the wake of the disaster.
The Warriors and War Chiefs are those who act directly in service and defense of the Tribe. They are the hands-on workers, coordinators, and planners. They are the front line of the action and all those who support them physically, financially, and spiritually. We must also remember them and care for their healing, as well. They are fighting a war for us, and as such, they are in the heart of darkness and need our consistent blessing and assistance.
Hold The BP Workers In Light
It is not productive to send anger and disparaging thoughts to the BP employees and contractors working to contain the rupture. Thoughts are real. We can choose to hold these engineers, divers, and workers in loving hope and trust, or we can blame them for being incompetent. They, too, are affected by the disaster, and they are the ones working diligently night and day to find answers and solutions to the problems.
They are also our Warriors, the most experienced and intelligent workers to deal with this difficult problem and access to the most advanced technologies available. Surrounding these Warriors with the darkness of hate and misplaced blame serves only to make things more difficult. Hold them in love and light instead, and see their way clear to solutions, strength, and perseverance.
Stewardship Of Our Home
We must remember our place in the web of life. Because we rely so heavily on the bounty and resources of the Earth, we must also be the caretakers. Deepwater Horizon reminds us that it is up to us whether we deplete and destroy the very foundation of our existence, and so destroy ourselves. And not only us. We have the power to take with us millions of other animals and plants, and to make our home uninhabitable to humans for thousands of years.
Human dependence on resources like petroleum, natural gas, and coal will likely continue for many more years, regardless of how diligently we work to move to more sustainable energy resource. We must not become complacent about the many dangers hidden in mining and extracting them. As the human tribe, we are compelled by our own use of these resources to be diligent to control and eventually to eliminate our pollution of land, water, and air.
We may be experiencing the effects of Deepwater Horizon for decades, possibly for generations. We must decide how we will respond today and tomorrow, whether with fierce darkness or blazing light. We must learn from this and remember to leave our home in better shape for our children and our children’s children to the seventh generation.
Images and information in this article are from various news sources, particularly Monsters and Critics.
Wolves in the Woods December 7, 2009
Posted by gerrystarnes in General, Healing, Learnings.Tags: life, love, risk
5 comments
Footprints in deep snow,
Surrounded by woods,
The moon bright overhead,
Lights the wet white carpet.There are wolves in the woods.
They make no sound,
Yet they are there in the dark,
Watching between the trees.
Tingling flesh, racing heart, shallow breath: is it excitement or fear? The body cannot tell the difference.
Toes on the knife-edge precipice,
Wind gusting at your back.
Skidding just beyond control,
Useless steering wheel.
Wolves in the woods on a frozen winter night.
In the moment, we rarely get to choose. It happens; we are in it. We respond beyond thinking from that deep place. It is like a predilection: programing running just beneath the surface, installed by someone else, by the past.
A loved one revealed something recently that drove down into that place with a long, cold blade so swift there was no time to think, to reflect, to choose. Thought whirled around the numb bubble that encased it, believing it was OK, that the wound was not as serious as it might have been.
When the numbness dissolved, the body responded with an overwhelming mood that reflected the weather outside: cold, gray, raining, inescapable.
Close the door. Bolt and seal it.
Hungry wolves cannot enter where there are no windows.
I lay in that dark place with the sensations – racing heart, buzzing nerves, restless hyper-awareness – trying to feel my way through the panic and confusion. Alone with the wolves.
Two sides showed themselves: the fear of letting go of a belief no longer tenable, and the excitement of letting go of a belief no longer tenable. The body did not know the difference. It was up to me – to my Soul, not my helpless mind/body – as to which interpretation I would choose to attach.
The programming can be overwritten, the curse removed, the imprint erased. Step by step, choice by choice.
Run quickly out of the woods,
or walk in full awareness
into the maelstrom that Love has prepared.
I may survive into a new level of Joy, or I may be torn into ten thousand pieces that I must gather, heal, and re-member myself again. I am not helpless. An act of Courage is the purest expression of Freedom.
A warm, excited heartbeat,
Aware, yet unafraid moves steadily;
A brother wolf who walks upright,
Just passing through.
(Original artwork by Kevin Vinson. Used by permission.)
Risk Is Life October 23, 2009
Posted by gerrystarnes in Healing, Learnings.Tags: life, love, risk
1 comment so far
From Conscious Dancer, an article on Vin Marti clearly expresses the challenge and opportunity of taking a chance in life:
“Let’s remember that to love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risk we must, because a greater hazard would be to risk nothing. Only a person who risks is free.”
Some people are immobilized by the very idea of relationships, much less intimacy. Having been hurt and betrayed in the past – perhaps many times – the fear of rejection became paralyzing. And yet, feeling alone and empty, they longed for significant connection to another.
Relationships require courage. They are rarely easy and one is always vulnerable to the unexpected. We take into them all our past hurts as well as past joys, all our history as well as our hopes and expectations. This is true, not only for long-term significant relationships, but also for the shorter-term friendships, and brief connections of any kind.
There is no “safe” way to do life. Each action requires courage in the face of risk, as Vin says: of failure, of rejection, of despair, of death itself.
Certainly, one must also be cautious. The skydiver makes careful choices and prepares for the unexpected. Only when all systems are “Go” does he make that leap. In that moment, in that free-fall into the unknown, is exhilaration and the excitement of being fully alive. It is the risk that makes the jump worthwhile.
As a dancer, or artist, or teacher, or parent, or any of the other personas that we wear in everyday life, we must risk in order to Live. And really, the only choice for those who seek Freedom is to embrace risk in the face of fear, and cast ourselves full-on into the moment.
“One must Risk in order to be Free.”
The Thunder Beings August 13, 2009
Posted by gerrystarnes in Healing, Learnings, Society.add a comment
It has been very dry here for many months now. Most of south and central Texas is in an “Exceptional Drought” condition, according to the Western Regional Climate Center. Rain and storms approached Austin for several days during the past week, but none of them seemed to have enough strength to penetrate the core city heat. So when it did happen yesterday (Aug. 12), I was very grateful. Even though the rainfall around my house was fairly light, it was very welcomed.
That evening we held our monthly Deepening Journey Circle. The planned topic was “The Middle World Journey,” which was, of course, completely appropriate to expressing gratitude for the rain. After sharing our individual intentions, we settled in for the journey.
I was the only drummer in this particular circle, so I used Big Brother, the 18″ Community Drum, who was in great throat, and I thought anxious to express his own gratitude for the rain. As I settled in to the rhythm, I noticed how similar he sounded to the rumbling thunder from earlier in the evening. There was a resonance.
I found myself transported into the clouds. I stood before a cloud bank, facing and looking into an enormous open cave that looked like a rock shelter overhang. A large group of beings approached me from within, apparently following four beings that led the way. As they approached, I realized that these human-like beings had painted faces.
One was painted black, with a blazing white streak across it: Lightning. Another was all blue, and the paint appeared to float on has face, rather than being attached to it: Water. The third was very hazy so that I could not make out any particular features: Cloud. The fourth was red and black, sharp-edged and solid: Thunder.
They said nothing, yet as I stood before them I came to realize that they were the leaders of their clans: Lightning Clan, Water Clan, Cloud Clan, and Thunder Clan. All of their clans had come to meet me on this bank of clouds so high in the sky. I was speechless, though I wanted to shout my deep gratitude.
The scene changed. I found myself sitting in a circle with them. I noticed that, even as the five of us formed not a circle but a star, still no one was separate. No one was in any position of importance. We formed both a star and a circle.
None of us said anything. We passed around a pipe in silent contemplation. Yet what we were contemplating was very important. “What do we (humans) need to learn or do or experience in order to bring back the rain and end the drought?” My thoughts led me to an affirmation that we need to bring ourselves – individually and collectively – back into balance.
We need to restore balance with our selves, body, mind, soul; and also with each other in community and with the Earth who sustains us. Until we can do these things, we will continue to express our own “dryness” into the World, and that collective dryness is the heart of our experience of no-rain.
What I heard was: “Stop complaining about how hot it is. Stop complaining about how dry it is. Use the gifts of Heat and Dry to pull yourselves together. Know that they are gifts as surely as Cool and Rain, though you might not understand this.”
I had only an instant to thank the Thunder Beings before I quickly returned to the journey circle and ordinary reality. Grandmother was beating more quietly, and I knew it was time for the call-back.
There was a final rumble of thunder as we all reformed the circle for sharing. It was very quiet, very distant. The storm was over, and I had my homework to do.
