Hi Steve,
I just read your article in the spirit of maat. It's funny that this article was published right now because this is exactly what just surfaced in my life. I just recently had a relationship end very badly. I lived with this person and pretty much spent all my time with her. Now I am left feeling very alone. My fears of being alone have surfaced. I am feeling very lonely most of the time. Previously I cherished the time I had to myself. Now I cannot stand to be alone. What kind of things can you suggest to move through these fears and lessen the suffering of being alone. I am especially fearful of the holidays, probably my biggest fear has been to spend the holidays alone. Spending it with my family is not an option. Have any ideas or suggestions? Thankyou for your time I hope you have a wonderful day. Also I really enjoyed your article. Actually I enjoy all of your articles, I feel they always get straight and to the point, and offer very practical and good advice. Thanks again,
J. P.
My response:
Dear J,
Thank you for your email and sharing your experience with me.
First of all, I have to encourage you to not run too fast away from the experience you are having at this time. Like a death in our lives, there are so many layers to the end of a relationship. And there is a process of coming to terms with the change in our life and who we are now becoming. (If you have time, there are a few article on the Spirit Of Ma'at site that I wrote some time ago on relationships. There is also a recording of a Forum I did on the same subject, recently posted on my website.)
My suggestions is to consider some process like writing in a journal or joining a meditation group to support you through this transformational time. I have been in your place a couple of times in my life and I found that I needed to create a balance between spending too much time alone in my sadness and transformation, with being too busy. I found Breath Work to be very healing at the time a relationship ended in my life. I also traveled out to the country and found that to be very healing.
As the Holidays approach, my support for you is to go and spend times with people who truly love you and understand your needs at this time. If those people are not a part of your life dynamic, then volunteer your time at a local shelter. Being of service to others is a very powerful and healing experience. But by all means, be sure to get the right physical exercise and watch your sugar intake during this time.
For me, there has not been something other than time that healed my relationship wounds. As you walk through this period, I hope you will not lose sight of who you are and what you need.
Steve
Hi Steve,
Yes your comments and suggestions were extremely helpful. I could tell by reading what you had to say that you truly care about helping people and providing compassionate advice. I have re-read your email a couple of times and each time I feel like I get a better understanding of what I need to do to take care of myself. Yes I have already started to meditate more often, and I'm trying to journal my experiences when I can. I feel like I got past the worst part- the initial breakup. Now I'm just left with the feeling of loneliness/sadness sometimes. Also because I wasn't the one that ended the relationship sometimes I question what is wrong with me, or what did I do wrong? But these feelings are slowly getting a little easier each day. I am fortunate to have friends that really care about and love me, and they are trying to help me through this. I live in central california by the ocean so I have been trying to go out to the water a few times a week and that really seems to help. I really appreciate your help and I can tell you really care. Thanky you very much for taking the time to write me. You are more than welcome to publish anything I have written you on your website. You have offered some very warm and heartfelt advice and I appreciate it. Have a good day -
J. P. |
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I am a French young single mom who signed up for the monthly Spirit of Ma'at mail only 2 months ago.
I just happen to read your the Need for Alone Time issue ... and I just wanted to thank you for writing down it was okay to need it, this alone time ... and I do, SO BADLY  !
I work part time mainly for that reason.
I really liked what you said about being "alone can suggest there is something wrong with us": I have experienced it, mainly with my relatives.
And I agree that there is a difference between feeling lonely and being lonely: I have been alone, I mean without a partner for quite some time now for different reasons ... but I have never felt lonely, mainly because I know now that I needed that alone time to discover who I really was ... and that could not be done (for me) in any other way.
Now and then, when my son goes to his father's every other week end, I feel the need to be alone and can spend the whole 2 days home, not talking to anyone, doing my things or being a lazy person in the couch ... and boy, does it feel good !!
So, I just wanted to let you know that reading the article felt really good, from the other end of the planet point of vue  !
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From time to time, I get email from friends and readers sharing their journey. I received this email last week and think there is so much hope and inspiration contained in the letter.
Dear Steve:
I want to share an experience I had last week while vacationing in Kitty Hawk, NC. There are seemingly innocuous events in my life that become pivot points (a major change in life direction) or guiding lights (a beacon showing me the way). For example, when I was 21 and working as a waitress, I spoke with a man who had just turned 40. I expressed my sympathy, as in "Sorry to hear that." He said, "Don't feel sorry for me. Forty is great! You're young enough to enjoy life but old enough to understand things. You can do anything when you're forty." I remembered that, and I never worried about turning 30 or 40. He was a guiding light for growing older.
Now that I'm 64, I've been worrying about how much longer I can be physically active (despite the fact that my Dad is doing pretty well at 92). Last week, (...) and I took a 2-hour kayak tour and I told him I wanted to do things like that for as long as I could. Then, we took a jeep tour to see the wild horses. I qualified for a senior discount, so the tour agency signed us up as one adult (my husband) and one senior (Ugh! Me.) We were assigned to a jeep along with two elderly women who had to be well into their seventies. Clearly, the tour was putting the "seniors" together in one jeep. My husband sat up front for the leg room. The back seat could fit three across. I heard the other two ladies say things like, "I want to be able to see everything." or "I want to be in the open." None of us wanted to that middle seat. Then, I noticed two little seats in the very back of the jeep, out in the open. I asked the guide if they were real seats and he said they were, but the best way to reach them was to climb in from the back of the jeep.
I eagerly climbed onto the bumper and into one of these seats, thinking the other two women would each have a window seat inside the jeep. Imagine my surprise when one of them climbed up the back of the jeep and into the seat next to me. She turned to the guide and said, "I look like I'm 100, but I do hiking and things." She was a lively conversationalist, and she climbed into and out of the seat several times to take pictures, despite having had a hip replacement several years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed her company. At one point, her companion also climbed up, and the guide took a picture of us. "Now, people will think we stood up in the back of the jeep for the whole tour," she remarked.
So...this brief encounter with these two has provided me with another guiding light for growing older and staying active.
With love,
N
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Read \"The Secret Key,\" and was surprise how easy it was to read and understand. Thank you.
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Here are a series of emails from a reader who wrote to me after reviewing my articles on forgiveness. I find her viewpoint to be very interesting, challening and forthright. We have become new found friends...
Hi Steve:
I enjoyed your discussion about forgiveness on the Spirit of Ma'at site for October.
We take all the spiritual steps, do the forgiveness thing many, many times, cry, laugh, self-hate, self-love, feel good and cleared, and then new information comes along that says, "Gee, that wasn't enough, now you have to do this or that to go further."
For example, apparently I also have to forgive myself and others in past lives, future lives, those who may influence me negatively in the present, though I don't even know them, and the kicker, once I've done all that, then there is the subconscious, the veil that allows me only 10 percent of my poor brain and hides all those other bits and pieces of the All That Is that need forgiveness too.
Question: When does it end? And Steve, a trite answer like "When you're ready" or "When the Divine says you are," or "When you are co-creating or manifesting the life you want" or "When you realize you are God" or "When you stop beating yourself up" just doesn't cut it, at least for someone like me, who has been on the path for about 40 years, am definitely not a victim, and am still waiting, rather impatiently now I might add, for the KNOWING.
Looking forward to your response and intending the love,
Barbara
I am the Editor for my own company, White Cottage Publishers, "Books to
heal the mind," and have just released a book by a young man, Michael
Edwards, who kept a journal during his withdrawal and recovery from severe
cocaine and alcohol addiction. Flash forward, the book is selling quite
well, and Michael has just been accepted to study International Relations at
a Vancouver college. Good stuff.
My first response:
Dear Barbara,
Thank you so much for your letter. Your love shines through!
I cannot begin to tell you how much I relate to everything you have written. It's amazing when we have all the knowing, which you certainly have, to then understand the complexity of being. Yes, I agree with you that there are all the levels you mention to the process of forgiving.
If I received your letter a year ago, I would have responded to your last question for me in this way. The cycle for the need to forgive ends with our last breath. That means as long as we are breathing, there will always be work to be done. However, I have changed some in my thinking. Primarily this relates to my need to forgive other people. The issue boils down to my expectations for others - how they act and react. I am now working very actively on having no expectations for others. It is a great peace providing action in my everyday life.
What remains is forgiveness of myself. I want to be the best person I can possibly be as I move through this lifetime. I have certainly fallen short on too many occasions to count. I keep reminding myself, I can only live in today. On this issue, I am working with ideas of the Divine being impersonal and creative, existing as an energy without human emotions. This thinking brings the process back to me. This also circumvents my Christain upbringing from taking hold - God is punitive and unforgiving...In the end the question I have to answer each day is how do I want to feel? Do I want to spend the day being sorry for what I have done in the past? Or would I rather spend the day in whatever joy comes.
Joy and Peace?
Always with love,
Steve
Hi Steve:
Your response is most unusual for someone who "thinks" himself to have
progressed in this matter of forgiveness. You revert, in my opinion, to the
ideas of Buddhism. Empty the mind, expect nothing "for" others, and you will
find peace. At the same time, you are expecting yourself to create in form,
whether it is an article for your website, or a bookcase for your books,
because the energy of 3D demands and commands that our thoughts create our
reality -- in form.
And Steve, regardless of whether you are living in the right frequency,
acknowleding the dimensions, supporting the consciousness of Gaia, eating
the right foods, cleansing, detoxing, magnetically attracting, repeating
endless affirmations of abundance, sending the love and the light,
conducting rituals, praying, meditating, having a great sex life so that
kundalini rises, realizing you are a software program controlled by the
Moon, looking into the eyes of a whale, living your blueprint, balancing
karma, studying astrology, figuring the numbers, chanting in the Pyramids,
channelling, reading all the right books, speaking out against wrong-doing,
and all of the other myriad activities that supposedly advance us along the
path, you are, when all is said and done, perfection and need do nothing at
all.
So where does that leave us in when we understand that we are the Divine
experiencing action and creating in form? How can you possibly feel sorry
for what you have done in the past without insulting your own Divinity? How
can you turn your mind off so that you will live a mundane lifestyle that
will not take the chance of hurting another's feelings, when that other is
just as Divine as you are? I suppose it depends on how you define "spending
the day in whatever joy comes." Does that mean, boredom or, worse, fear
because if you step out of line you might experience a joy that may also
bring pain?
I am so tired of being told that there is more to this whole search and
because I am veiled and agreed to that, it means that while I live as
Divinity in form in 3D I am precluded from having the answers, and oh, yes,
don't forget that 2012 will answer all our questions and once we've
ascended, we'll know so much more for sure.
Perhaps it's time to stop asking and start commanding energy to make its
move, or as I think of it, "Shit or get off the pot!"
Your comments would be greatly appreciated for it's been a long time since I
have expressed my "feelings" about the spiritual search, and frankly, I am
getting impatient for tangible, in form, creative results.
Barbara
Hi Steve:
I'm on a roll! I'm smiling as I write to you, because humour is probably the
biggest asset we have as humans and as far as being impersonal, perhaps
that's all the Divine is. The Jester?
So, we must not forget going with the flow, letting go, analyzing symbols,
learning the secrets of the Masons, realizing the reptiles, journalling our
dreams, walking in crop circles, listening to the sounds of Nature, crystal
gazing, honouring our ancestors (not just those we can remember, but all of
them from billions of years pre-Atlantis or pre-Lemuria to date), contacting
the dead, talking to the ghosts, singing with the bowls, deciphering cloud
formations, warding off hurricanes, volcanoes and all natural disasters,
having a near-death experience, understanding quantum physics, healing
ourselves and others, becoming Christ-like, Buddha-like, understanding the
philosophies of Socrates and Plato, opening our pineal gland, and heaven
knows how many other organs of our bodies, singing and speaking
unintelligible languages, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, until we reach
that exalted level of, and never to be attained, because still we haven't
done enough or we are not worthy -- wait for it -- mastery! That's closed
to us mere mortals.
I can do all that and much, much more, but apparently, it is because I don't
love myself enough (how much is enough?), nor can I live constantly in the
NOW, but have hopes for the future, that I will never reach that level. Why?
Mmmmm?
Hope you will reply, because, no I am not crazy, but I do have a lot of
history and I must admit, the humour of it all is rather lightening. Reminds
me of Bill Cosby's skit when he tries to explain the rules of baseball to
people who have never heard of the game.
Intending the love,
Barbara
Here is the next email:
And finally, Steve, and then I will go back to being Barbara with her dreams
and schemes for the love of planet Earth and of all her inhabitants, whether
here or not, isn't it interesting that everyone who supports and promotes
the idea of living in the NOW, insists at the same time that you'll learn
how to do that, WHEN you've mastered it, and to me, the word "When"
connotates the future.
And isn't it strange that in fact we have absolutely no other option but to
live in the Now. That's all we have. It doesn't matter whether we're
"thinking" about the past or the future, we have no choice but to live in
the present moment, whether we're awake or sleeping. All we have is now and
so there really can be no debate about whether we are living in it or not.
And sure, if you'd like to add my comments to your web site, feel free. And
I don't need to be anonymous. I like who I am very much, and if that's ego,
that's another option of me I accept with love.
And if speaking my truth means that another might become confused or judge
me without further investigation, then I prefer to remain true to myself,
for my truth is all I have. Perhaps that it is not the KNOWING that I
originally set out to find in my question to you this morning, but for NOW,
it will have to do.
Such a strangely wonder-full and puzzling dualistic world we live in.
Intending the love,
Barbara
And the final email:
Hi Steve:
Please forgive me if I overwhelmed you today. When I was 20 years old (am now 60) I saw a piece of paper on the ground and picked it up. It read, "As a man thinketh, so is he." And those few words have followed me around since then. That's 40 years!
If it is true that time is non-existent or that we live in simultaneous times, or parallel Earths, with other "aspects" of ourselves all clamouring to be "enlightened", then everything we aspire to here on Earth is not only for us, but for the advancement of All That Is, and that takes the ball game into a field so vast that those of us still attempting to understand the human aspect of the struggle can be overwhelmed by opening any of the doors that might lead us, without something to hold on to, whether it's a magic flying carpet or enhanced DNA, to question the path, perhaps more than is necessary.
It is only today, after my tirade to you, that I can say that the best statement I have ever heard the spiritual path summarized by can be found in the words, "I'm okay, you're okay." I forget who said them, though I believe there was a book with that title and if I wasn't so stunned by my own audicity by my e-mails to you today, I'd spend some time researching it on the Net.
However, for now, I shall drink my beer, while I make supper for the man I love and while I do, intend the love, for in the end and in the present, it is all we have, ever have had, and ever will have. And I see by my very first sentence in this e-mail, I have come back to forgiveness. And so the questions have been answered, thank you! And thank you from my heart for being there to receive me.
Barbara
Dear Barbara,
I have reread your emails today. They are really wonderful and would like to ask you again for permission to post them on my site, identifying you only with your initials. Your questions and search are impressive. I think if you were up the street from where I live we would sit and talk for hours - we are on so many of the same pages. That would probably also include drinking some beer and eating at least a bit of chocolate...
I want to share with you that my writing is an extension of my personal journey. I am all about the process even through there are days I would like to have some other drive or urge within me. I don't think I have any answers or view myself as some great advanced being. In my mind I write as service and to create the responses I got from you. My hope is something I write will be of value to the reader - maybe a new question or way of viewing the questions that keep coming and coming.
Your writing is very powerful for me and your questions are many of the same one's I continue to carry. I am grateful you took the time to share with me. At first reading, I thought I should address the issues in your emails. Then, after thinking about what you wrote for several days, I reminded myself the answers we are seeking are for us and in a way very personal. As I said, I don't think of myself as some great sage. I don't think I have anything to write that you haven't already read or expressed in your writing.
I am grateful.
Steve
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The following leters are from readers about the series on Forgiveness.
Hi Steve,
With regards to your article on the above. I find forgiveness brings me liberation. Everyday, I make it a point to practice forgiveness for my past and present life.
I am much lighter and calmer. You also cultivate inner stillness and become very aware.
I always love reading Spirit of Maat. Your articles do bring joy and clarity. SG A Prayer for Forgiveness
Dear Steve
"I am forgiveness acting here, casting out all doubt and fear,
setting men forever free, on wings of cosmic victory.
I am calling in full power for forgiveness ever hour,
To all life in every place, I flood forth forgiving grace."
-from one of the great ones.
M.B.
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From a Reader in Chile
I am sorry for not being able to comment on your article in English...I hope it has been well received and you will be able to ascertain "my drift."
Your words reached deep into my being and made a lot of sense to me. Indeed, I have felt deeply the process to which you refer; for me, 2008 was a year in which a seed was planted, requiring nutrients to slowly sprout.
During 2009, those nutrients began to come together and take hold, and now in 2010, I am experiencing an expansion of consciousness that, beforehand, I couldn't have imagined...a connection with everything as if it were "one." This is an expansion that helps me to view the current events with an optimism that astonishes me...particularly now, with Chile in crisis...this ability to see things in an expanded way has come with pain, yet makes it possible to re-assess what our lives are really about, and what thestate of our institutions actually is...
With this expansion as a new point of departure (a very potent one which can be felt within people), we can begin to develop a new society...and, coincidentally, with the 200th anniversary of Chile's nationhood (its bicentennial), we now have the great opportunity to rebuild all of our lives and the institutions that support them, as if the Earth were in labor pains, in the birthing of a new world.
It's been a pleasure to read your thoughts...they have arrived at a most opportune time.
A thousand thanks!
This letter was in response to the February 2010 article "A Time for a New Order." My friend Ray Boeri was kind enough to translate this letter for me.
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