Insight and Wisdom-Final Days on Earth

At the end of my mother’s life the family went into counseling. She said, “I wish I had done this before.” My mother was a woman in charge of her life; in control of herself and those around her. She loved her family and was excited to discover new things, gain insight, and grow in wisdom. Counseling would give her the opportunity. She appreciated the family support and agreement that we would attend. She was intensely interested in therapy something she had never experienced before. I, a psychotherapist knew the reasons why we as a blended family had not gone into counseling before this time. Now, at the end of my mother’s life it was too late. With the short time she had left we attended a few sessions; my step-father played his protective role of her. For him family therapy was too confrontational and threatening; his wife was dying; he did not want to upset her with emotional exchange. My step-father could not see that she yearned for insight and wisdom even during her final days on earth. Although I look back on this time as a missed opportunity for psychological and spiritual growth, today, when I am in need of healing, I seek support through different healing modalities including group support. Whether as a participant or facilitator, in a psychotherapeutic setting, we grow from feedback and interaction with others. Although sometimes confrontational, the end result-wisdom and empowerment.

I heard it said that life is painful, suffering is optional. Like my step-father, I wonder how many times I missed opportunities by choosing to avoid emotional pain and the wisdom it can ultimately bring yet encouraging others to explore their personality and emotional wounds. Understandably, emotions can make us feel weak and vulnerable the way we felt as children. Avoiding painful and intense feelings is understandable; anger, fear, resentment, jealousy to name just a few of the hundreds of human emotions we can experience is challenging. Perhaps we fear that we will suffer too long or lose control. However, exploring emotions brings insight; emotions help us to stretch and grow into a new self and direct us onto a path of self-discovery uncovering unknown hidden parts of the psyche. At any point in the life cycle, we have the opportunity to grow and discover ourselves anew, even during the final days on earth.

Love, Light, Healing and Many Blessings,

Ruth Starseed Hoskins

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http://www.RelaxationInternational.com

A Soul Satisfying Day

When I was in my twenties, I worked at an outpatient mental health clinic. I recall one of the psychiatrists telling a story about a plaque that hung on the bathroom wall in his childhood home. It said, "What have you accomplished today?" The messages he received in his home were similar to the messages in my home. In our home, we did not have a plaque hanging on the bathroom wall. There were however, many spoken and unspoken messages related to accomplishing.

For example, it was frowned upon to nap in the afternoon. Being in motion and active is what counted. Outdoor play was approved of; hours upon hours of playing hide-and-seek, bouncing the pinky-ball against the wall, touch football with the boys. I never tired and it was better than going home. Napping, resting, or lounging around on a Saturday afternoon was frowned upon. It was a sign of weakness, an unproductive child.

Luckily, I like to be on the move. As an adult, the problem with being on the go for the sake of being busy equating that with Soul satisfaction, is that it is not the same. For a real Soul satisfying day I need to write. Writing is a loved creative outlet. When I remember to write (sometimes I forget), it is easier to let go of the nagging feeling that I must be busy and on the go accomplishing anything, just as long as I am in motion.

Writing is my creative Soul satisfying outlet. I sit down to write and to create, Writing taps into my creative power (creation). That feels great! When taking time to do something I love it is much easier to appreciate my day. I don't have to work so hard to have happy thoughts or feel expansive or good inside. I just feel good-plain and simple. When I write I get in touch with a part of myself that is connected to my Soul. When this Ah Ha Soul satisfying moment comes, it is so much easier to surrender to Higher Power and enjoy my life.

A real Soul satisfying day makes life easier and creates ease and grace. A real Soul satisfying day allows me to trust the direction of my life; appreciate the lessons, the hard ones and enjoy more fully the easier and joyful ones. A Soul satisfying day brings a fresh perspective and helps me to let go of worry about the future. A Soul satisfying day helps me to stay on course no matter how long a manifestation a dream of mine may take to unfold. In fact, manifestation becomes secondary to a Soul satisfying day; it fades into the background of the many competing desires that race out of my heart and mind clamoring wildly for first place. When I write, in the foreground of my heart and mind is a colorful Soul satisfying day.

Love, Light, Healing and Many Blessings,

Ruth Starseed Hoskins

https://www.facebook.com/RuthStarseed

http://www.RelaxationInternational.com_____________________________________________

Grateful for Lessons Learned: Looking Back 2013

On January 1st 2013, if someone had given me a glimpse of the future, I might have pulled the covers over my head and stayed in bed. There were many lessons I learned this year, many challenging albeit worthwhile for me to grow and change. In fact, lessons, as they are designed to do, propelled me onto a stronger spiritual course. For this, I am grateful. Now, as 2014 is almost here, it is a time for review.

Lessons learned:
1- I learned I have absolutely unequivocally no control over anyone’s behavior.
2- Everyone is responsible for creating their own destiny. I am not in charge.
3- I learned that God is in charge of everything and that the only thing that makes sense in terms of co-creatorship (a spiritual principle I believe in) is that I have control over my attitude.
4- The direction of my life? I must wait, in faith, for direction from my Higher Power. As of this writing, the direction arrived and was confirmed in a dream. I am grateful for that.
5- Since I have control over my attitude, what I believe and the way that I think, I am grateful to let go of psychological things that no longer serve me.
6- I am giving up all resentments past and present. I remind myself to live and let live. Thinking this way is an act of forgiveness.
7- Self-care is at the top of the list. Yes, I like to help others, but I need more than an hour each day to take care of my meditation, prayer, walking, and preparing organic vegetables for juicing.
8- To this end I completely changed my diet and eat 95% organic. 80% raw. Lots of greens and juicing with my special juicing machines.
9 -I never miss my 30 minute 1.3 mile walk daily.
10- I really cherish the time taking care of myself.
11- I learned that service to another is by far the greatest gift we can give to ourselves and to another person. To this end I have added on to the Red Cross volunteering to feed the homeless at the Sunday Mission. When I am there I am reminded over and over of the many blessings in my life. I am grateful.
12- I am putting together a new service project for 2014. More on that….
13- I am so grateful for all of my blessings that I now speak aloud to God as I walk down the street. I thank, and I thank, and I thank again. I have so many blessings that I can’t stop thanking Higher Power for all of them.
14- There is a path of compassion and I am on it. This means that I want to continue to develop compassion and live in that consciousness the best that I can.
15- Besides the meditation that I do daily and that I have been doing for forty years, I pray every day for healing for myself, my family, loved ones, friends, and the world.
16- Prayer brings miracles and the greatest miracle is that I have control over my consciousness to make it what I want it to be every minute, every second of every day. It takes a conscious effort of integrating body, mind, and spirit.
17- Did I say I was grateful for all of the new things in my life?
18- Every day, in meditation, I invite Higher Power into my life. I say aloud. “I invite you in. I know you are there facing me, and now I am turning and facing you. Help me to speak kind words and to remember that everyone has their own Higher Power and I am not it.”
19- And every day I remind myself that in “reality” I am Soul on an earth walk. This lifetime is one of thousands of incarnations that I have lived as Soul on this planet and in other places in the solar system; a powerful incarnation designed for spiritual growth. Meditation and prayer brings me closer to the awareness, the knowledge, that I am a spiritual being of light on an earth walk. I am Soul.
20-Love is everything. Striving to be the most loving person (not ignoring emotional challenges) is the most important thing to do.
I love you!
I wish you all many many blessings for an abundant 2014!

Love, Light, Healing and Many Blessings,
Ruth Starseed Hoskins
https://www.facebook.com/RuthStarseed
http://www.RelaxationInternational.com

Tug of War with Higher Power: Everything is at it should be.

I have been in a tug of war with my Higher Power. I wonder who will win. The real question however is why I am in a tug of war at all with my Higher Power? No doubt it is resistance to my changing life, my changing process coupled with getting older and feeling the preciousness of time slowly running out; a candle burning down to the end. I think to myself, “If Higher Power doesn’t hurry up and bring me what I think I need to fulfill my destiny, time could run out. I could die!” Those are the silent private conversations I have with my Higher Power. The underlying fear being death and at the same time questioning whether the direction in my life (Has Higher Power made a mistake?) is correct. Knowing that ultimately everything is at it should be. However those words, (truths) are not consoling. Everything as it should be only briefly consoles me, then the tug of war begins again. Here’s the image: God has a hold of one side of a braided rope and I have hold of the other side of the rope. Like a seesaw we are tugging, pulling, tugging, pulling-wasted effort, futile, really. At the clearer spiritual times I am aware that everything is as it should be and that in “reality” everything is an illusion; molecules and atoms spinning rapidly. I remind myself that I, including my thoughts, make-up this molecular structure-atomic illusion. Also, at moments of clarity, I know that God is everything penetrating every single molecule and atom. So who am I to argue with Higher Power and why bother?

Here’s a dream I had this morning that says it all.

In the dream I looked over at my fish tank (In waking reality I don’t have a fish tank). At the bottom of the tank was a dead fish. I was shocked. How could I be so neglectful of my fish? Had the water dried up? Where was the food? I was startled by my lack of awareness especially around anything that has to do with caretaking a pet. In the dream, I ran to the pet store and bought food. When I came back I noticed that there was a fish swimming around at the top of the tank. It looked a bit scaly like it might have some skin problem. Still it was alive. The fish at the bottom of the tank remained dead. Its presence was shocking. It was a mystery how it died because there was water in the tank. (Did I forget to feed the fish?)

 I interpreted the dream in several ways, (Ahhh….the beauty and importance of writing dreams down). The obvious interpretation is that a part of me feels dead inside; another part feels very much alive. But the dream also showed me the illusion of life. Even after we die, (the dead fish) we are still very much alive living in similar ways that we live right now. (Although a s painful separation from loved ones, death is an illusion). The third interpretation, and the one that feels closest to my psychological/spiritual place right now, is that the fish and the water (universal symbols of spirituality) represent a new emerging spirituality. As things change, the old has to die to allow for a new life to unfold. (The new life is the fish at the top of the tank). In the physical, I have to let go and surrender completely (feels like a death) and stop the tug of war. I must (no choice) allow myself to be guided by my Higher Power, the Holy Spirit, the ECK, so many names for That Which Is.
Thank-you Holy Spirit.

Love, Light, Healing and Many Blessings,

Ruth Starseed
https://www.facebook.com/RuthStarseed

 http://www.RelaxationInternational.com

Surrendering: Delving Deeper into Spirituality

Thirteen years old and ready for bat mitzvah, I asked the rabbi, “Can we learn about Jesus?" Part rebellion, but mostly curious and sincere, I did not know then, what I know now- in previous lifetimes I lived as a cloistered nun loving the Great Master Teacher known to Christians around the world as the Son of God, known to me in this lifetime as someone to love and to emulate. Although I was not raised Christian, nor was Jesus talked about in our home, I think about Jesus often. In fact, I think about Jesus every day. When I reflect on the meaning of surrendering to Higher Power, I  think about the wise and different things Jesus said: On surrendering he said, “I can of my own self do nothing, for I seek not my own will but the Will of the Father.”

Powerful words that will always be true. The words of the Great Master Teacher Jesus Christ hold true no matter what century we live in, or religion or belief we hold; the bottom line is that we will not move forward in life in a loving and positive way without the will and intention of a Higher Power-the Will of the Father as Jesus said. We all need something to lean on. Surrendering to Higher Power is the best way no matter how you conceptualize your Higher Power. Personally, and after much searching, I am drawn to the New Age idea of Christ as a Divine loving and forgiving Consciousness. A way of living life that is available for us all to aspire to; we are all son's and daughter's of God. Developing a loving and forgiving consciousness is a direct route to making conscious contact with one's Higher Power.

I like to study dreams. They take me deeper into my spirituality. To make a strong point, a recent dream brought this information. In the dream I was on an operating table at a local hospital, Roxborough Hospital. The operation was going to be performed in the basement. I was in a poorer section of the city where they did surgery in the basement. I was about to be anesthetized. I noticed that the walls of the operating room were brownish. The tiles were smooth and grimy looking like you might see in a bathroom in a subway. Still, I had to trust that the surgeons knew what they were doing and that I was in good hands. On the operating table I felt helpless; I had to surrender. The doctor was unfamiliar; I did not totally trust his skill. Still, I was on his operating table. I had to let go and not resist the operation. The operation was going to take place no matter what I did. Surrender was the key to success and at that  point there was no choice. The doctor gave me anesthesia and in the dream. I prayed to Babaji an Eastern Guru I studied about in the past.

In the dream I surrendered to the operation. In waking reality, when I surrender to Higher Power, I imagine myself waving a white flag signaling my need for help-someone, or something, to lean on. At those tired times, in those tired moments, I know I cannot do anything without the strength and direction of my Higher Power. This was the case in the dream.

After the operation, I got up and walked around the basement of the hospital. There were many people in the basement including interns learning new skills. I looked out the window onto a small yard. I was glad there was a window to enjoy the scenery. The yard was filled with green trees, a small lawn and shrubs. The message in the dream was that there was hope for the future. In the dream, I was the patient and had to completely (no half-way measures) wave the white flag and surrender to experience a deeper spirituality and connection to my Higher Power.

“Why art thou troubled because things do not succeed with thee according to thy desire? Who is there who hath all things according to his will? Neither I, nor thou, nor any man upon earth.”

Thomas A’Kempis.

Love, Light, Healing and Many Blessings,

Ruth Starseed
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Controlling the Uncontrollable

Trying to control something that is out of my control makes me lose faith and worse, I wonder if Higher Power does not have my best interests at heart. By trying to control what I cannot control-another person’s life- their journey, their direction in life, is an act in futility-it is not going to happen-ever. When I start thinking that I know best and have answers for another person I have to let go, take a deep breath, and remind myself that it is God’s show, not mine. Every minute of every day I must remind myself of this truth; I have to wake up and go to sleep with this thought in mind. If I don’t keep this thought in the front of my mind, or if I think that my will is stronger than Divine Will, I will suffer.

The challenge is I want to know how everything is going to turn out. I want everything to be okay! I want the outcome to be positive and perfect, but first I want the outcome written on a large piece of paper and handed down to me from above, or at the least, put in sky writing so I know my loved ones are safe and secure and that eventually everything will right itself. Since that is wishful thinking, I have to surrender and let go. Otherwise, the anxiety of trying to control the uncontrollable is unbearable.

Unbearable!

It is at this point of suffering that I have to let go and surrender what seems impossible to do. I have to surrender the fear and anxiety and place it in God’s hands whatever the outcome. As the well-known preacher and positive thinker Joel Osteen says, “It is easy to have faith when things are going well.” Much harder when there is waiting and watching and hoping and praying for a positive outcome. Of course other people have to create their own positive result. It is out of my control.

So for today, I am letting go of what is impossible to control, the uncontrollable.

Love, Light, Healing and Many blessings,


Ruth Starseed
https://www.facebook.com/RuthStarseed



 

During Challenging Times Keep Moving

It takes a conscious effort to build good habits. During hard times, the good habits are life-savers. When the hard times come, and there will always be hard times, the good habits sustain through loss, grief, divorce, illness; life does not stop, nor does it slow down and wait for us to finish grieving. Our strong self-care habits see us through. When the challenges come, our job is to not to come to a standstill although the tendency is to pull the covers over our head. During the challenging times keep moving.

When we experience loss the tendency is to withdraw and do nothing. We are stressed, sad, lonely, anxious, depressed and grieving. This is Nature's way to slow us down and reintegrate physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  If, however, we are grieving and do nothing for a long period of time, the physical stress of grieving increases stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine. Too much cortisol released in the body increases inflammation and disease. Illness can result. Stress needs to be managed and stress hormones need to be released using exercise, drinking fresh water and eating whole organic (when possible) foods and practicing meditation. It is best to keep moving; go for a walk, a swim, Pilates, yoga, and do something active. It helps balance the stress. Here’s what I do. Even when not in the mood to go for the walk or a swim, the good habits developed over the years push me forward.

1-In the morning, every day I make a green smoothie filled with chlorophyll. It is made up of celery and kale and ginger and cucumber and wheat grass. I mix it all together and enjoy the wonderful life force that comes from eating fresh organic “live food.” For variety, I sometimes use the Vita Mix and throw all the vegetables into the machine adding blueberries or blackberries to the morning drink.

2-That is followed by a 30 minute meditation and then a 30 minute walk that includes deep breathing. Twice a week I go for a swim.

3-Every morning I pray using the techniques in the book The Healing Code.

4-Daily I write my dreams. Dreams are portals to inner insights and inner worlds. There is much to be learned from dreams.

Most importantly, it is important to build good habits daily, especially during the easier times in life. When the challenging times come, and they will, we can meet them with confidence knowing that our good habits, the ones we developed during the slow and easier times will sustain us through the harder more challenging times helping to maintain equilibrium and balance.

Love, Light, Healing, and Many Blessings,

Ruth Starseed
http://www.RelaxationInternational.com
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