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by Nancy Bloom 1. Listen to the audible voices of Nature – Frogs chanting, crickets singing, flowing waters of streams and creeks, wind in the pines, a lake lapping against the shore, birdsongs, ocean waves against the beach or crashing on the rocks, rain falling…all have their songs to delight your ears! See how many more […]
by Nancy Bloom
1. Listen to the audible voices of Nature – Frogs chanting, crickets singing, flowing waters of streams and creeks, wind in the pines, a lake lapping against the shore, birdsongs, ocean waves against the beach or crashing on the rocks, rain falling…all have their songs to delight your ears! See how many more voices you can hear in the natural world. And remember we as humans are nature too! Human Nature. A baby’s laugh, a mother’s lullaby, sounds of children playing, these too are sounds of Nature.
2. Open with your whole being to receive the Presences of Nature around and near you – Rocks, sunsets, trees, ground, waters, birds, plants, rain, stars, lizards, sunlight, bees, wildlife, springs, cliffs, hail and more.
3. Listen with your inner ear to the messages that each presence in Nature gives you. Everything you listen to deeply will speak to you. A rock, a waterfall, a sunset, a mist, a river, a blade of grass, a boulder, an owl or dragonfly, each has a gift for you of deeper understanding, new ways of being and knowing. I invite you to listen to everything in Nature , from the vast to the tiny, they all may be your teachers.
4. Sense the Natural World around you, opening to the touch of the air on your skin the way it is in a particular place, or the felt sense of a waterfall nearby and how it refreshes you, the welcome warmth of sunlight on your body, the reverberations of thunder, the softness of sand, the smoothness of a small rock, the roughness of some lava rock, the coolness of a leaf with morning dew on it. The things you touch touch you…The things you sense awaken your senses!
5. Open to your own Nature as you open to and resonate with the Natural World around you. Who are you then? Who are you becoming?
May you enjoy the many gifts of Listening to Nature this summer!
Filed Under: Articles
Doorways of Support and Inspiration: Facing Obstacles Mining the Gold that Dealing with Trauma and Adversity Present by Nancy Bloom (with Alissa Lukara), © 2001 One of the valuable lessons I’ve learned in my life is that life has cycles, and when we’re going through adversity and trauma, they could possibly be a cycle, instead […]
Mining the Gold that Dealing with Trauma and Adversity Present
by Nancy Bloom (with Alissa Lukara), © 2001
One of the valuable lessons I’ve learned in my life is that life has cycles, and when we’re going through adversity and trauma, they could possibly be a cycle, instead of an never-ending downward tren d. In my early twenties, before I realized this, I thought that because I was in an abyss, I would always be in an abyss. It seemed like the direction the abyss went was perpetually down, towards more adversity and trauma, and that’s where I was going, too. I didn’t have a clue then that life had cycles.
This Too Shall Pass
There’s a wonderful Zen story about a king. As he was about to die, he called his three sons to him one by one. To the oldest son he said, “To you, my oldest son, I gift all my realms and principalities. May you govern them well.” To the second son he said, “To you, my son, I give all my estates. May you run them in a good fashion that the people might prosper on them and that the harvest might be abundant.” Finally, he called for his youngest son, who was truly his favorite, the child of his heart and soul, the one that he felt so akin to, so close to, and he said to this son, “To you my most beloved, I gift what is most precious of all.” Then, he handed him a ring. And on the inside of the ring was inscribed: “This too shall pass.” This understanding may seem simple, but it is a profound knowing, and in this king’s mind, it was equal to all the kingdoms and principalities he owned.
Remembering this phrase when meeting adversity and trauma can be very helpful. Yet, in some life challenges, the outer circumstances don’t seem to pass. Some may truly be experiencing a life-threatening or chronic illness or difficulties that seem to linger. Here, too, however, the saying has relevance, because what can still pass are the fearful or angry responses to any situation-including death, so that new, more healing, loving responses can be invited into people’s lives, even in the midst of the adversity or trauma.
Stop Judging Your Feelings
I’ve also learned from personal experience-and discuss it often with clients-that, even when outer circumstances remain challenging, we can invite ourselves not to feel bad about feeling bad. If we’re already feeling bad, it’s enough already. But what happens is that, on top of this, we often judge ourselves for feeling bad. Doing so heaps insult on injury and undermines us. It’s just this added burden that can often push us over the edge. We’re better off not judging what we’re feeling or undergoing, but instead allowing and observing the actual grief or anger or illness, whatever it is.
When you judge yourself for your feeling or experience, you set up a situation where you’re resisting the feeling and not accepting it. “Oh, I’m angry. I shouldn’t be.” Or, “I shouldn’t be this angry over that.” And, as you get caught in this critical mode, you can actually perpetuate the feeling, get stuck in that place longer than if you just let it pass through without judgment.
One way to bypass this self-judgment is through the path of non-resistance. Here, you let whatever you’re feeling or experiencing pass through you, like sunlight passing through a pane of glass. You’re not grabbing hold of it and getting knotted up in it. If fear comes up, you say to yourself, “OK, here’s fear.” Then, you let it pass through, and there it goes. When, instead of accepting what’s happening or what we’re feeling, we get caught in thinking, “Make it not be like this. Or, I’ve got to get through this fast. Why is this taking so long? Or, I shouldn’t be feeling this,” we can suffer even more.
Mine the Gold of What Is
The invitation is to mine the gold of what is. We tend to think that the gold is only in certain circumstances or ways of being. Being happy. Looking pretty. Being healthy. But there are gifts even in the adversity and trauma in life. And often it may even be that our soul might in some way want to experience this adversity and trauma in order to extract the gifts. My perception is that the sooner we extract the gifts and the learning that life challenges offer, the better able we are to move on.
Consider the different ways of perceiving the situation-are you’re looking at it with the glass half-full vision of it or with the glass half-empty? Last night I was describing to a friend that I was feeling a bit depressed and kind of empty. We were discussing my age, which is 56 and the major astrological event that happens at that time known as the Saturn return. It is associated with a lot of letting go, shifting and restructuring in people’s lives. So I was talking about how things are changing and falling away and how I have less energy than I am used to having. On that day, I felt particularly low energy and found myself frustrated and saddened by that.
This was me feeling bad about feeling bad.
My friend, however, took another perspective. “You know,” she said, “it sounds to me like you are softening.” When I heard that, I was able move beyond my initial perception and look inventively at the big picture of what was happening. Now, as I looked once more at my low energy and despondency, what I saw was: “Oh, I’m deepening.” I unearthed another way to look at the situation. Saying “I’m deepening” gives me empowerment in my soul as I make the journey.
Meeting Suffering with Grace
In our culture, we live with an a kind of belief that says, “You should be happy; everything should be going well. You shouldn’t be sick. If you are sick or unhappy, there’s something wrong with you.” In Buddhist teachings, it is understood that life includes suffering. And I think if we understand that, too, then when suffering comes, we no longer think, “There’s something wrong with me, I’m a lacking person.” Instead, we say, “Oh, here’s this part of life. How do I meet it?” And perhaps sometimes, we can invite ourselves to meet adversity and trauma with the utmost grace that we can muster-and the utmost presence.
For example, when my recent partnership ended, I essentially felt like I was going through a second divorce. I thought here it comes again, the same thing. The relationship ended similarly to my first marriage with the person departing to be with someone else. At the demise of my first marriage, I felt angry and distraught, somewhat vengeful. Then, when the second one came around, I felt very hurt and sad, but this time I thought, “Here is the invitation to do this differently.” I really tried to go through the end of the second partnership in the most conscious, caring way that I could- and it felt so better to meet the same situation in a new manner.
One of the things I did differently the second time, was to be there for myself and for my grief. I cried every day for three months. I couldn’t help myself. Various things would come up that would trigger my tears. Someone might ask me, “Oh, how’s Rick?” and I was suddenly sobbing. Instead of judging that , however, I thought to myself, “This is what I need to do. This is sad territory and I need just to feel my feelings.” That helped a lot. I stopped working against myself or trying to be anywhere other than where I was. I also sought to be more conscious and caring with my ex-partner and we met to debrief with one another. That felt a lot better than getting polarized. After a time, my feelings began to normalize again.
We’re not “the only one”
What I’ve learned myself and what I see in others is that when we go through any kind of huge change or challenge, we can expect for some feelings to arise. I recently interviewed some people involved with a teen program for young women, and they discussed the challenges of that life passage into young womanhood-all the dangers of negative self-image, cliques, feeling outcast and experiencing low self esteem. To counteract that, they’re doing activities in nature with these young women, healthy risk-taking kinds of things, like rope courses and such. They also have groups where the women talk together, and one of the young women was saying how important it was to be able to talk about the challenges they were experiencing with others who were undergoing them-to find out that she is not the only one who feels she is left out of groups or weird or that she doesn’t look right.
In general, when we are dealing with any kind of adversity, trauma or challenge, we realize, “Oh, this territory that I’m in is one that other people are in, too, and it’s normal that I’m feeling upset, or discouraged or angry or sad,” then we feel reassured. We discover that other people experience what we do, too. We are not alone.
Nancy Bloom, who has an M.A. in psychology and is a certified hypnotherapist, has been a spiritual counselor and healer since 1975. Her focus is on inspiring people with life and health challenges to be more healthy and whole. Her individual sessions (in person and by phone) and workshops incorporate a variety of approaches, including psychosynthesis, hands on healing, psychic readings, and soul retrieval. She has also produced 2 recordings of healing music: Spirits Walking in the Wind, and Sweet Sacred Mystery, along with three recordings of spoken word to support the healing process set to music-Inner Harmony, Inner Transformation and Inner Beauty. The recordings cover areas ranging from relaxation and grounding to healing light, breath and personal transformation work to guidance in experiencing positive health shifts. Contact Nancy Bloom at PO Box 921, Ashland, OR 97520, 541-621-2181, nancy@SpiritinBloom.com or visit the Spirit In Bloom website.
Alissa Lukara is a writer and president and originator of the Life Challenges Web site. Contact her at alissal@lifechallenges.org
Copyright © 1999 Life Challenges. This article originally appeared on the Life Challenges website, which helps people face and transform adversity.
Filed Under: Articles
Doorways of Support and Inspiration: Facing Obstacles Becoming the Artist of Your Day; a Reframing Process by Nancy Bloom, © 2001 A lot of us make lists about what we’re going to do every day. Most of these lists include work and chore-related things like: take the car to the repair shop, call the people on […]
Becoming the Artist of Your Day; a Reframing Process
by Nancy Bloom, © 2001
A lot of us make lists about what we’re going to do every day. Most of these lists include work and chore-related things like: take the car to the repair shop, call the people on my committee, finalize the report, etc, etc-generally not the kinds of things that inspire you to leap out of bed in the morning.
I’m proposing that you create a different kind of list-one that can shift the whole experience of your day-regardless of the challenges you face. On this list, you consider: “Given the kind of day that it is and given that I have certain things I need to do, how do I want my day to be?” In essence, creating this list lets you become the artist of your day.
For example, when my son was still in diapers, I lived in an isolated spot an hour’s drive from the nearest Laundromat. Before I knew about becoming an artist of my day, I would think, “I don’t like to drive and now I have to drive a whole hour to the Laundromat to do my laundry, an experience I also don’t enjoy.” After I had the listing process, I would write: “I will meet at least one wonderful person at the Laundromat and have a marvelous connection with him or her. I will totally enjoy my drive to town.” This was during the time when there were gas lines at the gas station, which I used to resist as well, so I would also write: “I will really enjoy waiting in the gas line.” Having written this, I was inspired to think of things to enhance that waiting experience, like bringing a poetry book I had been wanting to read.
Doing the list worked. Instead of moving through the day with dread, I enjoyed myself. I appreciated the beautiful countryside on my drive. I met some wonderful people at the Laundromat, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading my book while waiting in the gas line.
Now, when I’m being the artist of my day, I’ll include things on my list like: “All my interactions today are heartwarming and fulfilling and really bless everyone concerned.” Or, “The presentation I am doing today goes really well and is transformative for all concerned. My preparation for it flows easily and well.” Today, I was aware of having low energy, so I wrote: “Everything I do today is done by grace through me. I don’t really have to effort.”
How To Paint Your Day
When creating your own list, think of it as making a painting of your day. As the artist, decide:
Creating this list doesn’t require much time. You can do it in two minutes in the morning while sitting down to have tea or coffee, or in the evening before you go to bed. If your day starts going haywire from the first moment you awaken, get out a piece of paper at 2 p.m. and paint a picture of the rest of your day. I once read an example from Unity Church, which suggested that if you’re in the middle of a difficult meeting at work, take out your list and write down something like: “This meeting with resolve harmoniously, and we will agree on two points about which we will all feel good by the end of the afternoon.” Don’t worry about anyone at the meeting wondering what you’re writing. While you’re choreographing how you want the meeting to go, others will simply think you are taking notes. One of my clients successfully uses this process at meetings all the time.
Reframing Major Challenges
Becoming an artist of your day can help you reframe major challenges, such as health concerns, as well. While you may not be able to choreograph the circumstance that has occurred, you can influence your response to it. One of my clients was a woman in her sixties with lung cancer. One lung had already been removed and, once a week, she was driving a great distance, a couple hours each way, over twisty roads to get radiation. The amazing thing was that she continued to have the energy to make the drive and experienced no side effects to the radiation whatsoever. The doctor was mystified and asked her, “Why is it that you, amongst all my patients, are having no side effects?” She said, “Because every time you put that machine over me, I say, “Thank you lord for your healing, thank you lord for your healing.”
If you have a major health challenge, think of how you want the events of your own day to unfold. Your own list of the day might include items such as: “I experience this medical intervention as truly healing.” “The doctors and nurses today are divinely inspired as my healers.” “I feel supported and cared for in all my interactions with doctors, nurses, technicians and other medical professionals.”
Regardless of the kind of list you create, remember-your thoughts have power. Your words have power. There’s power in the kinesthetic action of writing. And, above all, your intention has power. In combination, they help you become the artist of your day.
Copyright © 1999 Life Challenge
Filed Under: Articles
Reclaiming/Kindling What You Want In Life Moving Away from What Doesn’t Work Towards What You Want : An Empowerment Process by Nancy Bloom, © 2001 When you go through life challenges, you may discover that certain areas of your life are no longer working. You’re out on a limb getting shaken up. Sometimes, you’re so […]
Moving Away from What Doesn’t Work Towards What You Want : An Empowerment Process
by Nancy Bloom, © 2001
When you go through life challenges, you may discover that certain areas of your life are no longer working. You’re out on a limb getting shaken up. Sometimes, you’re so caught up in your situation that you even lose sight of your dreams.
While you may not be able to choreograph all the outer situations in your life and make the dance exactly as you want, you can at least decide to choreograph your response to them. As part of this, you can begin to move away from what’s not working in your life and to move instead in the direction you want to go. I have a three list process, originally inspired by a process I learned from Unity minister and author Catherine Ponder, which can help you do this.
Many times, when you experience a sudden or major transition, you notice what hasn’t been working in your life. This is an occasion to grab hold and make some positive changes. Maybe you don’t even have a choice. You have to change to respond to what’s occurring in your life.
During this time, ask yourself what you would like to let go of in your life. List it in this first list. Include everything-from the most mundane item, like the clutter in your closet, to the most cosmic, like self-judgment, self-hatred or friendlessness-whatever conditions you are ready to release. You can even include health conditions. Your heart and soul will know everything that belongs on this list.
Why doing this list can be helpful is because setting the intention to eliminate and actually eliminating what doesn’t work in your life makes space for what does. Nature abhors a vacuum. As soon as you get rid of those things, new good can come in.
When you complete the list, you then help empower the process by including this written statement at the end:
I thank these for the growth they’ve given me. I now release them, and they release me to my own highest good.
Making a huge list of everything you want to eliminate from your life can be somewhat intimidating. When, however, you thank what you’re letting go of for the growth it’s provided, you’re essentially saying that you let go of the condition, but you choose to keep the growth and learning you’ve received. You’re not letting go of everything. Some of you recognize what those gifts and learning have been. Others may not consciously know. You may find it beneficial to take some time as part of this to think about and write down what gifts and learning you’ve received from even the most difficult life challenges that you’re hoping to release.
This statement is also important, because if you keep identifying what you don’t want, you often become hypnotized by it. Writing “I release them” is the gesture of open hands saying “I let it go.” By releasing your hold or fixation on them, they release you, too.
This list encompasses everything that you want your life to include-once more from the most mundane to more expansive things. It can include things like positive attitudes, feeling states, and health. It can include situations like financial support and the types of relationships you want. Use the first list to help direct you. For example, if you write on the first list: “I now eliminate friendships or people that are toxic,” you might write on the second list, “I now draw into my life friendships that meet me on a soul level, where we are healing for each other, and we grow together.”
Relationships are an important factor to consider on this list because your life challenge may be inviting you to change the whole context of your life, and this second list can help you identify and focus on the types of people who can assist you in leaping forward into your next stage of greater well-being. You also need support during life challenges, so if you’re letting go of draining relationships or lack of relationships on the first list, you might ask to draw in supportive contacts and friends on the second list.
Let this second list be wildly imaginative. Say what you really want, even though it seems unlikely you’ll get it.
I’ve found time and time again, that when I or my clients put something on a list, it very often does happen. As a result, you have to be careful what you wish for and be fairly specific. It may be unwise to write simply: “I want to fall in love.” A better approach would be: “I want to be in a loving relationship with someone who is really good for me and where I’m really good for them.”
There may be some instances where you know what you want to let go of, but you don’t exactly know with what you want to replace it. For example, you want to leave your current job, but you don’t know what job you want next. Instead of writing down the specific work you want on your second list, consider the qualities or circumstances surrounding a job that you’d enjoy: What do you want to feel about your work? Do you want to feel glad to get up in the morning and go there? Do you want to feel like you can be yourself all day long? Do you want to feel at ease with your co-workers, manager and customers? Do you want to feel that you’re receiving adequate money for your needs? Writing down the tenor of what you want, even when you don’t know the specifics can still help draw something wonderful to you.
This list has an ending statement to empower the process, too:
May this or something better come to me through no harm to anyone and for the greater good of all concerned.
The “something better” is important because, at the same time you think you know what you’d like to have happen with your limited human awareness, the universe (spirit, god, higher power) might have an even better idea that you haven’t thought of yet. You want to stay open to that greater will.
The second half of the statement-“through no harm to anyone and for the greater good of all concerned”-says that, as you generate your own greater good, you have a true desire that no one be harmed in the process and that you want your good to include greater good for the whole. We can feel positive when we receive what we want, because we ask that there be blessings in it for others as well. In addition, many of us don’t feel worthy to have something good for ourselves, but when we affirm it in a way that’s for the greater good, we relax and allow it, and it does indeed then bless others, which blesses us again.
Here’s an example of how this second list can work. Once, I was living very rurally in a 17 1/2 foot yurt with wood heat and no running water. I wanted to move into town, so I listed everything I desired in a new home: a beautiful natural setting five minutes from town; a cozy but spacious feeling; roommates with whom I shared a lot and who grew together; a big workshop room; people with whom I would have an ongoing relationship; hot and cold running water; a wonderful bathtub; a swimming pool; a sauna; a hot tub-all by September 1. When I finished the list, I thought, Nancy, you’re crazy. I put it away and didn’t think about it again. That summer, I had an opportunity to give some workshops in a beautiful house, and the people who lived there asked me to be their roommate-as long as I could move in September 1. The house had every single thing I had written on the list. That was in 1984 and 15 years later, while I now live elsewhere, I still give workshops in the house and continue to be friends with the people who live there.
Clients with whom I’ve shared the list have found it powerful, too. Some have used it to get over phobias, find new jobs, and so on. One client shared it with her hairdresser who had left an abusive relationship with the father of her children. She was still suffering from low self-esteem, yet she went home and wrote down 81 things she wanted in a new partner. Within one year, she found a person who had 80 of the 81 qualities, so she said, “I guess I better marry him now.” She did and they have a wonderful relationship. Most people aren’t going to be that specific, but even three or four well thought out, personally meaningful items can be very impactful.
Once more, list everything from the smallest thing that you’re grateful for to the most cosmic. Nothing more than that. I encourage you to make this list at least as long as the others. I just did this three list process the other day, and I noticed that my manifesting list was very long, so I really pushed myself to do more on my gratefulness list.
For a long while, I was mystified as to why this whole process worked for so well. Now, I believe, that while each aspect is important to the result, including the act of writing itself, it’s this last list that is the fuel of the process. I realized that if you have a list of what you don’t want, but it still exists in your life-and you have a list of what you do what, and it’s not here yet, you can feel dissatisfied or despondent. The gratefulness list helps you step into another level of awareness, where you’re telling yourself, “Even in this situation or challenge, there are so many blessings in my life.” As soon as you go to that place, your being relaxes, and it allows the universe to follow the flow of what you’ve culled in and culled out of your life.
Another benefit of making a gratitude list during times of transition and change is that it’s a good antidote to despondency. You don’t have to do it just as part of this process. I recently did a process recommended by a speaker I heard where I immediately wrote ten things for which I was grateful, then added one more each day for forty days. When I was finished, I missed the process, so I started it again. I was also captivated by Sarah Ban Breathnach’s suggestion from her book, Simple Abundance, which she discussed on Oprah Winfrey’s show. She suggested you write down five things you’re grateful for every day before you go to bed, an act which Oprah personally found life-changing.
Create a Ceremony
Doing the whole listing process as a ceremony can be especially healing and empowering, because it makes what you’re doing more real to the body. The very act of writing the lists themselves can be a ceremony if you take this action in the spirit of a ritual. It’s as if you’re taking these things out of yourself and putting them on a page. You’re making a statement to the universe about what you want you want to release, blessing and releasing it. You’re acknowledging what you want your life to encompass at this point and calling those things or something better in. You’re expressing gratitude.
You can also take this a step further and create a more elaborate ritual. For example, you could paint all the things you’re releasing on rocks with water colors. Put them in a stream and they’ll get washed downstream or, at least, the water color will get washed away. Thank them for their growth and release them. During the same ceremony, call in what you want and make your second statement. Maybe you want to take something from that natural spot that symbolically represents what you’re calling in.
Once you’ve done the lists as a ritual with yourself, I suggest that you put them aside for a few days. Then revisit them and notice: “Did I leave anything out? Do I need to add anything or change any wording, so that it really fits me?”
If you want, you can empower the lists with someone else. I invite my clients to bring their completed lists to a session and we read them out loud. We honor them.
Once you’re happy with your lists as they is, that’s it. You’re complete. You don’t have to keep looking at them every day or affirming or visualizing them. You’ve done it. You’ve sent the information all out to the universe, so you can simply set the lists aside in a drawer or some other place. In a sense, you’ve planted them. Now don’t go dig them out and look at them every day to make sure they’re sprouting. That disturbs the gestation and growing process. Plant them, let them grow and look forward to the wonderful surprises in store.
Don’t feel badly if not everything on your list happens either. As I mentioned, sometimes we don’t know what’s for the greater good. At the very least, I see these lists as a clarification of your values. They clarify what you want to move away from and move towards. There’s great power in what you say “Yes” to in your life and to what you say “No.” I knew a woman who badly scalded her hand right before company was coming for dinner. She got very angry and forcefully shouted out “No”-refusing to accept the burn. When she looked down, it had disappeared! Forcefully saying “Yes” can have powerful results, too.
If things are falling apart in your life, think of these lists like sand bags. The flood is imminent. Maybe putting sand bags up will be enough to stave off the flood waters. Maybe it won’t. But you have to try something. The lists can help sway the percentages in your favor. Have faith and expect a miracle. Doing so paves the way for energy to flow. Conversely, when you fear the worst, you can get in your own way. Research has shown how observers’ thoughts can affect the finest particles of matter. At least focus your dreams and free will in the direction you want to go. At the same time, work on being okay with what is-whatever that is.
Most life challenges, whether you like it or not, come to you in some form that may feel like a death, where you’re letting go of the form of life as you knew it. You don’t know the new that’s coming in or how to call this new to you. The three list process can help. Each list shows you what’s important to you, and my experience is that the process and your intention truly do create and move things in your life.
Nancy Bloom, who has an M.A. in psychology and is a certified hypnotherapist, has been a spiritual counselor and healer since 1975. Her focus is on inspiring people with life and health challenges to be more healthy and whole. Her individual sessions (in person and by phone) and workshops incorporate a variety of approaches, including psychosynthesis, hands on healing, psychic readings, and soul retrieval. She has also produced three audiotapes on the healing process set to music-Inner Harmony, Inner Transformation and Inner Beauty. The tapes cover areas ranging from relaxation and grounding to healing light, breath and personal transformation work to guidance in experiencing positive health shifts. Contact Nancy Bloom at PO Box 921, Ashland, OR 97520, 541-621-2181.
Copyright 1999 Life Challenges. This article originally appeared on the Life Challenges website, which helps people face and transform adversity.
Filed Under: Articles
Healing/Illness/Caregiving Celebrating Life’s Journeys by Nancy Bloom, © 2001 Transcript of an interview by Nancy Bloom of Ara Johnson from the TV show Life Passages, The Soul’s Journey about following your dreams, war, motherhood, marriage, breast cancer, finding magic and healing during difficult times and passionately embracing and living each moment. NANCY: Ara Johnson is going to […]
Celebrating Life’s Journeys
by Nancy Bloom, © 2001
Transcript of an interview by Nancy Bloom of Ara Johnson from the TV show Life Passages, The Soul’s Journey about following your dreams, war, motherhood, marriage, breast cancer, finding magic and healing during difficult times and passionately embracing and living each moment.
NANCY: Ara Johnson is going to share many of her life passages that have been extremely challenging, transformative and very heartwarming.
NANCY: We’ve talked before about the importance of young people having some kind of rite of passage to take them into adulthood and I know when you and I were growing up, there wasn’t really anything very official like that. Yet, my belief is that each of us probably did something to get ourselves there. You did quite a special something.
ARA: It was 1971 and I was just 18. I had a huge passion and curiosity about the world. Part of that came from our political system and what was going on in Vietnam. I just wanted to see the world. So naively I bought a round trip ticket to Bangkok, thinking I’d spend maybe 6 months exploring Southeast Asia and I came back about 7 years later. It was a very magical time in my life.
NANCY: What happened?
ARA: The most incredible thing that I remember feeling when I first went there is how my mind was just completely blown and how important that was to have your mind blown.
NANCY: So that nothing you thought was reality was.
ARA: It just cleaned it all right out, all my preconceptions about living in the cultural isolation of the United States. It is so revealing to me to live in such a different culture. I was such a gypsy. I was curious. I was passionately curious. And I was excited. I loved the warmth and the heat and the mangoes and the people. People would say, “You are so far away from home, you must miss that. So you must want a home cooked meal.” They would invite me into their homes, not even dreaming that I had not been brought up on rice, and give me a home cooked meal. Wonderful people. I was also very curious about the war. I lived in Cambodia, I lived in Laos and Vietnam.
THE REALITY OF WAR
NANCY: So you were there when all of that was going on.
ARA: While the worst was going on. I saw so much suffering and yet I saw that the people had such a strong spiritual system that it allowed them to maintain their hearts in the midst of all this pain. I had no understanding of it at all. You’d see an old grandma who had lost a limb in the marketplace and she’d be laughing. As she sold you your vegetables, you’d think, “How can you go on? Your children, your family, your husband, these people are dying around you.” And yet the people there kept this joy in their hearts, they kept going somehow and I didn’t know what that was about. It was a very profound teaching. I became very curious what that was, how that was. Because to me a spiritual belief system was a belief system, and I didn’t know what it meant to have it be a way of life.
NANCY: Or to have it go deep into your heart and soul and really help you…
ARA: To live it. I have to say that Cambodia really broke my heart. I had really hoped that somehow when that was ended, there would be peace. When that didn’t happen, I fled, with a broken heart, down to Southern Thailand. I spent many months there in the temples-it was either that or a mental hospital.
NANCY: Because of the heartbreak?
ARA: Because of the heartbreak, and the huge disappointment that there could be any political harmony. I thought this is the 70’s. There could be good political outcomes. We were going to live in peace and harmony and I really believed that.
NANCY: So to trust the political process didn’t work.
ARA: Right, it didn’t work for me, so I had to go to another place. That’s where I learned Vipassana meditation. Even at the level that I learned it there, I’ve come to see what a beginner’s level that was and yet how important it was to me. Over the years as my practice had deepened, just that first step…
LIVING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT
NANCY: And it’s become an ally, a help to you throughout your life?
ARA: Many times. I think it keeps coming around to that, to the present moment. Where no matter what else I get intrigued by, it just comes back to that’s what there is at the present moment. It used to be a practice that was hard. Walking meditation was just pulling my mind back to the present moment.
I had a wonderful experience a few years ago, where I was at Hapuna Beach [in Hawaii] and I was catching perfect wave after perfect wave, so many perfect waves, that I didn’t even want to leave the water to eat all day. It was so perfect. And I actually got it that this was Vipassana. that this was present moment. When you’re out there on the water, that’s the only place you are. Your mind is empty. I just got it. It was so exciting to me to know that it was something that I could live and not just practice, practice, practice. It was like it became alive to me at that time.
NANCY: So it shifted you into knowing that present moment, present moment, present moment. It could be so there…surfing…eating…
ARA: I could call on that. I could use it. It was very beautiful.
NANCY: I think that’s the secret of surfers and snowboarders. They’re really very present on the spiritual path.
ARA: You have to be. Or you’re crunched. Well, so do we in our lives have to be. Or we’re crunched.
NANCY: But we forget sometimes
ARA: Or get distracted.
NANCY: So you had a magical journey as a gypsy, and that completed itself.
ARA: It was time to come back. It was hard for me. I didn’t want to. I felt myself an expatriate. Eventually it would have come down to an immigration nightmare. It was really time for me to come back. And I came back and found the beautiful, gypsy rainbow family people.
NANCY: So you could continue being a gypsy on this side.
ARA: It was good to be home. It was a culture shock. I wept when I first came to San Francisco. What have they done? They put concrete all over the Mother. I went out to a supermarket and came out sobbing. My friend told me, “No you have to shop the edges. Because I’m saying to him, “There’s no food in there. He showed me, you go to the vegetables and then you go to the dairy and then you get a fish…on the edges.
MOTHERHOOD
NANCY: And then your life took quite a turn when you became a mother.
ARA: It was something I was really ready for though. I was 31 years old when Jeremy was born. I thought, I’ve done my gypsy thing and I’ve lived with the tribes; I’ve lived all my fantasies and the fantasy I have next is to be a mother.
NANCY: So it was a calling.
ARA: It was definitely a calling. So Jeremy came.
NANCY: How was that, having a baby?
ARA: It was awesome.
NANCY: Is it more awesome than these other things?
ARA: It was more, it was different, but it was more. Giving birth, being pregnant, I just loved it so much, but giving birth was such an empowering experience and it was so transformative. And then to surrender your life over to this small person. I had been very irresponsible in my gypsy days, and this was really satisfying. It was everything I wanted. And then Miles came five years later and really completed our family.
NANCY: So that was very heartwarming to have…
ARA: It was powerful and special. I don’t know, just the growth was exponential compared to anything else I did.
NANCY: And you also had a wonderful relationship with your husband.
ARA: My husband. We were like sweethearts. Everyone wanted to have our marriage. We had very deep love with each other. And we always expressed that. Some people thought that was too much. We were always like, “Oh sweetie.”
NANCY: But that’s good, maybe that helped build and keep the love. And keep it meaningful. And then unforeseeably, a huge shift happened in your lives. You had a very magical life, a very beautiful life, fulfilling life, full of love. And you can share about that.
DEALING WITH BREAST CANCER
ARA: Three years ago, I found a lump in my breast and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. That was so devastating especially because at that time I had a belief system that wanted to hold me responsible, that said it couldn’t happen to me. I did a lot of delving and soul searching and met you. I did soul retrieval work and all kinds of incredible work. I really made some hard decisions about complementary treatments and alternative treatments and did my visualizations and my meditations every day. I thought, “OK, this is the wake-up call. I’m going to really get it. And then, I found that it had spread, metastasized to my lungs.
NANCY: Despite your hard work, both inner work and medical work.
ARA: It was very devastating to me. I went into what I call a spiritual free fall. I just felt like I don’t believe in anything anymore. I believe nothing. I don’t believe in Essiac. I don’t believe in CoQ10. I no longer believed in all my beautiful spiritual belief systems that I had traveled the whole world collecting. I just went into a really black, dark place-which after a couple of weeks I realized was the absolute liberation. I liberated myself. Because there’s nothing to believe in, there’s only what you live and only what you love and everything else is just illusion anyway.
NANCY: So you just kind of whoosh, fell out of it all.
ARA: And I realized that I could still have the things that I loved. I don’t have to believe in it, I only have to love it and live it. So it was a very, very expansive time and it was spiritual free fall, just being caught by that, by that net, the safety net, it’s love. That’s what it is.
NANCY: So it’s love.
ARA: And that’s also at a time when I was almost psychedelically living in the present moment. I have fallen away from that now as I’m distracted by life, because I have such a full life. I have two kids, I have a lot of things to do. But I was very, very aware. It was autumn and I was aware of the leaves falling off the trees and the changes and I would sit in this room a lot. At the same time to verify and help be a reminder to me, Iris Lambert, a local performer, songwriter and singing teacher, did her Journey to Now Concert. All her songs were about present awareness, and I was one of the singers in that concert.
NANCY: It underscored everything. That became your mantra for your living… and I think it was very hard on your family, the fact that you were so ill.
ARA: Hard on everyone, particularly my youngest child. I’ve seen his change from such a happy child to such a troubled child. As a mother, I really grieve that. I have faith in my children, because they’re really good people. I think they’re going to be who they are and it’s going to be good. They’re going to survive this and transform. It is transforming them into being deeper. But it’s hard for me as a mother to see them go through this. My relationship also went through major trauma.
IMPACT OF ILLNESS ON MARRIAGE AND FAMILY
NANCY: This relationship that was everybody’s favorite marriage, the love that was so present. What happened to that relationship when you were diagnosed, with all the challenges of treatment?
ARA: What first happened was that Craig was my caregiver. I had some pretty wearing out times. There’s a lot of burn out in that job. I was very ill. I’m much more present now than I was at that time. And I think how he kept his heart safe-and I don’t want to speak for anybody else, this I just my experience–it was just that he went into a place where it couldn’t happen. Into a really deep denial place. That left me really feeling left out. And I became very angry. We both became angry. Denial is a big wall. It takes tremendous effort to keep that wall up. We knew we still loved each other, but we were not getting along.
NANCY: So your love was there underneath and there are all these dynamics…
ARA: And not much support or understanding within our peer group or our friends. This is a unique situation. It’s hard for people to know how to deal with it. And many people dealt with it by pulling back. Just when you need people to be there. So I think I was very hard to live with. I have so much compassion for my husband. But we went through hell. We really did. And you were a part of that. You were trying to help, but we were just very stuck.
NANCY: And that was hard on the kids, I bet, too.
ARA: It was devastating.
NANCY: So how did that shift? I know you just went through a big shift together.
A MAGICAL HEALING JOURNEY
ARA: We went through several shifts. Being able to come back to our hearts. But we had this underlying hurt that we just kept swinging at each other. And then we’d make another breakthrough where we’d be in our love place, but that place seemed so fragile. It was so hard to stay there. I went over to the Hawaiian islands, to Maui, for a healing. And he didn’t come with me, because we felt like we just couldn’t deal with it. We didn’t want to bring our little thing over there with us. Our little crabbing with each other. And this is what’s magical. Before we went, you came over with a little gift. A small aloha gift. It was so magical. You brought me these Medicine Cards, the little tiny ones. The first card I pulled was dolphin. And you said to me, “Ara, when you’re on the beach, call to the dolphins.” And I said, “I don’t know if I’m going to really see any dolphins, Nancy, and you said, “They’re there. Whether you see them or not, they’re there. So just call to them.” So I would. Every time I went to the beach to do my meditation, I would call to the spirit of the dolphins. And I would see a whale sometimes and I knew that the dolphins were out there. I could feel it and that mediation was really profound. It was very healing.
Then, when I got halfway through our trip I realized that I really needed Craig to be there. It was more than I could really do by myself at this time. We were doing so well, I didn’t want it to turn into a crabby mom thing. So I called Craig and I asked him to come and join us. I said, “No past and no future, let’s just be in the moment.
NANCY: So drop the old resentment.
ARA: And it was really beautiful. I figured that it was just for a short amount of time. But the amazing thing was that we dropped it forever.
NANCY: And how did you do that? How did you succeed in that?
ARA: It was so magical. It was such the gift of the dolphins. It was dawn, I asked my pendulum which was the best day to go to find dolphins, and it went wild, wild, wild to go on New Year’s Eve. So we woke up at dawn and went down to La Perouse bay. We saw the sunrise over Haleakala, and it was really beautiful. It’s a big volcano. It was very gray morning, but there was a sprinkling of rain, which the Hawaiians consider a blessing. And there was a Heiau wall, which is very ancient, so we took some goddesses and Buddhas and angels, and we brought some flowers and made an offering.
NANCY: I just have to say to everyone that the Heiau is the sacred place in Hawaii where the ancient hula was practiced. It is a sacred place for their spiritual practice.
THE DOLPHINS’ BLESSING
ARA: Right then, before our kayaks even hit the water, we saw the dolphins leaping out. So we were excited and we brought our kayaks out. I couldn’t paddle for myself, so Craig paddled with me, and my two sons were in another kayak. We went out and were surrounded by dolphins, hundreds of them. These are the spinner dolphins. They spin in the air and they have these little pink bellies that they show off. They’re so cute and they’re just swimming all around us. Jeremy jumped right in and swam with them, he’s such a good swimmer. Craig and I saw a pod, I don’t know what they are, so we paddled over there and I sang to them from the front of the boat. At first it was just this ancient song that didn’t have any words. I was just singing to them. But then I started singing all my spirit songs to them and they just kind of circled the boat. They went under the boat. They flipped in front of our boat. It was like they were dancing with us. It was so amazing. It was so healing. It was so incredibly a blessing. I couldn’t believe that I was so gifted. To not only live on this planet that has such beautiful animals, but to have them be with me, to have them join me. It just filled up my heart. I still feel that fullness. So we were out there for a couple of hours.
And the sun came up. At that point, everything was dropped. All of it. I knew that this man brought me out to the dolphins. I knew that I couldn’t have gotten there without him. I knew that our wedding ring is dolphins entwined. I felt like we came full circle to that. Right back to that beginning and to the love that we shared at the beginning. And the dolphins brought us back to that. We shared so many years in between that I wouldn’t trade them for anything. We just realized that, yes, we were really angry and really a lot of horrible stuff is happening, but we love each other. Let’s get back in there. And that’s where we are. So it’s lasted.
NANCY: And how do you see it living in your lives now? How is that different from before you went away and had that experience?
ARA: My husband is my partner and friend again. We’re on the same team. His moving out of denial has empowered him too.
NANCY: Just facing the possibilities.
ARA: Right. The amazing thing is that I’m still here. I feel that blessing every day. I do practice gratitude.
NANCY: How do you do that?
ARA: I’m grateful for every day that I’m here. I just am. I’m grateful to have my children, my family. We tell each other we love each other every single day. Jeremy just had a coming of age ceremony and when we had a prayer circle, one of the things that I said that I was very grateful for was the kind of family that we are and that we do love each other.
NANCY: And you say it every day.
ARA: We say it every day.
NANCY: You brought back some things to remind you of the dolphins.
ARA: Yes, we did.
NANCY: So you have a bed spread with dolphins on it.
ARA: It’s so nice to be enveloped in that dolphin energy. When I first came back, I dreamt like a dolphin. All the time. I dreamt I was a dolphin, I dreamt I was swimming with the dolphins. I just had this dolphin dream thing.
NANCY: It’s almost as if they continued to support you through your dreams.
ARA: I think so and I pull the dolphin card really frequently.
NANCY: It’s interesting because when you first pulled the card. I remember I gave you that little set of cards and you pulled one off the top and you said, “Oh, that’s not really a reading.” So I said, “Ok, shuffle them and pull another one.” And you pulled it again. I remember saying, “You’ll see dolphins. And you said, no we’re not going to where the dolphins are.”
ARA: I said just keep tuning into them. Call them.
NANCY: So how wonderful. And you were telling me that now, when you’ve redecorated your bedroom that you share with your husband with a dolphin bedspread and a dolphin wall hanging. Now your kids come every morning and jump into bed with you…
ARA: Well, that’s something we’ve always done. Jeremy less and less, unless its like a special snowy day or something. But we like to cuddle everybody together. He’s 13 now. Miles wakes me up every morning. He’s a very early riser. But he comes and we cuddle in bed. He gives me the weather report and he tells me if there are any deer out there. It’s great.
NANCY: So all these passages have taken you to now. We talked about now. So how’s now going?
ARA: It’s great. Now is great. I feel really content and happy.
NANCY: I’m so glad. What a marvelous thing. Despite all the health challenges that could get so overwhelming to look at.
ARA: It is overwhelming. But I’m living with it and that’s my perspective.
LIVING FULLY WITH ADVERSITY
NANCY: Beautiful. So you’re both holding the reality, the dangers of it, and the challenges and living fully and with joy for now.
ARA: It’s my attempt.
NANCY: And this is the room where you’ve done so much healing.
ARA: A lot of healing in this room.
NANCY: And what kinds of things have you done in here that have empowered you?
ARA: I do my meditations here. I play music in here. Often at night, what I really like to do, because it’s got so many windows, is light some candles and they all reflect off each other, so it feels like a thousand candles in here. It’s a really good place for my husband and me to drum. We made our drums, and they are like brother and sister to each other. So we’ll drum and we’ll sing.
NANCY: And in that drumming and that singing, your hearts get closer, right?
ARA: Hearts get closer, yeah.
NANCY: And you have some wonderful statues and things.
ARA: I’m like a dragon, I like to have beautiful things.
NANCY: Is that what dragons do?
ARA: They do, they collect beauty….
NANCY: So I celebrate with you this wonderful journey that’s been your life.
ARA: I’ve had a great life. I really have. I can acknowledge that.
NANCY: You hold those hard times and the knowing of the beautiful life you’ve had.
ARA: And it’s all an opportunity to practice. There is one more thing that I learned that was a hard learning, part of my spiritual freefall, because there are many well-intentioned people with the New Age who believe we create our own reality and I was very confused about this, too. I went to my friend who practices Huna and I said, I don’t understand this creating your own reality. There’s many places where that falls apart for me and I don’t think Blacks created the Ghetto. And I don’t believe that I created cancer. I believe that I take this opportunity and learn from it because I’m that kind of person, but I don’t think I created it just so that I’d learn this.
She gave me such a beautiful explanation. She said, “Of course, we create our own reality, in that we’re captain of our own ship. As captain of our ship, we can take it anywhere we want to. We can stay in a safe harbor. We can go around the world. We are not the storms and we are not the sea. We are not the weather. We use what we learn as captain of that little boat to get us through those storms. You might have to lash yourself to the mast and just ride it out.”
NANCY: That’s right—with all that weather coming at you. Huge waves crashing over your ship wondering if you’ll make it.
ARA: That makes sense to me.
NANCY: It is a confusing thing.
ARA: It is confusing and I’m doing my life the way I do my life. I haven’t suddenly become more enlightened. I’m still messy, you know. I remember an interview with Rick Fields who also is living with metastatic cancer. He’s editor of Yoga Journal. He said, people ask him, “What happens when you become fearful?” and he answered, “Then, I’m the fearful Buddha.” I have many Buddha selves also. I have the enlightened Buddha. I also have the irate Buddha, which is great. And many wrathful Buddhas. And I honor that. We need more of a sense of humor about who we are and what we’re doing when we’re here.
NANCY: I think it’s all God’s play as some people say.
ARA: Laughter is important.
NANCY: And do you find you’re now more able to get a hold of that, now that you’ve made this shift?
ARA: I kind of made a point of it because I hear laughter’s good for the immune system.
NANCY: How do you access it now?
ARA: I have two children. There’s always laughing together. And I make fun of myself a lot.
NANCY: I know, when we’ve talked about the most heart-rending horrible things, we end up laughing, too. We both look at the dark a lot and then we also find the humor, too. It gives a relief to go back into facing the deeper issues.
ARA: It takes a lot of courage to live with your eyes wide open, and to live in the present moment. People want their lives to make sense. People want a equals b equals c.
NANCY: They want logic.
ARA: Right. We live on a beautiful planet, where random and chaotic things happen all the time and it takes a lot of courage to live.
NANCY: And you never know when some random thing might happen.
ARA: And random beautiful things happen all the time.
NANCY: And it’s just a big old potluck. I’m so glad for these perspective you’ve come to. They really enrich your life and your family’s life, enrich your friends, like me.
ARA: I have peace in my heart. Not all the time, not when I’m in my irate Buddha. That’s where the richness is. The gods and the goddesses, they were really passionate people. I am very passionate. I have a very passionate existence.
NANCY: What a thing to celebrate. So you shared at the beginning of our talk a little prayer that you make with children.
ARA: I learned it at Montessori. May there be beauty before us. May there be beauty behind us. May there be beauty above us and beauty below us and may beauty come forth from our hearts.
NANCY: And so it is that we invite you to walk a life of beauty before you, beauty behind you, beauty above and below you, to notice the beauty that surrounds you and to allow beauty to come forth from your heart.
From Life Passages: A Soul’s Journey, a television series on the extraordinary turning points of ordinary people. Copyright 2017 Nancy Bloom and Suzi Aufderheide. Excerpts from transcript reprinted by permission of Nancy Bloom and Ara Johnson. All rights reserved. For more information, contact: Life Passages, PO Box 921, Ashland, OR 97520, 541-621-2181.
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