A few days ago, I asked Hope if I could hang out with her one on one and she said yes. She picked me up and brought me to her place. It was such a homey energy and family-like. She brought me to Aureliya’s cabin, her daughter, and we talked about relationships. I told her how I get bothered when Ivan looks at other girls, how it feels like a stab in the heart.
She reminded me that the only reason it hurts when he looks at other girls is because I think I need him. She gave me examples of her past relationships, how she would go on dates with all these guys and she would let them show her who they really were and then she could feel it in herself.
She would say, “Not my man, break up with him. Not my man, break up with him.”
She said, “When you’re not afraid of any certain outcome, then you’re more open and welcoming to whatever is going to show up.” She added, “You allow the man to show up by seeing what you see.”
“Do you tell your husband everything?” I asked.
She said, “No, most of the thoughts are just passing and don’t really mean anything. When you want to tell your boyfriend how you feel, ask yourself what you’re intending to get out of him.”
That one did make me think because I noticed sometimes I tell Ivan stuff to get his attention or gain a certain feeling.
Then, Hope took me to Kehena and I noticed my thoughts were all over the place when I was there.
There were women everywhere and I kept thinking, How would I feel if Ivan was here?
I got drained just from latching onto the thoughts.
The following day I biked over to the end of Papaya Farms Road for her Wisdom Dialogues. Here’s a few things she helped me remember:
-She explained that when you feel as if someone is projecting onto you, to say, “It seems like this is what you’re saying…” For example, “It seems like you were saying that I’m dumb.” And it helps to say “it seems” because that’s what all projections really are. They only ‘seem’ to be something–doesn’t mean it’s true.
-Hope was saying a lot of contradicting things. She would say that we are here to heal one another, even though we are already healed. So I asked her why we are even capable of experiencing fear when all there is love. If love is all encompassing, then we wouldn’t even have the option of feeling something opposing that.
She says, “We were curious what it would feel like to separate from the Source. What would separation feel like? We experience only the feeling of it, however it’s not real, and that’s why miracles occur when you remember you actually never left the Source. Every illusion just sort of collapses and it never really happened. It was only a nightmare of what could happen if separation did exist. The ego always wants to get a FEELING of separation.”
-Then she talked more about the feeling of things. She explained how when we feel triggered by something, we attract a person and use them to get the specific feeling that we say we don’t want.
-”It’s not in what you do on the surface, it’s in how it’s looked at,” she said.
-”Triggers are just energies coming up for compassion.”
-”Pay attention to your thoughts… When you think to yourself, She is beautiful, he is a jerk, she is pushy, he is funny looking, he is handsome, understand that those are all judgments, and so what makes the judgment so much more true are three words that you put after that: “just like me.”
-”Illuminate the doubt.” Basically meaning, see it for what it really is!
-“Why is there temptation to believe in the images? Because we made them.” That’s why in a sense we are addicted to the feeling of thoughts because we grew attached to them.
-“When there’s no belief in the images, the image of self begins to fall away.”
-She talked about how food has no effect on the body and I asked her about veganism.
I said, “The Course talks about extending/sharing love, but I don’t understand how we are being loving when we support killing animals in the animal industry. Shouldn’t we be trying to keep them feeling safe and loved?
She said, “There’s no ‘trying’ in extending love. Extension of love is automatic when there’s willingness to see the truth. You’re associating extending love by doing something.”
“I feel confused about it,” I said.
“The confusion that you are experiencing has nothing to do with you,” she said, “it’s passing before your awareness. This opening/awakening that’s happening is kind of like a flower blossoming. There’s nothing you have to ‘do’ about it, so confusion happens and it still happens before awareness. That is you. Notice that every time you go into delusion, there’s no judgment around it, and you recognize that you lead yourself there to see something. And when you’re experiencing it with that attitude, you’re allowing the truth to be revealed. That’s healing right there.”
I also thought about how I learned a very important lesson living here in this eco village through Akim a couple of years ago.
He said to me, “Remember, love, there is nothing you need/have to do. Don’t ever force yourself to do something, because if you do, you will be creating with an energy of resistance rather than flow.”
He told me this when there was a week that I didn’t feel like teaching naked yoga. I began to feel guilty since I had made a schedule and felt like I had to adhere to it.
I let his words resonate with me and this past year I haven’t been forcing myself to do anything. I don’t tell myself, “I plan to do this tomorrow,” because I know my mind can change and all that matters is to be in the flow. If I feel like working out one day, or cooking, or going on adventures, awesome; if I don’t, also awesome! It took me one year to get inspired to paint at Cinderland and I am so grateful that I let myself discover it organically, rather than force it.