spiritual

264: Esteem and Other Thoughts

| Aspergers Girls

Here is something I wrote in 2011.

02 28 11

The Difference between being humble and having low self-esteem

 I asked a question this morning and was given the answer so very fast and in so much detail, I hurried downstairs to my computer to collect the thoughts I was processing. (A little bit to my dismay, as I was retired on the couch.)

All of what is written is in direct response to my inquiry: What is the difference between being humble and having low self-esteem? I found the answer quite surprising and interesting. Though the logic is somewhat complex and not as easy to follow (for me at least) as some of my prior blog entries, I find this intriguing and very mindful of the well-being of others.

In my vocational practice, I now have new eyes, in terms of seeing the label of low self-esteem in a new light as the season of awareness. How wonderful to replace a “lowly” label with the beauty of the seasons.

As is typical, I typed the words as quickly as I heard them. Besides minor corrections in commas to display clarity, all is in original format.

What is the difference between being humble and having low self-esteem?

This is an interesting question you propose, and one we could go into with great detail. At this moment, it is sufficient to explain in summary that of which could be chiseled into great detail.

This self-esteem you speak of is an oddity for us.

To assume there is a self, is to say there is a being that is innately and proportionately equal to a one. Since, inevitably, and in all circumstances, we are never alone, separate, or divided, there follows that there is not this one that you so reverently perceive.

Wholly and dutifully, of course, there is a mass, a large unit that collectively (by human standards) could feasibly be divided and segregated into parts. This is natural of the human mind to search for separation, to make sense out of chaos, to bring order in the face of disunion. Even when elements are in union, such as the Universal Whole (collective unconscious, or by whatever term you seek to justify your perception), this human mind, in its limitation, dissects the union into parts in order to make sense. This is not error, and least not we judge, this is mere evidential fact.

Mediocre in nature, the mind is not set to work alone, much as a clock’s hands are not meant to work without all the concerning parts that lead up to the façade of the timeless face. You see, originally, you knew this; and innately, beyond your five human senses, you currently recognize and, to a degree, celebrate that you remember this. Although with the passing of (what you perceive as) time you have deliberately forgotten this fact. This is important, (and we use this word intentionally, this word important), for you to remember; that is that you have deliberately forgotten to remember. This is on purpose, as there are no accidents; in actuality no “purposes” either, but rather the simple being inside of being.

This is taking us off the track, but nonetheless we mention this being inside being. When you reflect on whom you are and question who is in the process of reflecting, you see there is more than one, again the mirror within the mirror, the reflection within the reflection; in a small fleck of a gem sense, this is what we mean by the being inside the being. In this way alone, you are never alone. Besides the Universal Whole, you are a being within a being.

And your being is surrounded by multitudes of other beings. This is beneficial to remember. Then in looking back at the initial question of self-esteem, we see, in our perception (which is more of a sensing than perception) that there exists not this single self. Thusly, as we follow this path logically, we can say if there does not exist this self, there does not exist this esteem of something (self) that does not truly exist.

Still, we understand your question in great magnitude, and the significance of the question, as you and many like you battle (appropriate word we think) with your inner perceived self-esteem.

There is a mass confusion in the term self-esteem, a confusion that is emerging into something anew and akin to awareness. Here we drift to the right of the path and look at the word awareness.

For as we “see” it, the human frailty that resides in the image of self-esteem is properly and justly replaceable, and easily rendered rectified with the more pleasing and palatable term of self-awareness. This, replacing of the term self-esteem to that of the term self-awareness, automatically diminishes, if not washes out, the need for scales and hierarchies, that of which we have mentioned before do not “exist” or better yet “pertain” to our current existence.

In following, we have this emerging and rebirthing of self-awareness that shall lead us into greatness. This greatness is yet to be identified or discussed, but safe to say this greatness will outshine the previous darkness.

In examining the substance of self-awarness, we can determine if a person has holes in any area of awareness. Again, we avoid words such as “missing” or “lacking;” we instead focus on the exactness of being complete but having holes, or a sense of emptiness, as in the hungry bird needing nourishment. We’ve mentioned this before, and need not review.

Take as an example the battered woman who previously may be assumed and labeled in human terms to lack of self-esteem. In this we simply replace the verbiage lack of self-esteem with the collective words effectiveness of awareness. In using the word effectiveness we can consider the comparisons as follows: Effectiveness of Awareness is equivalent to: Helpfulness of awareness; success of awareness; value of awareness; and similar likelihoods. We can also consider this as how ready one is for this said action of awareness.

The meaning of the words Effectiveness of Awareness can be gathered further by analysis. You might ask: What was the effectiveness of the meditation? This can be restated as: Was the meditation effective?

In this way, it follows, in examining the core meaning of effectiveness of awareness, we may consider these following alternatives in viewing the meaning: Was the awareness effective? Is the awareness actual or in practice; did the awareness cause a desired or intended result; did the awareness produce a favorable impression.

We phrase the words in this manner to avoid having a “one” or “person” in the statement; so that what is being evaluated and compared in circumstance is not the human but the degree of awareness. This removes the human from fault. For there is no fault. All is as is should be.

Therefore, we can now see if this example is followed to its fullest potential in understanding, that awareness is replacing the perception of self-esteem.

When we look at this battered woman again, one who has not left her perpetrator, who is still in the eyes of many a “victim,” we might often utter the words low self-esteem or low self-worth. In this instance, we ask you to consider her to be in a state of clouded awareness.

There are many avenues to consider, but for now let us say she may not be aware of choices, may not be aware of help, many not be aware of opportunity. Still some will say what choice? What help? And in this we reply above all that there is the help of Source, Higher Guidance, Prayer, and Retreat into Inner Self.

Others will point that if she had self-esteem, she would have awareness. This does not make sense. We are all born with awareness. The quality or aptitude of “one’s” awareness is not based on a degree of self-esteem, when there is in essence no “self.” We see in your eyes the confusion. Understand a person is not lacking esteem, only “lacking” (we are  utilizing this word “lacking” for comparison only) an awareness of their wholeness and purity. To assume esteem can be gathered like wild flowers in the field and then stored in the spirit is a falsehood. All the flowers you require you were born with. You are already beauty in all measure.

There is a temptation to say this battered woman lacks awareness. This is not true, for we all have awareness at some degree; she is never lacking awareness. Also, in the same line of thought, there will be a tendency to divide the awareness into degrees, so as to say a “lesser degree of awareness.”  This is also not a truth. There is simply a differing degree, just as seasons differ in temperature, in foliage, and activity. Her awareness is no lesser or greater than another. Because winter in many places is colder does not make winter less than summer? Nor does spring trump fall. Who is to judge this greater or lesser degree? Who is to be the barometer? Who is to be the trumpeter blowing out the only sound of truth? Judging is like falling into the trap of a spider, flying forward without thought into an invisible thread that winds and divides you. Better to not judge and accept.

Now as we have reviewed and seemingly replaced self-esteem with effectiveness of awareness, we can look at humility. Humility is a mighty word of much potential and power: power in terms of dynamic change. Humility is also much misunderstood. The humble are in many guises, none lesser or greater than the other, as is in accordance.

In humility we find a bowing down in body, mind, spirit, and emotion, not to lessen oneself, but to greet another at the same place in time and experience. The humble do not see themselves as elevated or lowly, but equal in experience. Yet, they have the capacity to greet another exactly where the other needs to be greeted. Thus, if you open your door to a stranger who is blinded, you will also feel blinded, not in eyesight but in character and stature; rightfully so, as a humble being, you shall see yourself in this person.

The humble recognize themselves in each reflection be it beast or babe. In this we see the humble carry the clarity of effectiveness of awareness. We struggle with finding more apt words, and recognize the difficulty in this verbiage. Still, this serves the essence of what we are trying to convey. To some degree this can be said as the degree in which awareness is awakened, though we discourage this because again this requires a perception of evaluation. Who is more awakened? Who is less awakened? Again the spider’s web.

Another way is to say the season of awareness, where each season is seen as welcomed and required. Therefore, following, one might be in a winter of awareness, the snow drifting and covering their full viewing, while another is in the summer of awareness filled with a knowing light of understanding. All seasons come and go. No season is lesser or greater. In this we can make some sense.

In closing, today, we ask you to remember that human terms and words are so limiting, that the concept alone of even considering the dubious process of comparing two words is boggling. Expressing truths in letter form, where letters are merged to make a concept, creates a different perception for each reader. Not only is the meaning lost directly in the translation from us to you, but again lost in your interpretation, and what you then form on paper. Again, there is meaning lost in the next set of eyes that read these scribed words. So we ask that you allow the vibration of the words to serve you equally.

 

263: The Music of You

| Aspergers Girls

You are like music upon music upon music to me, a figure seemingly out of tune.

At times I think if I could only find your one song, the part that is truly you, then I could play you over and over, and dance, whether alone or together, in endless ecstasy.

Even as I tell myself you are complexity and spiraled wonder, I long to unravel you to thy very core—perhaps as some vegetable with heart or some flower with first petal.

I like to pretend you are easy to find, to see, to paint. For with easiness would come the grace of painting you into the shadowed corner of my existence: a mural to keep me safe, a walking space that requires no effort but touch. One finger slipped onto the wall of me and slid across your slivered silhouette.

For it is in my shadowed times, I cry out for you, for oneness for connection, for acknowledgment that I am as beauty. Only because you are as beauty.

Though it is in my days of sunshine, I too call out from the depths of me, reaching in silent gratitude and shimmering in your brilliance. It is then you are effervescent glory to behold. A gift set amongst a fleet of angels, with the finest and most demur of sails.

I have carved you within my soul light. Sat up constant night awake in my dreary state, counting you as one in youth beholds her sheep. You leap across my chamber ceiling as ghost set free in crimson carriage, bouncing through the valley of my imagination; your face bare except your kaleidoscope eyes. A barren tunnel of absence entering a rainbow of stars. I see there into myself and breathe. My last glance of this world, the beckoning of your substance.

Awoken, the days come, with the joys and woes of worldly possessions explored and dried, withered and left for the illusion of promise they be. Awoken, the days come, with the sorrows and gratitudes, the biting into what was once ripe to find the taste of expiration and abandoned. Still the bell chimes, in memory of laughter, and in preparation for the surprises beneath my pillow. I harbor such secret dreams and cherished gifts. And to share them, I set you upon my shelf of butterflies, and sing only to you, of the time of my happiness.

You are to me the mystery of fantasy, the puppeteer with magical strings of grandeur, capable of contorting a stage of delight or drama of doom. I hone in on what could be called your goodness, and try to trap your substance in my tiny womb, to bathe you in the babe’s cocoon with my essence. Yet, my attempts are futile.

For you are not but one form, not but one song, but an orchestra drawn out into a long and distant parade.  I cannot keep you, as beekeeper keeps bees. And so it is, that even in the ward of captive thought, your honey I cannot taste.

For you are the food to the masses; a delicacy set before the king of kings, royalty in your very blood and bones, built up and made into something I cannot decipher or replicate. You are magnificent splendor set upon the eye of my mind, and I ride you, this child of the merry-go-round world, upon a horse ever-changing.

Together, we are endless circle. Our destiny unreachable. Until spinning top stops, and I am flung out of your land, into the stillness, and made to watch alone, your partner for eternity wavering outside and beyond the mystical music of you.

~ Samantha Craft, November 2012

258: Choose Beauty

| Aspergers Girls

I process in many ways. One of the ways is through playing songs over and over, and feeling a full bowl of emotions. Sometimes a toilet bowl full of emotions. This morning I played this song over and over and had a good cry.

I am realizing I don’t know what it is to feel love from someone. I cannot feel a compliment. I cannot feel positive words. I have realized this recently because of all the beautiful words people have written about me. I have tried to go back to this link of a lovely lady’s blog and reread what she wrote about me in order to feel her words. I cannot feel her words for me.  Though I believe she speaks from spirit and truth, I cannot feel her words.

However, I can feel when others have non-beneficial thoughts about me. For some reason, those type of thoughts stick to me like Velcro, and I carry the echo for years. But when it comes to love, I cannot feel it from most people. I cannot feel it from my children, from my husband, from most of my dear, dear friends that I adore.

A commenter can write I am the light, and I do not feel it. I’ve tried to process this logically. Perhaps it was from some of the abuse/neglect of my earlier years, but that doesn’t seem to be it. I am grown now, inside and out. I do love and adore myself; I am even starting to see how kind and lovely I am on the outside. I’m actually quite smitten with my beauty and how I project goodness.

So maybe I am taking in the words, only at a deep, deep level, like at the center of an onion or of a miniature earth. And then the words of love are pushing outward from the deep insides towards the outer layers. That makes sense. Like I energetically store the love at the core of me and then the power of love is projected outward; only the emotion of love when entering bypasses my mind and my conscious awareness.

I am liken to a vessel, a collector of love. Only the “negative” thoughts somehow get stuck in my filtering system and sit there in stagnant water for years until I push them out. I don’t know why the beneficial thoughts don’t stick there. It is as if I lack pride. It is as if I lack the ability genetically or at a soul-level to take in what others’ perceive me as, unless the perception is perceived to be hurtful.

I am realizing that I change in appearance based on my mood. I can see this in my photos. As if the inside of me changes the outside of me. I am realizing that certain people bring out the angelic part of me—the part of me I consider pure, untouched, and flowing with unconditional love. I feel I change internally and externally based on whom I am with. When a person brings out the parts of me that are more of my shadow side, such as anger, frustration, and apathy, I don’t want to be around them. But I now understand these people are here to show me my shadow side and work through this. And in actuality, it is my perception about them that makes me choose to feel the way I do.

I am realizing that there are certain people who bring out what might be considered the very best of me. I can see myself in them, and them in me. With them I shine so brightly I feel I am drunk with happiness.

I would like to find balance. I would like to feel the same joyous light within my heart with everyone, and realize at a spirit level that they do not control or modify my inner light; I do.

When I think: “I do not want to be with him or her because he/she brings out the worst in me,” I want to replace that with: “I am allowing this person to bring out the worst part of me. For now I choose the light of me. I reflect only goodness. I am a mirror to their beautiful soul. All that I judge unjust or wrong about them is merely an illusion. I am no longer a victim to illusion. I am light. They are light. And we are one.”

This is what I want to say. This is what I choose to believe.

I want to be a person who can sit with anyone and be at peace. I want to use the gift God has given me of feeling others’ energy, and instead of evaluating and judging that energy, I would like to recognize the energy and continue to vibrate at a high-level of love.

Instead of wanting to fix or change said person, or run away, I want to be untouched, unchanged.

In truth all people who bring energy to me in form of thoughts, words, and actions are only a mirror to me.

I am recognizing that it is not me looking at them and evaluating what they need to change in order to heal and be a beneficial light. It is them, coming to me, to reflect back what is still in need of change and growth within me. Not that I am flawed or unworthy, only that I have sections of my soul that are in need of reflection and further healing.

When a person writes words that make me feel something at a physical level that is unpleasant, perhaps a slight punch to the stomach or a rerun of a negative vibration knocking on my mind’s door, I can choose to stand back as an observer and feel that feeling in the whole of me. I can question without questioning, and listen without listening, and establish a knowing of what this person is teaching me.

If I label one “narcissistic” or “self-centered” based on the energy he or she is projecting, I can release this judgment without judging myself, and recognize if one is this way, then thusly am I.

I can then recognize what is inside myself that I believe to be narcissistic or self-centered; I can recognize that as my perception of self is incorrect, thusly is my perception of the outer reflection in form of human facing me.

In truth, I can hold us both in light, and understand that as I see another, is actually how I still see myself.

Once I recognize I am total beauty, then I shall recognize the other is total beauty, as well. And the reverse is true, and endless cycle, like a ripple made upon a lake, we dance. Thusly, what I still see in another is what I still choose to see within myself.

Therefore, if a person says to me words that cause me to feel that she is self-centered, I can immediately and with freedom, without self-punishment, say onto myself: “What is inside of me that I still choose to believe is self-centered?” I can then replace the judgment with a few words, such as: “I am beauty. I am light.” And thusly make it so.

I can choose not to collect the energy-pieces of judgment placed upon me.

In choosing to accept this illusion of judgment as part of my reality, when someone judges me, I can bring up the same high vibration of love and recognize that that person chooses to see in me what still needs to be healed within his or her own being, be this physical, emotional, logical, or spiritual.

Therefore, when I recognize someone is placing the label of prideful upon my soul’s energy field, I may pull up the same few words: I am beauty. I am light. And thusly make it so.

One does not work without the other. I cannot choose to think that because someone is judging me then that someone has a fractured part he or she needs to recognize and heal, unless I do the exact same to my own being, when I choose to judge another.

This is where some souls go off-balance, where the energy is not evenly exchanged.

Where there is not yin and yang, equal giving and taking, then the energy level remains off balanced.

I have before said to myself that I do not accept someone’s judgment of me as truth, but then I went on to criticize them, or reason why they were wrong and how I was right. This method is logical and from a low-vibrational place and shall never work.

What needs to be done, if one is to reach a state of peace, something in which each human aspires, whether he or she recognizes this or not, is to maintain a balance in release. Thusly, recognize what is in one is in another. In so doing, in so reflecting the truth upon one another, the earth is healed.

This came to me quickly, as I was concluding this post:

“It is the misers who keep the truth of the world into themselves, believing they are the righteous and all else need to be as them to be in light who are the falsest ones of the light. It is the righteous that need to fall down on bended knee and forgive themselves, and take heed in the word of the light. It is the righteous who shall fall and tumble and scrape the knee of inner spirit time and time again in an endless cycle of turmoil, ricocheting back and forth between two walls of good enough, perhaps superior, and wretchedly ugly. The meek shall inherit the earth with their self-proclaimed goodness, as they shall recognize the beauty within, the beauty without and shine this light bright upon the world. It is no sin, if sin is the word used to describe misery, to proclaim you are beauty as you see the beauty of you reflected in another. It is sin to withhold this thought and beat upon the wall of your spirit with hammer and nail of spite and not enough. To be truly joyous announce to the world your beauty, your love, your joy, and stop choosing to hide behind falsehoods of gratitude. When all about you there are answers; seek now what you believe to be true; seek what you know to be true. That you are everlasting grace, truth, and beauty.”

256: Old Enough To Know

| Aspergers Girls

Old Enough To Know

I am old enough to know that though I am the snowflake, unique and divine, I too melt into the familiar element of water.

I am old enough to know that I am seen by eyes of discernment and reason, divided and mixed into an illusion by the creator.

I am old enough to know that in a world of invented polarities, that if chance lives, then so must destiny.

I am old enough to know that to hold my deepest carved pain is to embrace the manifestation of sorrow as majestic joy set a slumber.

I am old enough to know that what I put inside comes out, and thusly, what I put out enters within.

I am old enough to know that I exist in the meeting point between question and answer, a universal foundation behind an imaginary zero.

I am old enough to know that I am thought, put together into a recognizable form based on experience.

I am old enough to know that I heal from without, by reaching beyond the limitless of accepting into the recognition of collective.

I am old enough to know that if time were to exist then I be but a child aged backwards.

I am old enough to know that truth exists in the absence of all sense and the absence of thought.

I am old enough to know that through the windows beyond the depths of my molecular structure, I am old enough to know.

~~~ By Samantha Craft, November 21, 2012

Dear Lord,

What do you want from me? I have endured so much suffering on so many levels for so very long, and I have remained loyal and faithful and true. I have never betrayed you or your wishes. I have continued to try my best, and try and try. I have prayed. I have wept. I have fallen down again and again. Even when I could not feel you, I rose up again and carried on. I am light. I know this. But I am darkness. And the darkness engulfs and strangles and terrifies, the intensity unnerving and never-ending. Tormented in dreams, in thoughts, in knowings. Seeing things others cannot. I am not an angel. I am not without end. I am not infinity. There is a point within me that ends. I feel it. I feel the wall, the pressure and the might of the world upon me. I cannot play these games of war, where I am both the feud and the field, trampled upon by my own doing. There is so much of me, that I swim and drown, and come up again breathless for your love. And you reach down, and hold, only I cannot feel you or know you—some form of absence you be. All around me are vibrations and energies and touch, a rhythm, and endless rhythm of three. You haunt me with the comings of protest and acceptance, of looking and revealing, of touching and stinging, of turmoil released, to only reveal more turmoil. I am layered and then layered again. The filling between me sectioned with micro-prisms of expansion. I am universe upon universe. I am told the secrets and the whispers, hearing the righteous words; yet walking alone. The treasure is thick and burdensome, and unfamiliar to strangers. I am mocked for what I carry or accepted for my secrets alone. My beauty is skin deep when draped in the mystery of you. They want not what they see, but what they feel, and I am made to weep as a vessel forgotten. I have pleaded, this small delicate one, from the insides of canvased walls, a babe weeping to her master. I have cried upon the fabric of night, the casing decorating my very soul, as tears carry away the mystery thus revealed. Humbled and humbled again, and still yet I beg for humility. A prideful veil I wear to match those with which I walk. I am moved asunder, beckoned by truth, yet ever made to be this flesh. For whatever it takes, I am yours. For whatever it takes, I am—as a wrecking ball upon myself, I crash and crush, decimating the horror within. I reach, further into desert soul, to bring out another upon another of mystery unknown and unspoken. And still you come, with chain and ball, to set the ways upon me, this child forlorn.

254: Dear Soul

| Aspergers Girls

Dear Soul of Mine ~

I love you. I see you. I hear you. I believe you. I believe in your experience and perception. I believe in your efforts and hopes. I know you. And I adore you. There is nothing you can do or say that will change this. I have the potential to love you in all seasons, through storms and through merriment. I will not leave your side, nor your heart. I am you. You are beautiful. And because you are so beautiful, a spring of fresh light and goodness, I shall always love you. There is only pureness in you. I choose this. I choose to see the glorious child you are. I see through that which is not you. I see into your true form, and this makes me weep with joy. How lovely you are, in all your seasons, in all your ways. How perfectly lovely, my adored one.

Blessings,

Sam