“To love is to be happy with” This is the 5th principle of Urban Shamanism. Days ago riding a cab home, I hear a layman counseling a couple. This was a radio program being listened to by the cab driver.

No romantic script. No dogmatic sermon either. I was amazed at how the layman personalized/customized things for a very angry wife and the husband who kept interrupting.

The 5th principle has corollaries: “Love increases as judgment decreases” and “Everything is alive, aware and responsive.”

the hectic schedules of Emil, which i thought I had fully accepted during our March 5 to 9 vacation in Singapore caused havoc early this Sunday morning.

I was caught by surprise and how I just hate surprises! I was not expecting that he would be fetched as early as 6:45 in the morning. This upset the entire household routine and on a Sunday. Worse, he was still looking for things when the security called that the car was already waiting for him.

I could have been warned the night before. He usually does. I could have helped him get ready. I am still committed to letting him follow his own spiritual pathway but not at the expense of my health protocols which have not been working since we returned from Singapore.

Ironically I was still awake after 8:30 last night. When I woke up at around 11:30 P.M. I saw gifts from his students neatly stacked on the dining table for me. By then Emil was asleep; sad over the loss of GINEBRA. Was he disoriented?

Well, according to my spiritual pathway, blaming is not a solution. I remain commited to my decision to allow Emil to follow his own chosen pathway which is to be a human developer.

My lower self has a question: “Am I not included among the humans to be developed?
I am as yet not at peace but I believe the 7th Principle is the solution.

The 6th principle of Urban Shamanism states: All power comes from within.

Except for several pictures posted on Facebook by our daughter and things bought from The Guardian and 7 Eleven, I don’t have much to show for our March 5 -9 vacation in Singapore.

But in terms of SELF_KNOWLEDGE, I certainly have much to be grateful for. Now that I am back with my personal laptop, I have a lot of affirmation/confirmation from Dr Lipton, Mike Dooley, Neale Walsch etc.

Messages from Facebook friends also confirm I have gone a long way in my spiritual pathway.

I learned a lot from our son-in-law Tony and our daughter. I even learned street lingo from my husband and daughter. Of course I learned a lot of British expressions from Tony!
(complete with facial expressions). I realized how sanitized my environment in Grand Towers in Manila has become. (Tower living like Rapunzel???)

What started in our hotel in Singapore was enhanced by the visit of a nephew and a niece from Iloilo City. They made me realize how badly I need to expand my world, to include those with different mind sets. I hardly have tolerance for unpredictability. I can’t allow myself to be victimized by “micro aggression” to borrow a term of Emil’s doctoral student.

I simply have to tolerate (at the very least) ambiguity and gray areas in my life. I can no longer expect instant answers to all my questions much less to expect answers that fit my world view!

The paradigm of our daughter about unconscious incompetence etc made me understand that people and things in life are only triggers. I do have a choice to response rather than react and thereby heal my many fears. Thanks to Joe Vitale’s “No Limits”
I have gone beyond the blaming game.

“Culture Is a Business Strategy” in the Philippine Inquirer by Peter Bodin, Global CEO of Grant Thornton Int’l last March 12 also added to my self-knowledge. “In an era of disruption and uncertainty, corporate culture and not new technology will make or break companies and organizations.”

This is another wake-up call for me to move out of my sanitized/insular mind set. “Diverse and gender-balanced businesses deliver better results, are better able to handle disruption hat goes in every sector nd are resilient.”
RESILIENCY. For me this means learning what is common practice in the new technology. I should be able to do at the very least what grade school pupils easily do with their gadgets!

This also means I should have tolerance for ambiguity and unpredictability.

Because of my “rollercoaster” reality I have had to go back to my old notes. My fave authors do not favor going to the past but I believe I can be helped by reviewing what guided me in the past to move me forward.
1996

Linda Georgian:

Since thought is the root of all your mental and physical blocks, repetition of your positive affirmations will somehow replace the negatives and attract good to you.

2016
James Ebner:

Whatever we can say about God that will be real for us has to grow out of the person’s experience.

We can expect to experience the true God only when we get in touch with ourselves.

We may be so conditioned by our past, we may perceive through so many filters, that we may scarcely know what actually we ourselves really think and feel. so that when contemporary writers urge us to explore the religious side of our experience, we may not be reading our depths but mainly remembering words we were told and which we only take as ours. however, to be sensitive to this problem is already to be solving it.

2016
Neale Walsch:

This shift from supplication to application can be miraculous. these are not affirmations. These are confirmations.

An affirmation seeks to produce an outcome or an experience.

A confirmation announces that the outcome has already been produced.

You would understand that these powers and abilities give you collaborative control over the exterior elements of your individual and collective life and complete control over the interior elements which means that you have the total ability to create your own reality because your reality has nothing to do with producing the exterior elements of your life and everything to do with how you respond to the elements that have been produced.

2016
Alan Seale:

The ego longs for structures that set boundaries and make the rules for us.

Spirit will not choose for us. we have been given the gift of free choice. Spirit will wait for us to exercise the right.

Every one must find his or her own way.

Alan Seale has the best description of what my spiritual path is. It is such a contrast to what I was taught in RELIGION hence my difficulties.

If you can dream it, you can achieve it. Whatever you can develop FULLY within your imagination, you can also create in physical reality if you remain focused and are willing to take the necessary steps.

Living in rollercoaster times is no fun at all. Going back with Sylvia Boorstein does not seem to be enough for me. So i went back to my old notes.

January 2017
M. Tamura: “When crises arise in your life, they aren’t due to something inherently wrong in you.”

“Although you may take them personally, they just happen and you are involved in them according to he way you respond to [them]. This is not a laughing matter for me.

Hicks: “You have to feel good NOW, no matter what the conditions are or the conditions cannot improve.”

“You must make peace so to speak with where you are to allow yourself to move to a place you would rather be.”

HOW IRONICAL

Lately, I have yet another realization, a significant one for me. I am definitely an unfinished product as yet. I am still evolving.

I am back with Sylvia Boorstein whom I consider the mildest of my favorite models. I have realized how useful her suggestion regarding a CLEAR MIND and an OPEN HEART.

True. I live in roller coaster times. So does our daughter whom I want to help from being overwhelmed. BEEN THERE. DONE THAT.

Lately, with health issues cropping from nowhere I felt pushed to near despair. I was forced to review old guidelines from Sylvia Boorstein. Her Buddhist/Jewish background assured me I won’t get any airy-fairy help , the way I would from those leaning towards the “Law of Attraction” paradigm.

I have realized that with a CLEAR MIND I can sift through the INTERNET info and choose what applies to me. As usual, I don’t belong to the published categories. I have always been a marginal case in mainstream medicines.

CLEAR MIND has to partner with an OPEN HEART. I have tried two types of different massages: Cupping and hot compress.

I appreciate what both have done to my body.