Month: October 2024

Non-Attachment with Passionate Pursuit!

Silhouette of man on mountaintop

Principle 4. Never give up – but be willing to step back and align to your true passion.

Life is about the willingness to step back – let go – reassess and realign to what is yours to “Be.” It is riding the waves of grief and loss as well as joy. They are all my teachers. My passion is derived from joy and sorrow and being the Victor of this adventure of life.

Essential to this Principle: I must practice non-attachment to outcomes and remain in passionate pursuit of what is in my heart to give and be!

That Principle can be a great challenge – and I am adding that additional sentence on the website!

I am not aware of what tomorrow may bring; however, I can be conscious of what I choose to bring to it.

A quote from Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning.

The last of one’s freedoms.

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

Out of the horrors of his time in the German concentration camps, he created a therapy called: Logotherapy – the heart of which was about:

“His most famous memoir begins by outlining a personal experience through the gruesome Auschwitz concentration camps. The three years he spent in concentration camps became more than a story of survival. Frankl embodies the modern-day definition of resilience.

He muses about the quest for meaning, the transcendental power of love, finding humor, and discovering courage in the face of difficulty. In the worst circumstances imaginable, Frankl held to the belief that the most critical freedom is an individual’s ability to choose one’s attitude.”

My stepping back at times has been crucial to draw forth the innate strength within me, a day at a time. In that quest, I do find new passion and purpose and I can choose the attitude that lifts me up and through to ever higher ground.

In 80+ years there is a profound gift of honoring and celebrating the distance travelled. Like all, I have faced dark nights, pain on all levels, grief that still comes in waves, and rising through this world with the beliefs in duality and others that have been crippling at times to my well-being.

In letting go of controlling outcomes – let me be in passionate regard for what I am being in the moment and let that move me on to all that is before me.

I cherish what my years and friendships have given to me. My passionate pursuit – the authenticity of Charles – rising to ever deeper purpose and value of self and others, never giving up and always willing to step back!

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Self-Forgiveness – FIRST!

Forgive Yourself Image

Week three of continuing to revisit the 5 Key Principles.

Two key factors regarding forgiveness – the forgiveness of ourselves and of others.

My freedom is remembering that no person, no event, no place, or thing can block the light that I am. My healing is to live from that premise.

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.”  – Mark Twain

Please Note:  I am changing the above on our website to reflect the first and most important reality of forgiveness – the forgiveness of self!

Four years ago, those Principles were out of an inquiry within my soul – What were the most important practices I have learned for my own healing and well-being? They are not new – but Universal – and are a way of life for me.

In these most recent years, I have realized the deep unforgiveness I carried within myself and created judgments that I unconsciously placed upon others. Through my recent personal therapy, I have been able to see the pain I carried within my body issues. See the website and book by Angel Howard – who was a keynote at our closing Big Sky Retreat this year.  She is amazing, and I look forward to having her on Mind Your Own Becoming Zoom Programming.

I want to be the observer of this life journey – not the judge and executioner of myself or others. I want to honor the distance I have travelled and see my life in new light, care, and regard. I choose to observe and be accountable for areas I need to own regarding my past and others.

I will add to that, I have taken account of the cruel and self-condemning thoughts I have held against myself through the years that created dark nights and harmful and addictive behavior!

I believe in my 80’s I gained more insight than all my 55 years of ministry combined.

Forgiving is not condoning a generational history of abuse, and the ongoing violence within humanity we see, however, I know the self-condemning  within me and the unforgiveness within my own soul contributes to the world consciousness daily. I choose to love this man Charles as profoundly as I have sought to convey love to others. I choose to convey personal amends wherever I can where hurt has been from my false judgments or behavior.

I want to stand on the Healing Bridge – for myself and all – and live from an inner Peace within my soul that I carry forward daily, without exception for all.

If I am still breathing in this realm my forgiveness is ongoing, I am grateful that I have come to realize doing the healing and forgiving within myself is the most vital of all.

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Lighten Up!

meditation

Week two of continuing to revisit the 5 Key Principles. Look back on week 1, entitled Practice, Practice, Practice.

2 – Be Aware of What Is Yours to Carry and What Is Yours to Set Free.

What baggage we carry that has never belonged to us, and we keep adding to it with more stories that keep us entrapped in emotional quicksand of lies and untruths about ourselves and others.

I honor that I took on great responsibilities in my youth and felt it was absolutely mine to do. There is no regret in all those years – yet there is great awareness that I carried that sense of obligation for decades longer than I needed to. My sense of identity and value was solely in being there for my family and others.

In my 60’s I did step away from that profound sense of obligation, however, I still carried in my ministry and work that I had to be there for everyone – and always available. I was still adding to my luggage – that only I could lighten by stepping back and awakening to – I can travel more lightly.

From events that took place in my work and wonderful new friendships and love in Ft Lauderdale, there came a time when I realized, I wanted to explore a whole new freedom and no longer “carry” being there 24/7 for everyone.

It was time to set Charles – Free. I let go of my church leadership and through the imprint of COVID and Black Lives Matter – I created Mind Your Own Becoming – a non-profit forum for open and meaningful discussion of our times that we come to authentically listen.

Check our Opening Home Page on What we are About and our Mission, Vision statements.

I also decided to move to Montana having been born in Colorado and being one of the founders of the Big Sky Retreat from its beginnings in 1976. The mountains were calling me for a sense of being home where I could claim new growth – and “Lighten Up.”

I let go of all except for sending packages to Clancy, Montana, where I was to discover a new sanctuary space, and packing my new Jeep Cherokee with all I could. A beloved friend Rev Kent Barnard traveled with me part way to Texas.  From that point on I was by myself and arrived in Montana, May 1st, 2020.

Through this decision for the first time in my life I do not feel driven in time and schedule. I am here for what Kahlil Gibran defines as “Work is Love made visible.”  I am refired, renewed, redefined, and awakening to my full value – without the need to prove it to others.

I am conscious to look at my baggage ongoing and the self-judgment I carried throughout my life, generationally and personally. I seek to live from valuing how far I have travelled and the rest before me is meant to be the best because I have “Lightened Up!”

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Practice photo

A review of the 5 Key Principles of Mind Your Own Becoming – The path to our Freedom to Be!

Taking in the Key Principles of MYOB is about putting them into practice as a way of life.

However, we choose to see them – as Spiritual Principles or Ethical Principles to live by – these are not new. They are at the heart of great faiths and are the core of what the Mystics have taught.

Please review what I have shared on the website regarding these Principles. I am updating my soulful reflections of them as I turn 83 and honor I am continuing to deepen and expand my awareness of Charles. I will be revisiting the 5 Key Principles over the next 5 weeks.

1 – Free Others to Be Where They Are – Not Where You Want Them to Be.

I have come to realize that we all move through what we are here to grow though. I cannot evolve for anyone but myself. My soul / sole priority – is to work on what I personally need to continue to see life in new perspectives that nurture my own authenticity and self-value.

I can and do plant seeds of my insight and let them be.

I celebrate that when I have had personal breakthroughs and share them with clarity that it can and does encourage others to go deeper in their own awareness.

When I recently shared the story of being the victim of an attack on a dark, rainy night by four men years ago and that I forgave my attackers immediately, that I carried for decades that it was my fault being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just recently through my personal therapy I was able to utter for the first time in my life – “It wasn’t my fault” and believe it.”

Sharing that story at the Big Sky Retreat – an attendee came up to me with tears in her eyes – saying – you freed me to say the same about what had occurred to her. She realized it was time she freed that pain of self-condemnation against herself.

When our stories of insight touch another life,  that is the result of Minding my own Becoming to empower others.

The simplicity of that Principle – when you do the deeper soul work on yourself, you are more mindful that you can’t control or grow for anyone else – but you!

The great liberty is when I realize – the deeper I go into my own self-liberation and authenticity, the greater compassion I have for everyone – without exception. I can pray for world-wide awakening – as I choose to awaken daily to personal task – of Minding my own Becoming!

Monthly Theme and Weekly Speakers.

Every month, we take the Key Principles of MYOB and put them into practice in our lives. Looking at the deeper call before us — What are we each to “Be” to bring about societal change through our soul evolution in ways that establish justice, love, and care for all – without exception. Please join us weekly on Thursdays at 7 p.m. EDT for our virtual program.