Tag: identity

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.

Go Deeper – Do the Inner Work to Behold Joy!

underwater ocean grotto

I have maintained the inner child – where Joy resides and know that I also created a wounded child that took on the intensity of my sense of identity and value.

I took on the guilt of a struggle with my own sexual identity and feeling literally “a despicable abhorrent specimen of humanity.” That condemnation was rooted in shame that never belonged to me and was rooted in the world consciousness and fundamentalist religion. That shame led me into incredibly dark places that I have shared in my previous writings.

In my early twenties I stepped out of traditional church completely because it never made sense to me that I would enter a place of worship and come out feeling worse than I entered because of what I heard.

I had studied Eastern teachings, the works of the great Mystics, and the writings of Edgar Cayce.

When I came upon the teachings of Science of Mind, by Ernest Holmes, I knew I found a place of reason and my spiritual home.

There is a song we are each are here to experience as a soul that defines our own sacred and unique being. That song can be as simple and pure as loving what you do and valuing the gifts and talents within you. When you are expressing the authenticity of your soul – Joy is very much present.

See my blog on Baby Thing – a starling who had a song to sing!

I made the decision at 26 to study for the ministry. I knew this was a soul calling, however, I was entering for all the wrong reasons. I felt that perhaps if I did enough good for others somehow, I could make up for the self-loathing and condemnation I held inside myself.

I have recently opened to go deeper into my healing journey. Healing is ongoing and it is about vulnerability and willingness to see things with new perspective. With all the deep work I have done through decades of reminding others to accept and find enduring beauty and regard within themselves, it’s only been in my recent commitment for personal professional counsel and specifically EMDR therapy that my deepest healing and insight has taken hold.

We have come far from the psychological counsel available 60+ years ago. There are greater insights that have taken place and profound healing modalities to which we can open.

I will be sharing the healing revelations that are coming through as I process them more fully. It’s so wonder-full to realize I am honoring my own self-healing more than ever. That is what Mind Your Own Becoming is all about! Honor that you are worth investing in that deeper awareness that can bring a feeling of Joy and purpose richer than you have ever known!

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.

Silent Agreements

Silent Agreements are what we have lived by, condoned, and often rewarded in our societies and cultures throughout history. They are the silent agreements we make regarding how we define our roles and identity sexually, of how religion defines us, our culture, our race and how we have come to live by those agreements without challenging those that deny our true soul-expression and being.

Silent Agreements are those that maintain silence about abuse, and atrocities. Those agreements create genocides, and they continue the personal abuse on all levels of our societies in families and cultures everywhere. No matter what the authority, be it parental, societal, ethnic, religious, through institutions, governments, or cultures … silent agreements keep us bound to the pain, to the wars, and the violence we continue to condone on our planet. When we hold to that deafening silence future generations pay the price.

Humanity is the most brutal species in acts of abuse, violence, and perpetuating terror of its own kind. The Patriarchal history we hold has perpetuated that reality as it has continually supported Silence and celebrated its crimes against minorities, sexual orientations, and women.

Our Greatest Struggle

In an evolving world with greater potential for enlightenment more than ever before, we still see that violence throughout the globe. Our planet is in its greatest struggle. It is our identity and whether we hold to the old beliefs through our various patriarchal religions, governments, and institutions, that pre-define everyone’s role as opposed to celebrating our diversity out of the Unity we share as humanity. One by one, we can plant the seeds for change and illumination. The impact of that silence is clear. It shatters lives and it creates generational abuse. Silence shattered my family as it has millions of other families and lives.

The Root of All Suffering

What is at the root of all our human suffering …. fear, denial, and ignorance and the only cures: love, acceptance, and forgiveness. Forgiveness is not about forgetting. We don’t evolve humanity through erasing memories … but we do through enlightenment, compassion, and the truth and rising to stories of empowerment as Victors of this journey and not victims.

Silent Agreements are rooted in keeping us as victims and it has been the world practice to condone and accept “Silent Agreements.” Our suffering is always rooted in fear and ignorance. When we have the courage to speak out – to intervene when we see abuse – we create bridges for others to cross and end the cycles that continue from generation to generation.

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.