Spirit Guides Respond – Page 2

Up at 3 a.m.

There’s so much unrest in the world! The pandemic and police brutality BOTH affect communities of color. It’s heartbreaking! I know that’s a grave understatement, but I’m feeling the pain for all people.

Spirit Guides respond:

The positive is that Yes! This is being exposed finally in a BIG way! Change is bumpy, disruptive of status quo and routine. There is national outrage more than ever. Good! There should be. Let this play out without fear. Change is difficult and slow to move. It requires pandemics, crises, “earthquakes” to move mountains.

There will be lives lost, but we will emerge fresh, stronger, changed as a society. The final push! T will show his true colors in a crisis, both with the pandemic and with riots and protesters. He already has. Biden will prevail in November because the world will be ready. It can only withstand so much darkness before demanding Light. Biden is the lesser of two evils and people will want and are ripe for change and leadership they can get behind and feel safe with. T has shown the opposite which has helped fuel this eruption and his own demise, ironically.

Roll with the rattle of change. It always brings a brighter, better outcome. Love is the common denominator. Love is the larger force in the world; we just don’t hear about it on the news. We hear about the less than 1% who are lost in hate–of themselves first and ultimately of others.

“Only in the darkness can you see the stars.” ~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Cognitive Dissonance

“Wisdom is tolerance of cognitive dissonance.” ~Robert Thurman

Lexico.com gives this definition of “cognitive dissonance:” the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.

I had a dream last night that I was to take dictation from a classmate when they call, type it up, and hand it in when I get to class because they are unable to go. This may have been a message from my Spirit Guides to “take dictation” from them.

Over the past several months, I had been extremely irritated by two family members. Different issues, but my ruminations about both were the same. How do I deal with their constant negativity and critique of me? Not blatant critique, but subtle and underhanded, the kind of criticism that’s not obvious at first, but over time erodes my tolerance of their every word.

The most recent exchange drove me to block one of them on Gmail–which I had to google having never done that before. But, immediately afterward I questioned myself. Did I overreact? Am I a bad person? Isn’t the answer always Love? Love thine enemy? But how do I weigh Love and care of myself against Love of their “lost” souls? Shouldn’t I protect myself from constant attack or at least take a respite from my inner work? Is it wrong to evade self-reflection about what each of them is showing me about myself: old hurts that I’m tired of feeling?

A messy scene. My baggage clashes with their baggage. A jumble of backpacks and suitcases thrown open with our contents strewn about and mixed up until I can’t tell whose stuff is whose. This is the only time I wish my baggage would get lost or sent to Hawaii or Curaçao so I could go there to claim it!

They’ve both burned bridges with other people: friends and family. It’s not just me. They both thrive on conflict. They seem to get pleasure out of stirring the pot and inviting arguments for argument’s sake over politics or over…any subject will do.

So, no. It’s not wrong for me to disengage from petty unwinnable arguments with people who believe only they are right. They don’t like to be wrong. They prefer to prevail. I believe they’d make great lawyers if it weren’t for an over-inflated sense of entitlement in one, and alcoholism in the other.

I don’t enjoy being wrong either, but I am open to other opinions and discussions to reach a new understanding. I draw the line at personal attacks that buzz in like haloed hornets with smiles sweet enough to boil my blood. I am more than willing to let down my guard if/when they stop giving me reasons to keep it up.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep my distance. From here, far away from the flying barbs, I can try to find in my heart an iota of Love and compassion for them at some point. I can ponder–or not–what might have made them like this. I can dwell on truths about myself.

Dear Self:

Remember that how others treat you is telling of who they are, not an indicator of who you are. It’s ok to take a respite from the battle. It’s ok to feel anger, hurt, and rage. No, you are not a bad person, and, dear one, neither are they. It’s just a clash of baggage.

Take all the time you need to return to your own peace of mind. Once there, you can choose to allow your heart and Higher Self to sense compassion. You can’t change others, you can only change your response to them. But do know that All are Loved.

P.S. So, yeah. A few days after originally posting this, I opened the book by Gay Hendricks titled, The Big Leap. My mind was far away from the issue of this post. I opened to a random page using both thumbs, as I often do when I feel a message is there for me. Reading the passage felt like hearing musical dissonance resolve into harmony:

“If we’re in the grip of worrying while someone around us isn’t, we seem to have an almost uncontrollable urge to criticize that person until he or she jumps into the stream of negativity with us.”

Ahh…so that’s what’s going on. This message from my Spirit Guides answered my original question: How do I deal with their constant negativity and critique of me?

Answer: With understanding and compassion.

Insomnia allows for answers.

“There are twelve hours in the day, and about fifty in the night.” ~ Marie de Rabutin-Chantal

It was my third night in a row of insomnia. My brain was latched onto a problem that had persisted over months of back and forth, leaving me feeling out of control, overwhelmed, and unable to let go. In my view, it was taking too long to resolve and I had very little control over the issue. It felt like the slow, painful removal of a very large bandaid.

The “witching hour” seemed to always be 3 a.m. Each night I tried to concentrate on my breathing, change my focus, practice conscious relaxation, but none of those worked. I couldn’t release the buzz in my brain or my limbs. The haunting hovered in my head.

It is suggested that when you can’t fall back to sleep, you should get out of bed and do something with low-lighting that avoids looking at screens. I went downstairs to listen to a guided relaxation, but even that didn’t help. I came back upstairs feeling helpless and out of control. I begged my Spirit Guides for help. Please show me a sign that you are listening.

Distraught, I lay on the couch, my cat gently snoring on the floor beneath me. Ah! Petting animals is supposed to lower blood pressure. I reached down and pet him for a bit, still feeling lost.

On the coffee table I spied a book that I had taken off the shelf a few weeks earlier: How to Be an Adult by David Richo. I picked it up thinking it might be a useful distraction. Or, there may be a message in there for me that I am supposed to read.

With the book closed in my hands, and both thumbs resting on the pages, I randomly opened to a page that I sensed I was supposed to read. On the right side was a new chapter about adult relationships. Whatever, I thought. That’s not where the problem is. That’s where I get the most support.

On the opposite page, was the following quote:

“What is hard to appreciate, when terror shapes a catastrophic gap, is that blankness can be a Fertile Void. The Fertile Void is the existential metaphor for giving up the familiar supports of the present and trusting the momentum of life to produce new opportunities and vistas.” Erving and Miriam Polster, Gestalt Therapy Integrated

It exactly matched what I needed to hear. Therein was my answer and the sign I had asked for. I felt a release of tension, a letting go. It helped me sleep.

When we’re in the throes of uncertainty about how to get through a difficult period, the best solution is to relax into the unknown by giving over our trust to a Higher Power that all things will work out in their own time with an often better than expected ending.

The “Fertile Void” is that gap of not knowing, that place of hanging in limbo in the present where things beyond our control–and out of our view–are being orchestrated.

(If you suffer from insomnia, my guided meditation for sleep may help.)