DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND DRUG ADDICTION

Drug addiction was one of many addictions.  My first addiction was love.  No matter what the cost, if my attention fixated on one particular man, I would do anything to make him love me.  I look back now, and can’t believe the crap I accepted from the men in my life, thinking, hoping, praying, wishing that they loved me.  More importantly, I have compassion for myself with the understanding that at that time, I didn’t love me, or think that I was worthy of love.  The men in my life mirrored back to me exactly the way I felt about myself.  They showed up as my angels clothed in the form of my deepest wounds.

 Excerpt from soon to be released “She Lives” This wasn’t the first time Mark put his hands on me in a violent way.  I’ll never forget when he spent the night at my house verbally and physically abusing me.  He tried to ram my head into a concrete wall.  I was able to escape his grasp and run down the street to the telephone booth to call the police.  I ran past a few guys coming outside of a store, and I said to them “please help me, my boyfriend is beating me up”, and one of the guys looked at me and said, “a man has a right to do what he wants with is woman”.  Even then, I couldn’t believe it.   I made it to the telephone booth and dialed 911, but Mark came up behind me and slammed the phone down before I could talk to the dispatcher.  I fought him off and picked up the phone and dialed again.  He slammed the phone down again.  So, I gave up.  He took me by the hand to lead me back to my apartment, but before we got there, five police cars surrounded us.  They had traced the call I had tried to make.  They jumped out of their cars and asked if I was the one who made the call.  I told them yes, and that I was having a problem with my boyfriend.  This one police woman looked me straight in the eye and said “did he hit you”?  Mark looked like a deer in headlights.  He was scared shitless.  I averted my eyes from the policewoman, and said, “No, he did not hit me”. So, I would go and get high, blow all my money and then sleep with a stranger for drugs.  I would tell myself it served him right for being such a jerk, but of course, the real reason was, it paid for my drugs when I was out of money.  But I was also trying to make myself feel better about being so powerless and out of control.  I was hurting so badly, and felt so rejected and abandoned, I thought if I slept with someone else, even though drugs was one of the payoffs, it would somehow hurt this man that held my distorted attention in every waking moment, and who one minute gave me his heart, and the next, would leave me, abandoned, beaten and broken again. - end     Domestic violence was a huge part of my life growing up.  The way things were handled in my family, in particular with my siblings, were with violence.  I saw family members with black eyes and bloody noses one day, and cuddled up with the spouse that did it the next. I thought this was love.  I thought this was how it was done in relationships.  I thought the way you responded to a disagreement was with rage, screaming and hitting.  So, I lived that pattern out in my own life.  I attracted men in my life, where we were perfect mirrors for each other’s sorrow, rage and ignorance. 

Healing is possible.  It’s a long road from such a depth of low self-worth to self-love, and there are days when you might feel like you can never have anything better, because the scars are so deep, and the patterns are so etched in your consciousness.  You might feel like giving up, but don’t. Keep on growing, keep going, you’ll make it.  In quoting another amazing woman, Hillary Clinton in her 2008 democratic speech, she says “By following the example of a brave New Yorker , a woman who risked her life to shepherd slaves along the Underground Railroad.   And on that path to freedom, Harriett Tubman had one piece of advice.  If you hear the dogs, keep going.  If you see the torches in the woods, keep going.  If they're shouting after you, keep going.  Don't ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”

So, I say to you, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, or what your own habitual negative thinking is telling you, you are worthy, you are deserving of an amazing, loving, healthy life.  The road will seem dark and endless, but your life is right down that road.  Don’t give up on yourself before the miracle happens.  You’re worth it. I’ll be your testimony, until you can be your own.

Peace to you beloved,

Ester

Excerpt from "She Lives"-Domestic Violence: We were both snorting cocaine and Michael was drinking heavily. Our marriage was violent and passionate. Passionate in that even though I knew I didn’t love him, I was still addicted to the thought of love. So we’d fight and makeup, until the truth of how I really felt would take over, and I’d try to figure a way out again.....more to come (promise)

IT’S NOT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

The secret of meeting discomfort  (lack, limitation, fear, doubt, uncertainty, physical and emotional embalance) is in knowing its nature.  The nature of the discomfort can be summed up in words such as hypnotic suggestion, appearance or false belief.  When we are experiencing discomfort or dis-ease, it is because we have become hypnotized into believing in two powers, a power of Good and a Power of Evil.  This erroneous belief has taken control of our minds.

Joel Goldsmith says the nature of discomfort can be illustrated this way: “If there were a plant in the room where you are now sitting and if someone hypnotized you, he could make you believe that, instead of branches, snakes were growing out of the flowerpot, and you would accept and believe it.  Through hypnotic suggestion, the hypnotist has taken temporary control of your mind, and because you are apparently unable to act independently, you follow his suggestion to its logical conclusion.  You run away from the snakes, you may even pick up a knife with which to chop off their heads – all this based on the belief that snakes are actually there”.  How many times have we been hypnotized by the media into believing how bad things are, or hypnotized into believing because someone in our family has cancer, we might get it too, or believing because our family and ancestors struggled financially, that must be the way it really is, and then we act from that false belief?  Whatever hypnotic suggestion you are suffering from has probably been there for a long time, so this mirage seems and feels like Reality.  Our belief, attention and fear of it has made it real.

One of the “appearances” or suggestions I’ve had to deal with most of my life was the erroneous belief and appearance in lack and limitation.  No matter how much money I made, it never seemed to be enough, I was always experiencing some kind of financial crises and I believed that the crises was real.  I would affirm and claim that the crises was healed, and temporarily, it would be.  But you know what?  Because the belief that caused it in the first place was never dealt with at its core,  another crises would crop up to take its place.  Have you ever heard the saying “if it’s not one thing, it’s another”? Just like if you’re hypnotized into believing that there are snakes in the flower pot, you may chop off their heads, but there will be two more to take its place, until you are dehypnotized, and you see there were never any snakes there in the first place.

So, it is never the appearance that has to be healed, no matter what that may look like for you right now.  It is the belief that there is a power and presence other than the power and presence of God.  Once that erroneous belief is healed, the conditions of your life began to straighten out and come into alignment with Spirit.  Why – Because once we recognize God as the one power whose nature is wholly Good, the complete Good, Omniscience (all knowledge and wisdom) and Omnipresence (everywhere present) present right where you are, how could you possibly be afraid, how could you possibly experience anything other than Good in every area of your life?  It’s not possible.

The only way to dehypnotize is to quite the physical senses, to be still inside, and then spiritual awareness reveals the truth and enables us to see that which is not visible, to hear that which is not audible, to know that which is not knowable to that human senses.  Truth must be spiritually discerned.  How many of you have been able to figure out your life with the five senses?  How’s it working for you?

The absolute beauty that I’m experiencing right now is the fullness of life with ease and grace.  Before I even know what I want, it shows up.  I’m not in fear about anything.  I’m just watching God do its thing and it’s absolutely amazing.  I’m hooked.  Once you’ve really experienced God, you don’t want to turn back.  It’s that Good.

It’s not to good to be true.  It’s possible and its waiting for you to make up your mind.  Stop trying to fix the problem from a place of fear and doubt.  Stop trying to cut off the heads of snakes that aren’t there, and watch the crooked places straighten themselves out by your awareness and embodiment that God, Spirit, Universal Present or whatever you call it, is all that there is.  Stop fighting, cease resisting, do your inner work and let go.  It’s that Good and yes - it’s true.

Peace and blessings.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Since the beginning of January, I’ve been committed to a kind of “Spiritual Boot Camp” if you will.  I realized that I was really off center and that I had somehow allowed the illusions of powerlessness and fear of lack and limitation to run my life.  I was basing my security on people and conditions.  Of course, people and conditions are temporal, they change up on you all the time.  Companies that had contracted me for the beginning of the year were canceling on me left and right because of the “appearance” of the slow economy, the nest egg I had put aside was diminishing by the day; and every booking call I made, it seemed that the answer was “no, we don’t have the budget right now”.  Needless to say, I forgot all about God, and I was FREAKING OUT, and then I was FREAKED OUT about being FREAKED OUT.  I’m not supposed to freak out.  I trust God, right? Well, this was a rich, wonderful opportunity to show me just how much I knew and trusted God.

One evening after a particularly bad day, when everywhere I called, no one answered, or when they did, the answer would be “no – we don’t have the budget to hire you right now Ester”, I sat in the middle of my floor and said “NO MORE”.  I will not live in fear, I will not allow the illusion of lack and limitation to run my life for one more minute.  I will not place my faith or my security in man and conditions.  I’m not going to even place my faith in my own thinking right now, because my thinking needs a tune up.  The song written by Rickie Byars-Beckwith and Rev. Michael Beckwith, “I Release” took on a whole new meaning for me, and I’ve been listening to the song for 18 years now.

I released, I completely let go of everything I thought I knew, wanted or needed.  I knew that all I needed was to reconnect on a deeper level than I’ve experienced before with God.  I refused to make one more phone call or send out one more email until I was grounded in the awareness of One Power, One Presence and One Life, and that this One Power contained within it ALL my good.  Was this hard?  From an ego perspective, Yes!!!  If I surrender totally to God, am I gonna get my stuff, am I gonna get what I want if I surrender?  Well, I certainly had nothing to lose, because doing it my way wasn’t getting me my stuff.

So, I committed to sixty day of prayer/meditation/journaling and turning away from every appearance (illusion) of struggle, lack and limitation.  Understanding that in God or Universal Presence, there is no such thing as struggle, sickness, lack or hardship, there is only GOOD!    So, everytime I’d feel fear or doubt I would consciously and resolutely turn away from it, saying to it “you’re not real.  You are an illusion trying to pull my attention away from that which is real. You’re trying to keep me stuck in an old worn out paradigm.  NO, you cannot have me.” And then I would pray until I was re-centered.

This reminds me of the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, where Russell Crowe was suffering from Schizophrenia.  He had created out of this illness his best friend from college, his best friends niece (a 7 year old little girl) and a CIA Agent that made him believe he was on a secret mission.  This illusion wreaked absolute havoc in his life.  He lost his job and almost lost his wife.  But mostly, he LOST HIS MIND to his belief in something that wasn’t real.

He had a turning point one day when at his lowest moment, he almost drowned his baby because of the illusions.  When his wife put the baby in the car and was trying to leave him, he jumped in front of the car and says to his wife “she never grows old, the little girl, she  never gets any older. She’s been seven years old for 10 years.”  It had finally clicked for him that his friends and the CIA agent were not real, but he had been basing his life on what wasn’t real all this time.  How many times do we do that?  Base our lives on fears, doubts and uncertainties?  Think about it.

He made a decision to not take anymore medication, and he would heal himself by acknowledging the illusions when they arose, but not give them any power, ever again.  One of the last times the illusions showed up, he bent down to kiss the little girl on the cheek, and he said to her “I will miss you, but I will never speak to you again”.  The more he ignored the illusions when they appeared and kept his attention on what was real, the illusions started to leave him alone, he not only started living a normal life, he started to thrive.

I now have that opportunity, you now have that opportunity to turn away from the illusions of fear, doubt and uncertainty.  They are not our friends and they mean us no good.  We can acknowledge them when they crop up, but refuse to hang out with them anymore and regain our center in what is real.

When we do this, and the illusions start to fade away, we can truly say, wow, Life really is good.  I don’t have an erratic, crazy mind running the show anymore.  I have a Beautiful Mind, the mind of God that governs my life perfectly, prosperously, joyously and harmoniously.  It’s true.  I’m living proof, because right now I’m thriving.

Peace and blessings,

Ester

 

SOUL RECONNECTION

Well, I’ve finally decided to do it.  Everyone’s been telling me “you need to do a blog”, and I’d say “yeah, yeah – I know”.  How many times a day do we say that to ourselves when it’s brought to our attention or we get that nudge to be bigger than we think we are?  “Yeah, Yeah – I know”, and then nothing.  That is, until it becomes too painful not to be bigger, expand or grow.  Well, the fire of inaction was getting a tad too hot for the kid.  I was going to either burn with that gentle nudge becoming a good old-fashion universal butt whuppin (yeah, I can go there), or get off my butt and say Yes God, Universe, Higher Power, Whoever You Are –  use me, I’ll do it.

 Well, one of the questions that’s kept me away from the “blog” situation, was “what am I gonna talk about”?  The inner-voice within screams “Are You Kidding Me”?  You – Ms. Think You Know It All, Diva of the Highest have nothing to say?  Try again.  Okay, I have lots to say, and once I start saying it, it sounds pretty good, even if I do say so myself (smile).

 So, here I am ready, willing and actually pretty excited to talk to you about Soul Reconnection.  Something I know a little bit about because at the beginning of the year I was so disconnected I thought I was going to die, and you know what, I was dieing and thank God for that.   I was dieing to old beliefs, old habits, old perceptions and old ways of being that were choking me to death.

 I thought that spiritually I had it all together.  I’m 24 years sober, a spiritual practitioner and private counselor, so I knew what I was doing, right?   I prayed, meditated, told God what to do and how to do it.  I had it going on – didn’t I?  Well, by the beginning of January I felt like I had just ran a 20 mile marathon, with no food and water and then went into a sweat lodge of 120 degrees.  I was absolutely depleted.  Not such a bad thing, in fact, it can be a wonderful thing.  Surrender makes the way clear for true guidance and direction to come through.  I wasn’t telling God what to do anymore.  I was ready to LISTEN.  I was humbled to my core and now I could really hear what was being said.

 I took the entire month of January and now well into February to study, meditate, journal and pray FROM my connection to God, not pray TO God from a place of disconnection. Oh, what a difference it makes to reawaken to what’s real.  It feels like I’ve awakened from a deep sleep.

 I’m watching myself release with so much more ease and grace situations which used to distract me and make me crazy.  You know those circumstances and situations where you have to get on the phone and talk to two or three people, either trying to get them to agree with you or comfort you?  Those conversations that keep you in the problem rather than in the solution?  I haven’t had to do that lately.  Because of my commitment to reconnect to my soul, the reality of grace has become more real to me, and more important than the situation itself.

 At first it wasn’t easy.  I thought I had to get in there and fix it, or figure it out, but then I remembered that  “universal spanking” I had received over the holidays.  So, everytime something unpleasant would present itself, I’d stop, pause, say a prayer, become still, and watch as it straightened itself out, or I would be guided to take the perfect action.  I was like “Wow, it is that simple”.  Simple, but not easy.

 You know what the most difficult thing you will ever have to do is?  Let Go.  That’s right, letting go and surrender is the hardest thing you will ever do.  But once you reconnect, and watch that intangible something take over and handle those situations that you can only make worse from your limited perspective, it becomes so simple and beautiful.  It’s like water to dry land.

 So, I invite you on this journey with me.  I’m not gonna get all preachy on you.  I’ll be talking about some real, tangible life experiences, and would love your feedback and questions.  Let’s work them out together by reconnecting to our souls.

 Peace and light.

 Ester

 P,S.  Anybody else tired of the snow?  Ooops, there I go again, trying to tell God what to do.  Never Mind.