Rest and Trust

November 5, 2022November 9, 2022

How Do I Stop Blaming Others and Experience Real Freedom?

Making somebody else responsible for how I feel is sooooooo tempting. How do I stop blaming others for what’s happening in my life?

When I make someone else responsible for my state of mind, I feel justified in feeling irritation and resentment – and reciting this constant “woe is me…” monologue in my mind.

“I am sad because they are treating me like dirt…”

“If only I had this… I would feel differently.”

“Who wouldn’t feel the way I feel given the circumstances?”

“If they really cared, they would have…”

It’s so hard not to blame. Blaming is addictive.

When I engage in this train of thought, the blaming narrative runs in my mind over and over, making me sick.

The more I blame others the more justified I feel in my victimhood.

But there’s a high psychological and physiological price we pay for choosing to marinade ourselves in blame and resentment.

Every negative thought entails a negative emotion.

Every negative emotion triggers the release of stress chemicals – adrenaline and cortisol.

The longer we choose to feel those negative emotions, the longer those stress chemicals circulate in our bloodstream causing our brains to create dense neural pathways around them.

This means that over time, our brains become hardwired to repeat the same behavior automatically – because it feels familiar.

The brain always chooses what is familiar over what is unknown.

We can’t stop blaming because we have practiced it for so long.

Our body has become our own inner pharmacy with an unlimited supply of our drug of choice.

The stress chemicals we choose to flood our body with wreak havoc on our nervous system over time.

“Persistent bitterness may result in global feelings of anger and hostility that, when strong enough, could affect a person’s physical health,” says psychologist Dr. Carsten Wrosch from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.

How can you stop this vicious cycle?

October 31, 2022March 16, 2023

Say “No” To Take Your Power Back and Find True Belonging

How do you find true belonging? According to Brene Brown, true belonging is the flip side of saying “No.”

What happens when we say NO?

We draw a line in the sand.

We are no longer playing “nice.”

We are no longer trying to fit in so people will accept us.

And we risk being rejected.

It’s scary.

In the age of increased polarization, a desire to belong is almost irresistible.

We all want to find true belonging.

But, according to BreneBrown, true belonging,

… starts with self-acceptance. Your level of belonging, in fact, can never be greater than your level of self-acceptance, because believing that you’re enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic, vulnerable and imperfect.

So, we have drawn the line. We have chosen to belong to no one.

No one except me.

We said “NO” loud and clear.

And now we are alone.

Alone in the wilderness.

Can we brave it?

Is it worth it?

Do I have what it takes to stand alone?

October 24, 2022March 30, 2023

Reverse Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by Increasing “Happy” Hormones

Can you reverse post-traumatic stress disorder?

My grandfather fought in World War II. As a child, I would often ask him: “What is war like?” He never answered.

The memories were too painful. He never talked about them. He just drank.

Every memory or thought about the war brought the same emotions in him AS IF HE HAD BEEN IN THE MIDDLE OF IT.

He wasn’t. There was no war around. But he still felt it as if it was his PRESENT reality.

One consequence of PTSD is that once your brain has been hardwired to expect danger, it cannot distinguish between thoughts and reality.

A thought of war feels like an actual war.

PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) has been known for a long time – during World War I, it was called “shell shock.” But it wasn’t until the 1980s that a corresponding diagnosis was proposed.

What is the mechanism of PTSD?

John Bradshaw, the author of the bestseller Healing the Shame That Binds You, says that when a person goes through a traumatic experience, it gets imprinted in their brain within the next 72 hours unless they are able to talk it through with someone they trust.

Why?

Because trauma does not get registered in the brain when met with relentless empathy.

Trauma gets recorded in the brain and causes PTSD symptoms under one condition – the person has FELT an overwhelming emotion but never got any empathy.

In other words, when a person talks through their experience with someone they trust within the first 3 days, the brain does not create neuron pathways (electrical connections) that produce PTSD-related symptoms.

If, however, they suppress or deny their feelings, the traumatic event eventually gets hardwired in the brain.

When trauma gets hardwired in the brain, the brain gets chemically conditioned to expect the same traumatic experience again and again (and releases the same chemicals before the event happens).

What does that mean?

October 18, 2022April 11, 2023

Who is Tulkas? The “Expecto Patronum” of Tolkien’s Universe to Fight Off the “Darkness of Unlight”

Who is Tulkas in The Silmarillion? What is the symbolism behind this myth?

C.S. Lewis once defined a good myth like this:

The narrative is more of a net whereby we catch something else.

The story itself may be quite ordinary – a sculptor carved a lady out of a block of stone, and it became alive (Pygmalion and Galatea).

Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, and her mother Demeter prevented all plants from growing until Hades was commanded to let her go for some months out of the year.

There’s nothing extraordinary in the story itself. Yet, we feel there’s something behind it.

Elizabeth Browning put it like this:

Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

It’s how we choose to look at the common bushes that determines whether we see them burning.

According to G.K. Chesterton, such is the function of our imagination:

The function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange.

And such is the function of mythopoetry – a genre that allows us to look at ordinary things through the eyes of Faerie and discover a world of extraordinary meanings behind them.

The key to entering Faerie is inside each and every one.

In Owen Barfield’s philosophy, this change of lens happens when a person allows their state of consciousness to be shifted by a line of poetry. And then they follow the call ringing through “this verse that lifts the curse” and enters the perilous realm of Faerie.

The cosmogonic myths of Tolkien’s The Silmarillion are of the same nature – they are an invitation to enter through the door of the external story and into the invisible realm behind the story, which is the land of Meaning.

One such myth is the myth of Tulkas the Valiant.

How did Tulkas beat Melkor?

Greatest in strength and deeds of prowess is Tulkas, who is surnamed Astaldo, the Valiant. He came last to Arda, to aid the Valar in the first battles with Melkor. He delights in wrestling and in contests of strength… he is tireless. His hair and beard are golden, and his flesh ruddy.

Who is Tulkas? Why did he come to Arda last to aid the Valar in their battles with Melkor? And most importantly, why was Melkor so afraid of him?

So came Tulkas the Strong, whose anger passes like a mighty wind, scattering cloud and darkness before it; and Melkor fled before his wrath and his laughter, and forsook Arda, and there was peace for a long age.

Of all the Valar, Melkor hated Tulkas the most.

There’s a spiritual and mythical significance to this. Tulkas is hated with bitter hatred because he represents the laughter of Iluvatar in the Great Music.

October 8, 2022April 14, 2023

How can I generate positive emotions that will make me fly?

Is it possible to generate positive emotions or do we have no control over how we feel?

Have you ever noticed what your mind is doing when you are not watching?

When I suddenly become aware of my thoughts, I am always surprised to find out that they are happening without my involvement. They are automatic. I am on autopilot.

Thoughts just pop out of the blue, and my mind catches on to them and keeps chewing on them.

One automatic thought leads to another, then another, then another until I am drawn into an incessant inner narrative that usually comes with bright pictures and images.

Before I know it, those “voices” from the past get mixed with something I heard on the news recently or some of my old fears and resentments.

This deadly mixture circles in my mind, eventually creating a dark cloud of negativity that grows ever bigger until I become aware of myself and say: “Why am I thinking all this!”

It’s so hard to stop. If you are like me, you know that negativity can be delectable. There’s a certain pleasure in savoring how you’ve been mistreated in the past or how things can go sour in the future.

But such thoughts and emotions are poisonous and will very soon generate fear, anger, resentment, and selfishness.

September 27, 2022April 3, 2023

How Owen Barfield Saved The Appearance Of Princess Violetta In The Silver Trumpet

Once upon a time there were two little Princesses whose names were Violetta and Gambetta; and they lived in Mountainy Castle. They were twins, and they were so like each other that when Violetta came in from a walk with her feet wet, Gambetta was sometimes told to go and change her stockings…
The Silver Trumpet

So opens The Silver Trumpet, a fairy-tale written by Owen Barfield in 1925. It was his first published book and the first fantasy book ever published by the Inklings. According to the author himself, he felt that in all his books he was “saying the same thing over and over again.” But what is this “one thing” he was saying over and over again? And how did he say it in The Silver Trumpet?

The Silver Trumpet is a mythical depiction of what Owen Barfield would later unfold in his other works and, in some way, a prelude to what seems to be the overall message of the Inklings — the world is God’s music clad in matter. In Saving the Appearances, Barfield points out that we live in the world of unsaved images — images that have been taken literally and turned into idols.

The images (or appearances) we observe around us are so much “like” the things they represent that we have a hard time distinguishing between them. We take a representation for the reality behind it. For us, the image and the thing it represents look alike, almost indistinguishable — like the two little princesses, Violetta and Gambetta, who were so like each other that even the Queen had a hard time distinguishing them.

The Queen used to be so fussed and worried by the confusion that, what with one thing and another, she persuaded the King to appoint a special Lord to distinguish between them [the princesses]. And he was called the Lord High Teller of the Other from Which.

The Lord High Teller of the Other from Which was the only one who noticed the difference between the two princesses. But it was not in their appearances but in what transpired through the appearances.

Moreover, he “knew a thing or two about the magic power of names,” and so he found a way to tell the two princesses apart — by changing their names. By calling them Violet and Gamboy he brought out into the light of day what was otherwise invisible — the princesses were “as different inside as a Church and a Booking Office.”

In Barfield’s mind, the two little princesses who were almost identical in appearance represent the confusion of the modern mind about observable phenomena. We tend to equate appearances with the reality they point to. This anthroposophical dilemma Owen Barfield would later explore in Saving the Appearances: A Study in Idolatry.

September 27, 2022March 7, 2023

The Third Theme of the Music of Iluvatar – a Mighty Echo of Owen Barfield’s “Final Participation”

If there is one connective tissue between the fantasy imaginations of the Inklings, it is the theme of our participation in the Divine Music – the Music of Iluvatar.

The worlds of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield are born in Music and governed by Music.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, the Ainur descend into Arda, the created Realm, as individual themes of the Music of Iluvatar to behold their unique part becoming incarnate in the visible elements of air, earth, water, and other substances.

Enamored of their part in the celestial symphony, the Ainur follow this “music-made-flesh” into Arda and dwell therein because each yearns to participate in the Divine Thought.

They didn’t yet know how the Music would end – the only thing they knew was that the discord of Melkor would somehow be resolved by the coming of the Second-born to whom Iluvatar gave “strange gifts.”

The Third and final theme in the Music of Iluvatar announces the coming of Men in a soft, slow, and immeasurably sorrowful theme, from which its beauty chiefly comes.

How does Narnia start?

C.S. Lewis’s Narnia also begins in Music, the Song of Aslan, which is “the deeper magic” of his fantasy world – the magic of growing that opposes the black magic of domination.

Aslan sings his world into existence, and all the stars join him in the Song.

Owen Barfield’s The Silver Trumpet is a metaphor for the Music from the invisible realm that awakens us from the spell of unconsciousness when we hear the call. Its call is irresistible and shatters all man-made idols, or the “unsaved images,” so our transformed consciousness can commune with the Music.

September 14, 2022March 16, 2023

Embrace All Your Feelings To Be Transformed – A Lesson From The Gospel of Thomas

Since ancient times, people intuitively knew that if you reject your feelings, you will be consumed by them, and if you embrace all your feelings, you will be transformed.

Blessed is the lion which becomes a man when consumed by man; and cursed is the man whom the lion consumes, for the lion becomes a man.
The Gospel of Thomas

One thing my alcoholic father passed on to me is a feeling of emptiness and a desire to fill myself from outside in.

He chose to medicate the feeling with alcohol. I have tried to do the same with food, people, and workaholism.

If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it. Richard Rohr

The more I numb out my feelings on food, people, or work, the emptier I feel. The feeling is strong, and often comes without warning – regardless of what I do on the outside to alleviate it.

In fact, using external means to get rid of it doesn’t work.

September 10, 2022September 17, 2022

The Powerful Parasympathetic Effect of Meditation – Science Behind Ancient Contemplative Traditions

Is there science behind ancient contemplative practices and, if so, how does it explain the powerful parasympathetic effect of meditation?

The element of “letting go” is at the heart of all ancient spirituality.

Letting go is this inner gesture of release – of whatever you are holding on to in the moment. Or rather – of what is holding you.

Until recently, this knowledge was intuitive and experiential. There was no science to confirm the powerful stress-reducing effects of meditation.

But in recent decades, an eye-opening correlation has been found between those ancient forms of spirituality and the activation of the so-called parasympathetic nervous system.

The California-based HeartMath Institute collected data from the functional MRI hooked to the brain of a person actively engaged in meditation.

The results were astounding! And they show why meditation has such a powerful parasympathetic effect.

What is the parasympathetic effect of meditation?

It turns out that the way we respond to a stimulus in the outer world determines what neural pathways will be activated in the brain.

If we respond to the stimulus with any sort of negativity – which on the physical level feels like tensing up, constricting, freezing, tightening, pushing away, shortening of breath, clinging, clutching, seizing, etc.) – we activate the so-called sympathetic nervous system.

In this case, our lizard brain (the oldest part of the brain that controls the fight and flight mechanism) gets a signal to start pumping stress hormones into our bloodstream and we feel this high-adrenaline fight-and-flight response.

However, if we respond with the inner gesture of release, letting go, and relaxing this inner resistance, we activate our prefrontal cortex – the rational part of the brain, which brings on a powerful parasympathetic response.

The parasympathetic effect of meditation is the result of the mental gesture of letting go.

It feels like opening up, inner softening, gentle yielding, accepting, consenting, allowing, embracing.

In other words, as soon as we stop resisting whatever we don’t like about the present moment and start welcoming it, our sympathetic nervous system shuts off and the parasympathetic turns on.

As a result, we switch from “fight and flight” to “rest and digest.”

Here’s how it happens in the so-called Centering Prayer – my favorite form of meditation.

September 3, 2022March 28, 2023

Amazon’s The Rings of Power Review – An Alternative Way to Begin the Series

I wasn’t planning to write a review on Amazon’s The Rings of Power, but my son asked me a question I couldn’t ignore.

And thus there awoke in the world the Two Trees of Valinor. Of all things which Yavanna made they have most renown, and about their fate all the tales of the Elder Days are woven.

As we finished watching the first episode of The Rings of Power last night, my son asked me after a pause:

“What do you think?”

“Don’t know yet,” I answered, “not too bad, I suppose, but I hoped there would be much more Tolkien in it.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, “there’s Galadriel, Elrond, Sauron, hobbits. What else?”

“Hm…” I scratched my head, “I guess to have more Tolkien there you need to start the tale how he started the tale.”

“Do you mean with the creation of Arda?” he pressed.

“No, with Music. The Music. The world of Tolkien began in Music.”

“So, how would you have started the series?” he finally asked.

I smiled.

“Let me think,” I said, and there was silence in the room for about half an hour broken only by the chirping of a cricket outside.

And silence was over all the world in that hour, nor was there any other sound save the chanting of Yavanna.

Finally, I broke the silence.

“All the tales of Elder Days are woven around the fate of the Two Trees. Do you have any idea why?”

He shook his head.

“Imagine Galadriel and her brother Finrod sitting by a murmuring brook at twilight. He asks her: ‘Do you know how Elves came about?’

‘No.’

The camera zooms in, and we see the following scenes unfold in Galadriel’s big blue eyes as she listens to Finrod’s tale.

‘By the starlit mere of Cuivienen, Water of Awakening, the Elves rose from the sleep of Iluvatar; and while they dwelt yet silent by Cuivienen their eyes beheld first of all things the stars of heaven. Therefore they have ever loved the starlight, and have revered Varda Elentari above all the Valar.’

Galadriel sees in her mind’s eye the mere of Cuivienen and then looks up and suddenly sees Varda walking among the heavenly hosts.

‘Who is it?’ she asks her brother in amazement.

‘Varda, the spouse of Manwe, the chief of the Valar.’

‘Who are the Valar?’