Noticing

You’ve probably experienced the phenomenon of buying a car or some other expensive gadget and then you start to notice that you see that same product everywhere. I had this recently when I purchased a used car that I’ve never really seen around before. Now I see them everywhere! This phenomenon is related to the part of your brain called the “Reticular Activator”. This is that part of the brain that starts firing up and making you notice things that you may have otherwise disregarded in the past. The interesting thing about all of this is that these items didn’t just appear, they were there all the time, we just didn’t notice.

As I evolve and grow in my spiritual awakening I am starting to “notice” things more often. I am noticing synchronicities and patterns that are happening in my life like word phrases, identical advice being given by unrelated people without even asking them or even physical things that make themselves known by falling over or bumping into me. In the past, I wouldn’t have even given things like this a second thought and if I had, I would have just discounted them as coincidence. Now, I have found myself to be slowing down a lot and taking the time to consider each thing that happens to and around me. I am completely convinced that each action, each person and situation I experience is for a reason. I know that it is up to me to interpret these experiences and to decide how to respond. It is in the response that defines who and what I am as a person.

There was a time not too long ago that I felt very isolated from everything and everyone. While I had a general feeling of spirituality and believing there was a Higher Source in the Universe, I still didn’t consider myself part of it – I was disconnected (or at least I thought I was). Now after being connected to so many wonderful people who are dedicated to their own spiritual awakening and experiencing various rituals, classes, meditations and readings; I have started to notice the “bold print” of life. I’m noticing things that stand out for no apparent reason other than they do. And after I notice them I file that information away waiting for it to connect to the next thing or to something that has already happened. What I am finding are these intricate and detailed patterns guiding me along the way and answering questions that I have asked. Are these messages new just because I have done all this “spiritual work”? I don’t think so. I think they have always been there, but now my Reticular Activator is on and picking up on them.

So what does this all mean? It means that my sense of isolation and being disconnected was just an illusion. It was an illusion brought on by true ignorance of Spirit resulting from the dogma of my childhood religion, from the veiled and unconscious methodical way of life and from the hopelessness being fed to us by each other and the media.

The moral of this story is to tell you to wake up… WAKE UP and notice how Spirit communicates to you. Notice the signs being presented and connect the dots. Notice the bigger picture around the events happening to you and around the World. What do you think these patterns are telling you? How will you respond to them? What positive things can you see happening as a result of even the most dreadful events? Can you sense the grand guidance scheme happening all around? You will and must respond but don’t just react; respond after contemplation and after considering alternative solutions. How can you make it better for you and the world?

Dwight Raatz

Denial and Manifesting Your Future

For myself (and for some clients I’ve worked with), I have oftentimes busied myself with my life as a way of pushing away depression and anxiety issues that have come up. Issues could involve broken relationships with friends, family, lovers; traumatic life experiences, etc. For awhile this kind of methodology works and has even been recommended by my parents, mentors and teachers. While they don’t specifically say that you can deal with the issue by pushing it away and bury it in a busy schedule, ultimately that is what is being done.

If you deny that something specific has happened in your life, like an emotional trauma, and you think that by denying it, it will not be real and go away – you will fail. It will always come back to you and demand resolution. This “demand for resolution” could come about by anxiety, depression, sickness or disease, and any number of things. Just like when the body is registering pain when you burn or cut your skin as way of telling you to pay attention – there is something wrong here; depression and anxiety are ways of telling you that there is unresolved “pain” here. The problem, of course, is being able to recognize this for yourself.

As I’ve written in earlier entries, awareness of your anxiety and depression is the first step. Being able to feel the onset of these things is a critical part of healing them. Once you have done this, you are on the road to mastering this part of you. Yes, this “condition” is a part of you and the sooner you accept this, the faster you will be able to give it the proper attention needed. Oftentimes I think people see anxiety as a leech attach to their body, a separate invader of sorts that needs to be cut away and destroyed. What it really is, is your mind and body telling you that there is something wrong that needs to be healed.

Think of your anxiety as a very young child afraid of the dark. This young child may have read a scary book, watched a scary movie or been told a story by their older sibling of the “boogie man” living in their closet or under their bed. This child only has the perspective that these things are real and out there to “get them”. The child is looking for someone to assure them that they are safe, loved and to expose the stories for what they really are, an illusion. You need to be that person who loves your young child and teaches it the truth known from your life experiences.

As part of my search to resolve my anxiety I have tried many things. I’ve had tremendous success with NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) in sessions with practitioners trained to use this. From what I’ve experienced, I am asked to identify myself at the age when the “issue” happened and then using visualization, I actually verbally counsel …my own self (like a mentor mentee) as the “adult” that is wiser about my life. Knowing more about the truth of what happened with understanding, forgiveness and love. NLP has made a huge change in my anxiety to the point where it barely surfaces anymore, and when it does it is manageable and easily resolved. I also do a lot of energy work now with clients and this has also provided a huge shift in my awareness and love for myself.

If you are focusing on manifesting your future to have less or no anxiety or depression, you can only do this by continuing to search for the resolution. It cannot be achieved by denying that it exists.

Dwight Raatz

The Origins of Jeremy Wicked

The pen name was given to me by my spirit guides. I can give you the full story in person (see summary below), but suffice to say that they were very persistent in me taking this name. I haven’t fully realized the significance of the name, but it is a sort of testament to the personal hell that I’ve endured in my life and needing to tell this story and what I’ve learned. Because of my experiences and perspective I am destine to help others on the topics of anxiety and depression and my blog is a starting point. I have a friend who is an author and she gave me high praise on the name as well as how it almost forces the reader to “pay attention” to what I’m writing.

I often receive messages from Spirit via music songs and lyrics (especially when I am just waking in the morning). The song by Pearl Jam called “Jeremy” is what led me to my pen name. This song literally played over and over in my mind for days on end until I did some research on it and then I understood what I needed to do. And when I took the name, the song immediately stopped playing in my head. It’s a based on a true story about a boy (Jeremy Wade Delle) who had anxiety and depression which resulted in him self-destructing. It’s a sad story which has a lot of similarities with my own young adult and adult struggles with depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. But the point is not about giving up or self destructing, but rather my triumph over the sadness and depression and the reminder of what I’ve been through and how I am stronger. Jeremy Wicked keeps me humble in what I’ve accomplished – never to forget that no matter what I achieve, it all came about by the struggles that I’ve overcome. I hope that I can help others with these same struggles to see how their experiences are shaping their lives and to give them a perspective that they are not alone. I understand.

Dwight Raatz

Healing Isn’t Always Pleasant

I’ve been practicing a healing modality called Reconnective Healing (RH) for several months now and more recently received training in Jikiden Reiki.  My thoughts around healing have always tended to connect with pleasant things like feeling better, less or no pain, joy, peace, etc.  What I’m finding however is that sometimes healing means that things will actually feel worse before they can get better.  If you broke a bone and didn’t set it properly, it would not heal right and you would forever have consequences or issues with it.  So to make it right, the doctor would have to break and reset it (doesn’t sound pretty, but it is the truth).

In the RH sessions I’ve been having with clients I know that many times sessions can produce some profound physical changes.  The healing frequencies are guided by Divine intention to get at the source of the issue and “reset” the body in order for it to heal properly.  I’ve even had clients have sharp pains in places that they haven’t felt pain before and this is what has been referred to as “the chaos of healing” or that the body needs to change it’s structure in order for it to properly heal (just like resetting the broken bone) and release the blocked energy or toxins.

The body is a great equalizer for us and it’s job is to do whatever it has to in order for you to feel better.  Oftentimes this means that it will store the toxins and stress of the mind and body in various places in the body.  These “stress points” can sometimes be felt as a sore neck, tight shoulders,etc but sometimes they are not felt at all or you become numb or desensitized to the pain until something disrupts it.

As you can imagine as a healer, I was becoming quite concerned with having my clients walk away from a healing session and feel worse or maybe even sick over the next few days.  I struggled with this as I am not about causing discomfort, but rather to release and remove it.  I pondered this and sought out help and clarification until it was realized that the healing was in fact actually working and that I needed to open my awareness to the process that needed to happen in order for it to completely work.  I also became aware that I needed to do more with my clients than just Reconnective Healing.  It was important to help then transition through the healing by coaching them to be aware of the possible changes they might feel.  I also encouraged them to drink plenty of water in order to have the toxins released by RH to flow out of the body.  I learned that I need to  help them ground after the session in order to help realign their system.  In some cases I have been using Reiki after the RH session to ground them and to help their body to process through the pain or discomfort.  This was the ticket!!!

Then, much to my surprise, I started to get feedback from clients that during the RH sessions they are being shown emotional trauma issues that they have long since buried into their psyche and somewhat forgotten.  One client told me that it took all she had not to tell me to stop the session.  I have been impressed with RH since the beginning, but this was a whole new level of healing.  I realized that as humans we tend to take our emotional life traumas and push them down and try to “get rid of them”.  I have even gone through counseling where I have talked and talked about the issues of my past and I think that I’ve “dealt with it” enough that it is resolved and move forward.  But all the talking and recognizing of the issue for what it is, really didn’t resolve it.  Now clients were telling the exact same thing about past issues that were coming through and I knew that this was the Divine’s way of telling them that they aren’t resolved and that these issues are at the source of many of their emotional and physical problems.  This isn’t fun or pleasant at all, but in order to really be healed, it must be accepted as part of you and you need to love and forgive that part of you not push it away and try to forget it.

Now with a better understanding of the true nature of healing, I am even better prepared to bring this light to everyone I encounter.  It gives me a perspective on my responsibility as a healer to look at the person’s holistic picture instead of focusing on a specific aspect.  I am also more aware of my current limits on being able to help and knowing when I need to refer them to others that are trained in the next steps of the healing process.  I am not a healing island and knowing this has given me a sense of peace in knowing my place in the grand scheme of the holistic healing realm.

Healing isn’t always pleasant, but it is the right path to take.  Have courage to take the necessary steps to fully heal yourself, even if you have to face unpleasant steps along the way.

Blessings,

Dwight Raatz

Accepting My Anxiety

I recently recorded a voice note to myself that was about how I’m coming to realize how I’ve “overcome” my anxiety.  I spent so many years trying to “get rid of it” or push it away or deny it.  What I’ve finally realized is that the anxiety was ME.  It was a part of me that I was trying to remove or feel ashamed of.  I was denying myself and this is why it would never stay away very long.  It kept coming back to tell me, “I am afraid, I don’t know what to do, I’m lonely, help me”.  This awareness of it being me was the turning point for me.  Through a couple different sessions with others (I think they used NLP as a tool, but I’m not sure), I was able to identify two critical points of time in my life and recognize the fear and shame I had for myself as a young boy and later as a young man.  My “current self” became the counselor to my younger self.  The main ingredients to the resolution of this fear is LOVE, Awareness and Forgiveness.  I gave these gifts to my younger selves and that was the final straw that made my house of fear and anxiety come crashing down.  It’s now up to me to continue to recognize these events as they happen and to know that I am a good person and lovable.

Dwight Raatz