Being, Human Being

The More

How are you choosing to experience being a Human Being in this life?

There are many ways to experience life as a human. You might decide to follow your own path and passions which may go against the grain of family or society. I’ll call these people Mavericks. Or, you may choose to observe and completely follow the queues of society, friends or family in hopes of being non-confrontational and pleasing. I’ll call these people Pleasers. I’ve met people at both ends of this spectrum, but for the most part, people are usually somewhere in between with a higher percentage trending toward being Pleasers. For the purposes of this essay, I’m going to look at the Pleasers and to a greater extent, the ones that not only look for the approval of other people, but also look for meaning or purpose outside the realm of humanity.

I would consider myself to be a “Transformational Pleaser”. This is someone who once was fully embedded in being an unconscious Pleaser (or someone who does not know they are a Pleaser); to someone who is consciously transforming the skills I’ve learned as a Pleaser to my own advantage. I am now leveraging these skills and adopting more Maverick attributes as I grow and mature as a human. I would like to dive deeper into this concept in order to more fully understand it for myself and hopefully to give you insights into your own life.

Being raised the youngest of five siblings I found myself observing my siblings, how they interacted with each other and my parents. I was much younger than my next oldest sibling which limited my interactions with them in having shared growing experiences. In my observations of them, I found it useful to figure out how I should behave based on what they did. I observed the conflicts they had and tried to make adjustments in how I behaved to avoid those same conflicts. Finding that this was a good strategy, I began using these same methods with my classmates and teachers in school. I became a master at blending in and being able to have good relationships with most anyone older or younger than myself. I honed an already natural ability to intuit the mood of a person, what actions they were taking and then morph my own actions to coincide or match theirs. I believe this ability allowed me to gain favor in many people’s eyes as I did everything I could to make their life easier and to please them. I continued to use this ability throughout my younger years and on into adulthood.

The major downside to being a Pleaser is that I didn’t fully connect to who I was as my own person. I had little self confidence in my own abilities, nor did I even realize the enormous amount of knowledge I was gaining through my experiences as a Pleaser. I did not realize that I had an innate sensitivity to almost everything that I encountered. It hasn’t been until the last five or ten years that I’m becoming shockingly aware of how sensitive I really am. Recently, I took an online test based on Dr. Elaine Aron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). The HSP test asks a series of questions to determine your level of sensitivity to not only emotional attributes, but also physical ones as well. I scored a 27 out of 27 being the highest level of sensitivity possible. This test was a real eye opener and confirmed even more that I need to pay attention to the information I’m getting from all my senses and to trust it as being important to who I am. This test, along with the experiences I’ve had over my years, are allowing me to gain more and more confidence in who I am as a unique human being.

Nearly fifteen years ago, around 2003, I purchased the book Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch. This was the time of my life I would consider myself to be on a seeker’s journey. I’d never really felt connected to or comfortable with the dogma and teachings of the church and I was looking for something to make sense of how I felt. I consider this book the first solid connection to something that made sense to me and aligned with how I’d felt for years about religion. This got me very excited that I was not the only one who felt the way I did. The concepts and experiences that Neale was writing about seemed to be taken directly from my own thoughts and ideas. I was intrigued to think that if someone else could have these same thoughts, that maybe I wasn’t so weird after all.

I became more and more excited with feeling like the answers to my questions might be found in other sources. I began to experiment with other traditions and rituals including Wicca, Paganism, Modern Mystery School teachings, and even with the ancient traditions of the Shaman in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. Each of these experiences seem to open up an even deeper hunger for more answers. I became a regular at psychic events to get readings, learning about Numerology, Astrology and Tarot; participating in various events all aimed at folding back the reality I saw myself in. This was all in hopes of revealing a deeper meaning under it all and hopefully a better understanding of who, or better yet, what I really am. I became trained as a Reconnective Healing practitioner, Reiki Healer, and as a Breathwork practitioner. I found I had a natural ability for all of these modalities and experienced sessions with clients that I have no scientific explanation for what I witnessed.

In all of these experiences I discovered that I am much more than what I was lead to believe. I’ve discovered that I am more than human. I know and believe that I am a Being of energy and light that is so immense and powerful, that I cannot even wrap my own human mind around the concept. I believe that I am part of the All there is, and I have no fear of ever losing that. I believe that I am a spiritual being having a human experience, as the saying goes. Knowing this is amazing and thought provoking, but ultimately it has taken me to a dead end. I’m still a human being, so now what?

With all that I feel that I’ve learned and know, it became clear to me that the seeker’s journey is worthy and even necessary for those who feel lost or unsettled such as I did. I believe that each of us that feel disconnected from life need to find a way to connect to our purpose, who we are and even more importantly, what we really are. I believe that for some, until we have clarity around this, we may live a life unfulfilled and disjointed. Everyone’s seeker journey is as unique as they are, but it’s important to say that some of us get stuck in the process of being a seeker. For some, the seeker process can be like an addiction to discover more and more about the answers “out there”. Like I did for a time, some continue to rely on answers from external sources such as spirit guides, Angels, psychics, etc in order to understand their life, why things are happening and what the hidden meanings are behind things. There isn’t anything wrong with these sources but for some people, they cannot make any decision for themselves without first consulting these sources.

As my seeker journey progressed, one of the repeating themes that I discovered was to trust myself, my own wisdom and my natural gifts. Without having my journey, I recognize that I would have never known what my gifts are (or at least the ones I know of now) or what I really am in the grand scheme of existence. I never would have known how to trust myself or even known how to interpret the information I receive. I also, would have never known how to stay open to what will likely continue to be revealed to me in the future.

With all of this said and done, I now turn back to me as a human being and need to decide, what do I do now? What do I need to do to fully experience my human life on this planet, in this time in history, in this body, with this family, with these people around me, with the limitations, boundaries and abilities that I have? I get to decide how deep do I dive into each event and if it’s really worth the effort. Is it really necessary to attribute every mood or feeling to planetary movements or alignments? Do I need to look up the meaning behind the time on the clock when I woke up at 2:34 am? Do I need to confirm with a psychic if I should stay in a relationship or not? Maybe I just need to decide to get more sleep. Maybe I need to eat a better diet so I don’t wake up in the middle of the night. Maybe I should just trust myself and say yes to the relationship and find out where it takes me.

I now have the power to respond to life instead of react. I can choose to observe life from a perspective of trusting the process and doing what I can to be a responsible human. I can choose to be compassionate and loving to others. I can choose to honor the process that others have chosen for their life. I can choose to be a model and mentor when necessary. And, I can choose to encourage others to see their own power. Choosing to live my life fully in the human experience is really why I’m here, but sometimes it takes knowing more, before you can settle into that role.

Through my journey, I now know that nothing will change where I’ll end up, when all of this is done. I will go back to the All There Is once again. The question is, what experiences as a Human Being will I take back with me?

Dwight Jon Raatz
July 25th, 2018
Essay, Non-Fiction

I Am Not Important

The More

I was born in 1965 in a small town in southeastern North Dakota.  My family and I lived on a small farm where my father was a second generation farmer on the land my grandfather had homesteaded in the early 1900’s.  My father had taken over the family farm about the time I was born.  He diversified his efforts at making a living by milking cows, raising beef cattle, pigs and chickens.  We also farmed several sections of land where we raised a variety of grain crops.  For me, my childhood experiences were by many standards, unremarkable.  I am the youngest of 5 children. I can never remember feeling like we were poor or rich.  I always felt safe, cared for, and I really can’t think of a time that I needed anything.  I will admit that being the youngest child, with my next oldest sibling being about 5 years older than me, I did tend to get more things from my parents than my siblings.  I don’t really know if it was because my parents had more disposable income as I grew up, or if they somehow felt differently about buying things at that time.  I don’t remember being a needy or a complaining child in any way either.  Life just seemed to go on and on and I was mainly an observer of it.  I can’t really recall interacting with my siblings or my parents in any great depth, other than working on the farm or at the evening meals.  With the age difference from my four siblings (each of them being about a year apart in age), I tended to spend most of my time alone from what I remember.  I was often wrapped up in listening to music, reading the encyclopedia, or later on, playing with any sort of electronics I could get my hands on.  Other than the occasional teasing from my one brother, I didn’t experience any real trauma as a child.  Or at least that’s what I thought anyway.

 

In one way or another, I believe that we all are searching for some sort of peace for our lives.  From my observations, some of us have similar struggles, but at times, very different perspectives on our struggles or even how to resolve them.  When I think about the various ways people experience trauma, it really has a broad spectrum.  Depending on how you look at life or your belief systems, trauma can even begin pre-conception.  Most certainly it can be agreed that trauma can begin in the womb with exposure to various drugs, physical abuse, or even environmental factors. I believe that even the feelings and emotions of the mom and dad toward being pregnant can cause trauma to the child before they are born.  Then moving forward, you have the actual birth itself being the first standard trauma that everyone has (no matter how well the pregnancy and birth went).  If you can imagine spending 9 months being completely carefree and supported in every way, then suddenly forced into the world to deal with gravity, breathing, hunger, bowl movements, you name it.  Heck, that’s pretty traumatic right?

 

No matter what your traumatic experiences have been, they play a part in how your life is shaped, the person you become, and how you view the world.  Some of us have very good support systems and/or families that are highly aware and conscious of their bodies and emotions.  This can help you to grow up more balanced and you naturally have various ways to release the tensions of trauma through physical activity, deep conversations, and overall support from those you love.  This however is not so common from observations of my little corner of the world. So what do the rest of us need to do when we experience trauma?  Well, some will stuff the feelings, some will act out in various ways including anger, depression, anxiety, self mutilation, danger seeking, drugs, over-working and various other destructive methods.  Then there are others who have tried more “positive” avenues like therapy, psychics, energy healing, meditation, religion, athletics, etc.  It seems to me that most, but not all, methods tend to start with the mind when trying to find peace.  The mind is indeed an important place to focus the healing practice, but only when you approach that healing from a positive perspective, that is focused on releasing tension in both the mind and body.

 

It’s very interesting to think about all of the classes I’ve taken and methods of “connection” or rituals I was shown.  While many of them are important and relevant, I could never really understand why they had to be so complicated (e.g. having to speak a mantra in a particular way, moving your body in a particular manner, vocalizing in a particular tone, etc).  I believe that there is purpose to these methods and they can even be valid depending on where you are at in your journey.  I kept going back to my childhood, sitting in church and thinking, why does this all have to seem so complicated and wrought with possible ways to fail?  I just could not believe that an “all-knowing” being that created us from dust, would even have a need for us to do anything complicated let alone be worshipped.

 

Like many, I’ve done a lot of the abovenegative andpositive methods for finding peace for my mind.  As I look back at many of these methods, the focus seemed to be outside of my body and mind, as if the solution was “out there” somewhere.  I can remember going to several psychics searching for one of them that could just reach inside my mind and flip the proverbial switch to allow peace in and the rest to go.  I even got to the point where I saw so many different psychics, I would consider myself a junkie.  As I spent a lot of time and money, I realized I was getting more and more angry that “they” weren’t fixing me. I realized that I was looking for the solution outside of myself.  After about 10 years of trying many avenues, I finally began to see that the solutions have always been inside of me.  I know this is not news really, as I’ve heard that kind of thing for years, but I never really believed it.  This was until I was introduced to a method of healing that is based on a very basic human function, breathing.

 

When I was introduced to Rebirthing Breathwork, I initially thought it was just another fad that sounded interesting.  However, on the very first session, I experienced an unexpected shift and release out of a seeming nowhere. At this point I knew I was hooked and I needed to know more, so I signed up for a year long training course to become a certified breathwork practitioner.  It’s been about three years since first learning the technique and I’ve been through many sessions myself and I’ve coach many people in their own sessions.  As time went on and life happened, I got distracted and stopped for several months from doing any sort of healing practices on myself and others.  Then I got an invitation from my teacher to attend a workshop called “Loving Relationships” with Sondra and Markus Ray.   This workshop was focused on improving all of our relationships, but more specifically our intimate personal ones.

 

One of the first exercises we went through at the workshop was to do sentence completion related to the negative thoughts that run through my mind.  The idea was to determine our personal primary negative belief that we have underlying our thoughts.  I started out with, “I’m not enough”, then, “I overthink and worry”, then, “I am a fake”, then, “I’m not important to anyone”, then, “I’m not important enough to be loved.”.  As I looked at what I had written it struck me that my primary negative belief is, “I am not important”.  This really resonated with me as I could see it was at the very heart of many symptoms I’ve experienced over the years.

 

When I was very young, probably under the age of 20, I don’t know if I ever thought much about feeling important to anyone or not.  When I look back and try to remember how things were during that time, I recall being connected to a very small group of friends more so than being connected to my family.  My friends seemed to fulfill that part of my life that wanted to be acknowledged and valued.  They would seek me out to do things.  They went out of their way to listen to me, try to understand and to relate to me their own stories.  It wasn’t until I went to college and afterwards when got my first career job that I started to notice how very disconnected I felt from my family.  When they would ask me how my life was going, I would tell them about my job or what I’m learning and I felt that they would just stop listening.  Sometimes they would say something like, “I just don’t understand [insert whatever topic I was presenting].”  I found that the harder I tried to explain my life, my career, my spiritual growth, or my thoughts, they would become more and more disconnected.  Finally it got to the point that I just stopped trying.  I just gave them what they wanted to hear, which usually meant saying something like, “Oh yes, I’m very busy at my job.  Lot’s of projects to work on.”, and that was it.  This was very common in all my interactions.  I became very skilled at giving a short answer and then turning the conversation around to focus on them.

 

Things seemed to progress over the years where I would start to attribute people not acknowledging me in one way or another, as me not being important.  This belief infiltrated my relationships with my wife and kids, my employer, my social friends, you name it.  I got to the point that I felt numb to even wanting to feel connected to anyone, or to allow love to be given or received.  It was easier and safer to protect myself than to be hurt by allowing someone into my heart.  So it went on like this for over 30+ years.  I was living my life, but in a very closed way.  I was quick to have anger, which I directed inward.  I had cycles of good days followed by many fraught with anxiety and depression.  I worked hard at keeping all of this bottled up inside of me.  I tried desperately to “protect” my wife and kids from all of this, but they suffered from the side effects despite my best intentions.

 

All of my thoughts around not being acknowledged, respected, smart, good enough, you name it; all came down to feeling or thinking that I am not important; not to life, family, friends, employers, or neighbors. If I were to cease to exist in this very moment, the overall rhythm of life would only experience a very small, mostly unnoticeable bump in the road.  This feeling was pervasive in my life making me feel very lonely, depressed and angry.  After the weekend workshop I made a promise to myself that I would start again with my own healing practices and I made an appointment with my coach the following week for a breathwork session.

 

When I went into my Breathwork session with Deanna (my coach), I really didn’t know what I was going to focus on. We started out by talking for at least an hour about what I was dealing with lately, I talked about my desire to be heard by others, feelings of being disrespected, and having no path for the future. Since I didn’t feel at the time that I had anything specific to breathe on, I decided to choose my primary negative belief (or primary personal lie), as this seemed like as good as anything else.

 

The breathing was done the same way we had at the retreat I attended. My mouth was more open, and with a relaxed jaw and with a fuller breath.  I began to breath in the specific cyclical pattern for Rebirthing Breathwork, having no pause at the bottom or top of the breath.  This makes your breathing a bit faster than normal.  My breathing seemed unremarkable as my mind flitted from one topic to another. As I saw each thought come up in my mind, I would just release it using the rhythm of the breath. This process went on for some time until I could feel “the flip” happen.  The “flip” is that moment where you move from consciously breathing, to a more automatic rhythm and your body takes over breathing.  My breathing became faster yet and my body started to cramp a bit, and my jaw and hands got stiff, which is normal in this process. Deanna was there to keep me on track, telling me to relax my jaw and open my mouth more, and to breathe through the cramping. I’ve definitely been in worse shape for cramping when I first did this technique, but I’ve since learned to recognize and release that tension.

 

At some point I relaxed more and I could feel my whole body, or what felt like an energetic representation of my body, began to rise up off/out from my physical body.  The sensation was similar to a heavy vibration that encompassed my whole body.  As the vibration lifted, I could feel my physical body become more still and relaxed.  Somehow I knew I needed to release this “representation” of myself, so I really amped up my breathing even more.

 

At times I became distracted by visions or dreams and my breathing would slow down. When this happened, the energetic “self” started to descend back into me. Deanna would coach me to focus and get on track again which would push the energy further and further out. Finally I felt that the release or separation was far enough away that it could no longer come back unless I willed it to. In those final moments my breath pushed it far enough away and I could feel it disconnect and vanish!

 

As I came out of a sort of trance I was in, we began to talk about the experience I had where I described each detail as I’ve written here. Deanna shared with me how she also could sense the release I was describing. Now that I’m writing this and processing more, I now know that the release was a sort of shield or armor. I had no idea what it was at the time, I just knew it needed to go.

 

At this point I felt like I was done and the session felt complete as I was relaxing on the table. Deanna was telling me how I had done well. Then, what felt like words from another source or dimension , Deanna said, “You are so important Dwight.” At this moment time stopped, and I could feel this transfer or a gift of love energy enter into my body and spirit. I felt shocked and very surprised by the feeling. It was like something I’d never felt or experienced before. I can only describe it as being very thirsty and you take that first mouthful of cool water and you feel it wash over your throat, chest and finally your whole body. In that moment, my breath caught in my throat and I felt a sense of laughter or joy that came out of me. It was just a moment, because directly afterward came a huge cascading feeling of a perfect mix of pure joy and sorrow flooding my whole body.  In those few moments, I felt like for the first time I had allowed myself to feel love, to feel my amazing importance, and it was so powerful I didn’t know what to do with it.  I was sad that I’ve been without this miracle in my life. I could feel the pain and sorrow releasing and joy receiving. The sorrow was from knowing that I’d starved myself from feeling love. My body and spirit were, what I can only describe as, being released from a concentration camp, a starved, emaciated skeleton of a person walking out of the wire gates of the prison. This flood of emotions manifested in my body by letting loose with sobbing, short breaths and a sense of fear of the letting go. My voice came with the sobs in short bursts as I fought the release, but Deanna coached me to let go and breathe!  At that moment I had to decide.  Was I going to trust that I was safe by letting go?  Was Deanna safe to do this with?  What would happen to me if I let go? Would I be able to come back or would I be lost in the emotion of this?  In that split second of thought, I decided it no longer served me to keep holding on.  I needed desperately to grow and to release the pain, and this was the moment.  I trusted Deanna and I trusted this process.  The breathing allowed me to let go of the last blocks, and to even sob harder than I can ever remember before in my life. I had no idea that all of this wastrapped inside of me.

 

As the exchange of released emotion and the taking in of love happened, I simply surrendered to it all. Deanna coached me along and I remember having my left hand over my eyes and forehead. I could feel the tears and sweat all over my face. My right hand was on my heart and I could feel Deanna’s hands on me. I reached for her hand and held on, feeling the connection to Earth and to humanity through her. I could hear her repeating the phrase, “You are so important Dwight.”, over and over in low soft tones. I remember my breath flowing and all of the tightness in my chest releasing more and more. It’s so very hard to explain in words the release of the pain and emotions.  It’s hard to describe the thirst I felt for allowing myself to feel love.  It’s hard allow myself to feel this vulnerable with anyone.  What would they think of me now after seeing me completely lose it?  Would I appear to be weak, not a man, not more in control of my life?  I believe many of us feel this way when faced with letting go of emotions and the possibility of being embarrassed or even ridiculed for doing just that.

 

I began to calm and felt the wave ending. I relaxed and wiped my face and blew my nose. As I laid there, I felt an amazing peace in and around me. We talked a bit and about the experience and I tried to express what I felt, but mostly I was quiet. Then Deanna started to say the mantra again and again, “You are so important Dwight.”, in continued low and soft tones. Thinking that I was done with the session was silly because the whole thing just cut loose again! I could feel that there was more that needed to be released and my body knew it, and apparently so did Deanna. This cycle was shorter but even more intense than before. For the first time in my life, I can actually say that I not only sobbed, but I wailed with sorrow and joy. I used my voice to transmute that feeling and energy. This final wave subsided after a time andI was finally done. I lay there completely spent.

 

It’s very hard to describe my session in words. The big releases that I had were nothing like I’ve ever experienced before. I know that I’ve never in my life allowed myself to be so raw, to be so vulnerable to the feelings I was having in those moments.  I only know that this was a life changing moment for me.  I had made a big step toward my own personal freedom.  I’d allowed myself to feel love and know that I needed and wanted this to be more prevalent in my life.  This is a huge thing for me because I’ve found the concept of love to be somewhat of a mystery. It’s not a that I didn’t understand it at all, I just never really “felt” love to any huge degree from what I remember. I knew enough of love, to realize that I was missing something.

 

In the moments and minutes that followed, I did some more processing with Deanna, drank water and talked. I found it difficult to move my body.  I felt like I was trying to force my very essence back into my physical body.  It was hard to coordinate my muscles to even move me out of the room and the building out to my car. Since I’d had some experience with doing this in the past, I knew I needed to be extra careful as I drove home. Breathwork like other types of healing practices can cause you to be in an altered state and even feel as though you are “out of body” at times. It’s important to spend time re-integrating, and a good way to do this is by drinking water and eating a small amount of food. Dark chocolate is one of the recommended foods to eat, but anything that is organic and unprocessed.

 

I know this is not the end. I know there is more, but for now I’m in a really good place. I feel blessed and loved. I’m ready now to move forward into the days to come full of love!

 

– Dwight Jon Raatz, 10/11/2017

 

(Edited 11/21/2017)

What Is Real?

The More

Lately I’ve struggled with what I perceive to be reality.  This struggle has, at times, given me pause to even question my own sanity (which can be quite frightening).  As I dove into the feeling of this, it put me on a path of thinking about how I perceive reality in my own life as well as the lives of others.

There seems to be a couple ways to learn about what is real in your life, and one of them is through experience.  For most people, we think the things we can perceive with our senses (sight, sound, touch, etc) makes them real.  The other way to learn is by being taught what is real. If there are things we can’t verify with our senses, then there must be accepted scientific or mathematical ways to test and verify something is real as proof. Another seemingly acceptable way to view something as real is to hear someone else tell us that it is (friends, family, media, etc).  But what if you have experiences that cannot easily be verified in any way, nonetheless you had the experience and it was very “real” to you?

Have you ever had the experience of driving in your car and you come to a stop light in the midst of several other cars and you are stopped for a length of time?  While sitting there, you kind of lose focus on things as you look at the cars beside you, and suddenly you get the sensation that somehow your car is moving backward, like you are rolling back for some reason?  Then in a short panic you press on the break harder to stop, but you don’t and then you snap out of it only to realize that you are not moving, but the car(s) next you are moving forward?  In that moment you thought you were rolling backward, you thought that was really happening right?

Another example of a perceived reality happened several months ago where I was driving home after a long day on a very familiar road.  As I was driving, I had a sense of where I was and the direction I was going and what I was expecting to see next, but all of the sudden I came upon a stop light that should not have existed.  For a second I was completely disoriented and I could feel the world around me spin slightly when I realized that I was on a completely different road and hadn’t driven as far as I thought I had.  In the moments leading up to my realization, I thought where I was, what I was doing, seeing and experiencing to be very real.  These kinds of “re-orientating to reality” moments have happened to me several times over the years and each time it was quite disturbing. It usually takes me several minutes to come back into alignment with the reality I’m perceiving in that moment. Was what I experienced real or not?

About eight years ago, I was driving to work in my 1996 Geo Prism on a very cold and snowy winter morning.  I was heading for downtown Minneapolis at the intersection of Hwy 55 and Hwy 100 going east.  The roads that morning were snowy and a bit icy.  As I was stopped at the light with no other cars around me, I looked in my rear view mirror to see a large black pickup truck driving straight toward the back of my car.  What I perceived was that this truck was going way too fast for the road conditions and was invariably going to crash into me.  Well, if you know anything about a Geo Prism, it does not have any getup and go, but instinctively, I stepped on the gas and floored it (even though I was a a stoplight) and I braced for impact. What happened next, was nothing at all!  No impact.  As a matter of fact, when I looked in my mirrors, there was no truck at all, nothing!  I even slowed so much I physically looked out all my windows and there was no truck or any other vehicle around me at all in any direction.  In those few seconds there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to be rear-ended by that black pickup truck.  So, was what I saw and experienced real or not?

In the Summer of 2010 I was taking a nap in the front room (we called it the parlor) of my home in Buffalo, MN.  I was in that kind of pre-awake state where I could sense that I was awake, but my eyes were not open yet.  As I laid there on the couch, I felt very relaxed as I could feel the summer sun coming through the windows warming me.  I was enjoying that feeling and sense of peace when quite faintly I could hear a kind of buzzing or fluttering sound in the room.  Initially I was thinking it was a fly in the window, but the sound didn’t quite match with my memory because the sound was much deeper and fuller.  I continued to keep myself in the space of “not awake” with my eyes closed and I could hear the fluttering sound circling the room getting near as it circled.  Then it came very close to my face and I could hear the deep fluttering sound of wings and even a slight movement in the air around me.  In my mind’s eye, I started to get a sense for what the being or creature looked like.  I then opened my eyes only to have the sound and feeling of what I thought was there with me to instantly dissipate.  What did I experience?  Was it real or not?

I think perhaps the most significant experience I’ve had around perceiving what is real is my own thoughts around how I believe something will turn out or how someone will react or respond to my actions.  There have been many times that I’ve held back from sharing myself with others (especially family).  When I’ve thought about sharing something important or possibly controversial with them, I would often think I knew how they would respond and usually the thought was not favorable.  I would often spend weeks, months or even years with anxiety, afraid that if I did tell them, they would reject me or they might possibly stop loving me or talking to me.  This fear would infect my life and relationships with others and get to a point where I knew I needed to come clean.  The interesting thing is that in every instance when I finally confessed, they never responded the way I had predicted.  It was a total lie. Every time, they were thoughtful about my issue and very accepting of me.  Each time this happened to me, I would not only be relieved but I would reprimand myself for having spent so much time believing this spell of fear.  What I assumed to be so very real was not real at all.

Most recently I’ve been going through what feels like a large shift or transformation in my life.  This shift is a culmination of many factors including career, marriage, aging, and the ever present ebb and flow of the Universe.  I find myself having a powerful drive to seek more fulfillment in my life, in how I spend my time and who I spend that time with.  I feel as if I am in an in-between place moving from the role of raising kids, building a career (which was created from necessity and not from my heart), divorce and re-marriage, and an ever evolving change in physical health. I’m now moving toward a deep calling from the bowels of the Universe within me to finally allow myself to bring forth the full possibility of what I have to offer this world.  This in-between place feels like my own primordial soup of possibilities.  What I can create for myself in the next phase of my life?  It has been so intense at times I find myself having out of body experiences with my “Self” being the observer of my body and the interactions of it and the world around.  It has been at times very frightening because I feel if I were to just let go a bit more, I would never be able to reconnect myself with this world and physical reality I am in.  I also have the dual experience of being intrigued with the experience because there is a great sense of peace, wonder and interest from the Observer’s perspective.  The Observer is not invested or involved with the interactions of the body, ego or even the physical reality of the experience, it just sees or senses.  So is what I’m experiencing real or not?

As I think about what I’ve written, I feel a common theme has appeared. Reality is based on whatever I chose to focus my attention on at any point in time. This “attention” is really perspective on any given situation. I find this fascinating.  I’ve often thought about how each of us perceive things and if someone else sees the same things or not.  For example, when I look at the color red, is what I perceive as red the same for you as it is for me?  This perspective is also described in a story I wrote in my blog the-more.com a few years ago called “The Reality of Fog”.  I was on a trip to Peru with a friend, when we found ourselves slightly lost in the airport as we tried to figure out where to go for our next flight.  We each had a perspective on what we thought were the right direction through an airport, only to find out we each were looking at the same signs in a slightly different way. Another good example is found in a TEDx Talk titled “Dying to be me” where a woman named Anita Moorjani describes her experience with cancer, her death and coming back to life.  Her message on her awareness of the world was strikingly similar to what I described above in my “Observer” story.  I highly recommend you watch!

I’ve experienced many profound things during my journey from within, and from the world around me.  Each of these experiences has allowed me to grow more and more into who I truly am as a person.  This tangible and palpable experience of the Observer has been challenging, but I truly believe it is all a part of another transformation the Universe is providing for me to grow.  The challenging part of all of this is the intensity of the feeling and how overwhelming transformation can be. The one thing that allows the process to flow, is in the sharing of the moments, and connecting with others in their own similar experiences.  How are you perceiving the world around you, and allowing the experiences to change your life?

– Dwight Raatz

The Goddess Shook

The More

It is time for change and the layers built years upon years ache to be set free.

She takes stock and prepares, there are signs and she heeds them.

She spends time to reflect on the years, the good times and the dark. This brings wisdom and the urge grows stronger.

She Shook

She gathers her resources and plans the new course to be manifest.  This is the new her, the one of her choice and making.

The elements are prepared and nothing will stand in her way as there can be no other way.

The time has come and all is ready. Now, this Goddess, this Mother, this Divine Being will erupt and bring forth new life. Her new life.

She Shook.

 

Dwight Raatz

When Protection Becomes a Block

The More

As I’ve progressed through my life’s journey, I have unknowingly created a protective energetic coating around me.  This coating or cocoon has worked as a way to protect me from various aspects as I’ve grown and found my way down my path.  Up to this point, it’s done this job with varying degrees of success depending the challenge I’m faced with.  Sometimes the challenge has caused this coating to become even thicker or stronger to help “protect” me in the future.  While this protection serves a purpose during the initial stages of my life, I’m finding that it’s now become a block to my growth.

Recently I was with a group of friends who meet occasionally to do meditative journeys by using drumming or other kinds of percussion.  As we assembled for our session, there was talk about what we wanted to do as part our evening event.  Various ideas came up as we went around the room and the interesting thing that seems to happen is that through this conversation, the true “need” for the evening emerges from the ether.  Even after some really solid thoughtful ideas were offered, the “need” will just show itself and become exactly what should be done.  This happened during our last session.

I’m honored to say that I was chosen as what needed to be focused on.  This happened after what seemed initially as an off-hand comment from one friend that she sees a bubble or coating surrounding me, and that she’s wanted to “pop” this for some time.  Within minutes I was standing in the center of the room with my friends in a circle around me.  They set the circle with their intention to transform me, to draw me out of that cocoon that has housed me for years, but no longer serves me.  My friends could see that my need for this protection was no longer needed, even though I didn’t see it myself.

The session was intense to say the least.  There was drumming, rattles, un-recognizable spoken words, yelling, invoking and calling to that person inside the cocoon that was sleeping.  I closed my eyes and felt as if I was sucked down to the ground, anchored in place and secure.  I was not afraid as I knew my chosen family was around me, caring for me.  As the drumming became louder and louder, I could feel its vibrations ripple through me.  I could feel the slippery sticky coating ripple and loose its cohesiveness.  It would atomize and then reform instantly, trying desperately to stay together.  I could feel waves of energy pulsing through me from my head out through my feet into the earth.  My heart raced and my whole body vibrated.  Slowly with each movement, drum beat and command, the cocoon parted and fell away.  I could feel a cool breeze and fresh air rush into my lungs.  I felt lighter as if I could bounce all the way to moon in a single bound.

When it was finally over, I was surrounded in a group hug of support.  I was shaking and felt weak and as my eyes opened for the first time, I realized I was looking through new eyes at a place and people I didn’t really know.  I saw each of them in the beauty they held inside with their true selves.  They were shiny and glowing and beautiful.

As each person approached and introduced themselves I felt honored and peaceful to be there with these great Beings of light.  One person asked if I “feel better” and I found it confusing as I didn’t feel as if I had anything prior to compare it to.  My answer was, “Compared to what?  I have nothing outside of this moment to know.”

In my time since this session, I have found that my eyes are still adjusting to this new view on the world.  I see even more, my connection with others and how important that to be effective at changing the world, it must begin within me.  This is not a selfish thing at all, but rather a necessity.  I understand that transformation comes in a variety of forms.  Sometimes those moments are small and almost imperceptible; other times they are huge and earth shattering.  The important thing is to be mindful of each change, honor it and keep your awareness on your next actions.

“The only constant is change.” – Heraclitus of Ephesus a Greek philosopher (c.535 BC – 475 BC)

Dwight Raatz