Ancestors Full Moon 3 (Boundaries VII)

A reader asks…

“Now how to come upon that ego death, what is that – and what does that look like?  I know it’s in the ‘literature’; the fine print!  And am I reading between the lines, perhaps, that seem to be about moving up and beyond karmic entanglement?  …it feels so weighted now.”

Yes, I realized last night that I should say more about Ego Death, but I’d already written so much that I didn’t want to stretch it out more.  So I appreciate the Question.

And yes, Ego Death is “in the literature,” at https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/identity/ego-death/.  The essence is Noticing that you’re feeling like “I’d rather die than go through that again,” and a key to becoming Adept with this “ED” is to reframe the Experience from “I’d rather Die than…” to “I would rather die than…”  Making that a PIAVA would also be a boon.  There’s much more “in the literature,” for instance, when you get lost in your own ‘hood or can’t remember your own phone number, those are signs that you’re Newly Reborn.

Ego Death is a Psychological Molt that needs to occur whenever we feel Overwhelmed and Recognize that we have to Change something in order to Enjoy going on with our Life, but we also feel Trapped by our Commitments (or lack thereof if we’re Feeling Isolated) and don’t know what we even can Change.  Making our Ego Death a PIAVA Surrenders all that Change mishmash about What and Why and How and Who to our Intuition, which Knows well What needs to be Changed, and How to do it.

We might PIAVA an Ego Death with something like “I Wonder what I need to be Happy” or “Great Spirit, Please Make My Life Enjoyable (Again)” or Asking yourself “What Do I Really Want?” and then spending some time with the Feeling you would have in your Body if you had the Luxury of Allowing Yourself to Receive Exactly That.  And certainly “You Poor Sweetheart, you Feel at your Wit’s End, don’t you” or “… you feel Anxious, don’t you” would be a quick way to Change the wallpaper.  Of course you’d Change the Subject after each PIAVA.

Folks say that all this “New Agey” stuff is just another excuse for putting off the Action that we need to take, but I differ adamantly about that.  Taking Action from our Dynamic Planning-Doing mindset Changes nothing, as our Inner Male can only perpetuate His Limitations.  We have to Appeal to our Inner Female to Change anything.  She Knows what must be done, and She Knows how to Motivate your Inner Male to Enjoy getting to Work when it’s Time and when it’s Right.

The whole idea behind PIAVA is that, sometime after you Change the Subject, you Wake Up and Notice that You Are Doing What It Takes to Solve the Problem, without even Noticing that you’re Doing it, because once you Changed the Subject you Changed your Perspective, and now the World is running on a whole New engine and transmission, and the words you used to use to describe your Frustration (if you even remember them, which often you won’t) aren’t even Relevant anymore.

Your Inner Lady IS your Heart, She Knows What You Want Intimately, and She Knows How to Get It, because She Knows the World Intuitively.  Your “Head” (really we’re talking about the Third Chakra, not the Sixth, so “Head” is a misnomer – your Inner Male comes out of your Solar Plexus) only Knows What You Think, and you’re Thinking that What You Want is Unreachable, and since He only Knows the World Empirically, He can only Act to Keep On Doing What He’s Been Doing, which Aint Working, or you wouldn’t be in need of an Ego Death.

And yes, Karma has been Dead for a long time now, except for our own Grasping of it.  As for the Weight,

there’s probably an Ego Death in there, and probably a Held Emotion (aka Karmic PTSD).  The quickest way to find out is to make yourself Comfortable, Locate the Heaviness in your Body, Warm It, Soften around It (Fear is Hard and Cold, Love is Soft and Warm), put your Full Attention into the Center of It, and Hold It there until the Heaviness Moves. Then Change the Subject.

Of course it will help to Give your Inner Child Permission to Blubber unashamedly and uncontrollably, and to Complain to friends – but only those who will understand that your Intention is to Let Go rather than to Bitch (a la RC – see https://www.rc.org/) or to Accuse anyone of anything.

By the way, do you know how to Complain without putting the load right on your Listeners?  You speak in I statements rather than You or They Statements, and you use Feeling verbs rather than Thinking verbs (“Feel Like” is a Thinking verb – a Feeling verb is always followed by an Emotion word such as Angry or Excited or Bummed).  This way your Listeners can Enjoy your Story, and to the extent they’re able, Empathize, without having to Take Responsibility for your Process.  If you want to study how to do this, see https://www.cnvc.org/.

Endings III

Now the End of the Patriarchy is a pretty Big Ending.  See if you can figure out who said this…

“The top seven stories today are all guys getting blown up, and these are not small guys.  I think it’s going to unfold like the Tea Party, only bigger.  It’s not Me Too.  It’s not just sexual harassment.  It’s an anti-patriarchy movement.  Time’s up on 10,000 years of recorded history.  This is coming.  This is real.”

We’ll give you some time to think about it, and then later we’ll give you the answer. 

Here’s a story about Ending a Pattern and Choosing to Embrace an alternative…

With thanks to https://taniamarieartist.wordpress.com/2018/02/12/celebrate-whats-right-with-the-world/ for the suggestion.

The Arcturian Perspective on Choice, via Daniel Scranton…

http://danielscranton.com/how-powerful-you-are-%e2%88%9ethe-9th-dimensional-arcturian-council-2/

“By the power that you access within yourselves, you are able to produce new timelines, new probabilities, and therefore, new experiences.  We are always going to encourage you to go within yourselves to discover the power that you possess.  Your power is in your ability to focus.  You are focusers of energy, and you are accessing vibrations all the time.

“When you realize how powerful you are, and when you recognize that your power lies within you and in the present moment, that is when you will truly begin to create your reality consciously.  By demonstrating to yourselves how powerful you are, and that you can be trusted with that power, you enable yourselves to experience the new timelines that you create.

“When you are focusing on the past, or projecting out into the future similar results that you’ve achieved previously, you disempower yourselves.  You become more reactionary than creation-oriented.  Creation is the name of the game.  It’s what you came here to do.  You create, and you experience.  You experience, get information, and make choices about what you want to create next.

“Now, there are ways in which you can access your power that you have not yet discovered.  These will be coming to you as downloads that you will unlock, but the power is there.  The power is already within you.  Accessing your power is as easy as acknowledging that you have it, focusing within yourself, and activating a vibration.

“If you begin by accessing vibrations for the sheer enjoyment of it, you will recognize that you create your experience in the now moment.  You create an experience of the now moment, and that now moment expands out.  It becomes what you call the future.  And when you walk in your power, you can access any future experience you desire.  And you are ready.  You are ready to experience just how powerful you are.”

Now, as for Ending the Patriarchy…

“The top seven stories today are all guys getting blown up, and these are not small guys.  I think it’s going to unfold like the Tea Party, only bigger.  It’s not Me Too.  It’s not just sexual harassment.  It’s an anti-patriarchy movement.  Time’s up on 10,000 years of recorded history.  This is coming.  This is real.”

Steven Bannon said that!  https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-09/has-anyone-seen-the-president.

Connecting Off-Planet and Off-Dimension

As I’ve said many times, it’s important that we reconnect with Fairy Energies.  Everything we eat is derived from Plants, and Fairies are to Plants as Souls are to Hupers.  If you aren’t a Breatharian, you need to be on good terms with the Little People.

I’m recommending this week’s online “class” on these folks, “The Emerald Forest, Exploring the Mystery of Elemental Alchemy”...

https://lightquest-intl.com/schedule-workshops/

If you’d like an introduction to Bryan deFlores, scroll down on the same page to where it says…

“Radio Interview with Bryan – Fantastic!  

Awaken to Happiness Now”

It’s relatively long, but an excellent Perspective on our Off-Planet relations.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to one of Bryan’s workshops, but he seems to have mellowed a lot, seeming less self-conscious and simply excited by what he’s doing – which is a lot.  His artistry is amazing…

https://lightquest-intl.com/gallery1/

My skepticism has always been on full volume around his off-planet work, but he’s consistently managed to circumvent it.

 

Truthspeaking

Most of this is Water under the Bridge, but it’s recent enough that it may help you make sense of what’s been going on lately in your Young Life, and it’s very relevant to the Main Effect during the first half of 2016 – which is the removal, willingly or otherwise, of our last few Masks.  Removing Our Masks and Speaking Our Truth are pretty much just different ways of saying the same thing.  

It’s actually very possible to Speak Our Truth without being Offensive.  Many of us though are more in the habit of being Nice than Honest, so getting to that place will probably take some practice.  As we practice Speaking Our Truth, there’s one thing we need to remember.  

We can finesse our Speech to be less Offensive, but we have no control over whether or not its recipient is Offended.  

Even in Cross-Cultural situations where we’ve studied the protocols of the other Culture, people are still individuals and may not follow the protocols of their own culture.  Even if we’re careful to master the technology of Non-Offensive Speech, such as…

http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/aboutnvc.htm

we still can’t control what others hear.

We’ve worked through many of our Masks, as Uranus (True or Soul Self) Squared Pluto (Inevitability) from 2012 till 2016.  And we spent much of March, with its Eclipses, doing preparatory work for June’s peeling of the next layer, as Eris (Revelation of Denial) Initiates Uranus.

Which occurs on 9 June at 24 Aries, “Blown inward by the wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a cornucopia.”  We could worry that it’s not a real Cornucopia, just a curtain, an Illusion.  But that would be a waste of Imagination.  It we Feel Abundance, we can Be Abundance.  If we find ourselves focusing on Doubt, we can Embrace it Lovingly, and melt it into Oblivion.

Closely related to Removing our Masks, Speaking our Truth, and while we’re at it owning our Abandoned Genius, is the task of Letting Go of our Limiting Beliefs.  While there are many ways to do that, one way is to Lovingly and Gently re-Experience the Traumatic Memories that the Limiting Beliefs encode.  Tapping can greatly accelerate the process of shifting the Memories from Trauma to an Honest recollection of what happened, stripped of the Overwhelming Emotion that forced it into the Unconscious.  It may retain enough Emotional weight to have a strong impact on our Values, but it will no long be Overwhelming, and it will no longer be an Archetype controlling our Behavior from the Unconscious.

Consequently, it will not be surprising if between March and June Memories arise which provide us opportunities to Choose between Letting Go or Re-Leasing – as in signing up for an additional Lease term.  All of which suggests that we might find three new asteroids useful – Mnemosyne (Memory), Aletheia (Truth, in Greek), and Veritas (Truth, in Latin).  If there was an asteroid named for Lethe, the River of Forgetfulness or Oblivion (personified by a daughter of Eris!), that’d also be useful, as Oblivion is typical of Unconscious Overwhelm, Preconscious lack of Discernment, and garden-variety Denial – but I haven’t found one.  A drink from the River Lethe was an integral part of moving from one Lifetime to the next, a metaphor for the sort of Ego Death and Rebirth that’s involved with Letting Go of significant Limiting Beliefs.  Aletheia is A-Lethe-ia, or Non-Forgetfulness.

So, have these asteroids have been lit up lately, or will they be lit up when Eris Initiates Uranus?

Turns our Aletheia and Veritas are both in Aries, and Mnemosyne in Pisces…

• On 17 March Uranus Initiated Aletheia at 20 Aries, “A young girl feeding birds in winter“
• On 27 March Uranus Initiated Veritas at 20 Aries, and Eris Initiated Aletheia at 23 Aries, “Through imagination a lost opportunity is regained“
• On 2 April Chiron Initiated Mnemosyne at 23 Pisces, “A ‘materializing’ medium giving a seance” and Sedna Initiated asteroid Karma at 25 Taurus, “A vast public park“
• On 4 April Eris Initiates Veritas at 23 Aries

Meanwhile dwarf planet Sedna (Actions Taken out of Fear) Dances with asteroid Karma – since Actions taken out of Fear are good candidates to accompany Trauma and Create Karma, it also belongs here.  Karma is Inertia – Habits, unproductive or misplaced Archetypes – and our Limiting Beliefs are just that, Self-Sabotaging Habits.

The valuable exercise here is to look for correlations between your Inner (Emotions) and Outer (Circumstances) Experiences during these times.  Did they demonstrate or betray any Limiting Beliefs?  Any places where your Conception of Reality wasn’t big enough to encompass What You Want?  Were you left puzzling about anything?  Did you have Epiphanies?

Reading Astrology

Reader Rita writes,

“I’m wondering if you can recommend books for me to dive into to start studying astrology?  I believe the older the editions the truer the teaching.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.”

Absolutely, though bear in mind that my style of astrology isn’t mainstream.  That basics of what I practice are in…

• Dane Rudhyar, The Astrology of Personality
• Dane Rudhyar, The Lunation Cycle
• Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala
• Joseph Goodavage, Write Your Own Horoscope
• Angeles Arrien, The Tarot Handbook
• Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
• Carl Jung, Synchronicity or Carl Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, Atom and Archetype
• David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates, Please Understand Me
• Starhawk, Truth or Dare
• Robert Moss, The Three “Only” Things
• Marshall Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication
• Felix Wolf, The Art of Navigation

I use astrology as a trigger for Intuition, rather than memorizing what other astrologers have found to be true for people.  Using what others have found to be true is more “scientific,” but also more reductionist.  As John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”  People see what they Expect to see.  Also, the Planet is Changing fast; what was true for people ten or twenty years ago may no longer be true.

I focus almost exclusively on the Angles between planets (“aspects” in atrologuese), because they show how a person runs their Energy, but understanding the Signs and Houses is fundamental too, as background.  The Goodavage book describes specifics of planets in signs and houses; after you’ve read Rudhyar you can skim through that (and use it as a reference when your Intuition gets stuck) to verify that you understand how the Signs fit together.

My bottom-line rule is that the only reason you’d ever want to tell someone something negative about themselves, is when you’re trying to manipulate them.  Like many of the “healing arts,” many astrologers start from pathology – these are good things, these are bad things.  As you read, you need to filter out the Judgments of the authors.  Rather than trying to herd people into meeting someone’s Norms, educate them to their Skills.  If there is something in the chart that might trip them up, ask them if they’ve ever encountered a frustration of that nature, then tell them how to Transcend it.

You’ll need dedicated software, or one of the free internet services, to draw up charts.  Some of the “canned” reports on some of these can be revealing.  Its a pain to draw up a chart by hand, but it’s good to know how, because you’ll understand a lot more about the underlying concepts if you do learn that.

Learn as much as you can about your own chart first, but practice a lot on the charts of friends.  Don’t tell them what their chart says, ask them if what you think you see in their chart might apply to them, while being aware that they might not always provide a “correct” answer, because they may not be Aware, because they’re in hiding, or because you didn’t happen to phrase your question in terms that made sense to them.  You’ll need a multi-level understanding of how Hupers work, which you can gain in any number of ways.  

Feel free to ask questions about anything you see in this blog, or elsewhere.  I’m available to coach if you’d like.

Authenticity and Self-Sovereignty II

Nothing beats a Manganotantalite Crystal, if you can find one, for facilitating Communication.

  Ö    Ö    Ö    Ö    Ö 

Pluto, which is Standing Still today (that means it’s influence is much Stronger than usual) represents Transformation.  Since we only see the shadows of “Reality” on our cave wall – which means that the small part of it that our six senses allow us to Witness is filtered through our Limiting Beliefs – we usually spell that “Trance(Re)Formation.”  That is, the Trance that our Limiting Beliefs impose upon us, is up for revision.  Another word we often associate with Pluto is Mandatory or Compulsive.  Shifts promulgated by Pluto are often just that – not optional.  We often perceive them as happening to us rather than something we Created, and since we usually see Pluto as bigger than the Individual, there’s a large grain of Truth there.

There are obviously many many facets and flavors of Ego Death running around, and Pluto qualifies as a trigger for that, though there are multiple other triggers as well.  But what most folks consider the Bigger Transformation is when we Change Vehicles, or Let Go of our current Physical Body.  Here’s a long-time palliative care nurse (that means nursing to the Dying) listing the most frequent Regrets that people have as they’re Letting Go of their Body…

http://bronnieware.com/regrets-of-the-dying/

The most frequent Regret is…

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

That’s the Yintegrity we’ve been talking about for the last several years as we’ve worked through our 2012-15 Uranus-Pluto adventures.  The third-most frequent Regret is…

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

Which we’ve been talking about in the previous post.  Reading that post, you may well come up against a Dilemma.  If no one is willing to hear them, what to do?  There are only so many Pisces Folk around willing to soak up spilled Emotions, and the more Trance Reformations there are, the more Emotions there are to be spilled.  Trance Reformations are usually introduced by a cataract of suppressed Trauma emerging into Consciousness, which triggers a flood of Present-Moment Emotion in response, and Liberates a tsunami of Fear of an Unknown Future.  That’s the best case!  More often, our internal Protectors try to block the original cataract, which then Manifests as untoward exterior Events, creating more Trauma.  Taking Full Responsibility for mopping all that up is a Herculean task.

A paragraph from Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, p.296…

“It is one thing to process memories of trauma, but it is an entirely different thing to confront the inner void – the holes in the soul [or aura] that result from not being wanted, not having been seen, and not having been allowed to speak the truth.  If your parents’ faces never lit up when they looked at  you, it’s hard to know what it feels like to be loved and cherished.  If you come from an incomprehensible world filled with secrecy and fear, it’s almost impossible to find the words to express what you have endured.  If you grew up unwanted and ignored, it is a major challenge to develop a visceral sense of agency and self-worth.”

We begin to see why Change is so dangerous, and we haven’t even considered how often it’s purposely hijacked by the internal and external Lizards to their own advantage – the internal Lizards shift the Energy into long-repressed and over-reactive Anger channels, and the external Lizards use the resulting Confusion to stoke their Greed.

So the Planet is awash in a Biblical flood.  What to do?  The Galactic Center informs us that we just have to Take Full Responsibility to move ourself forward one slog at a time.  If there is no one to hear you Express your Feelings, write or paint or draw them out.  Take time to Listen to music that does Express or trigger your Feelings, Notice what happens in your Body when you do, and be Loving and Gentle with it and with yourself.  Love is All There Is.  No matter how horrible a Feeling can be, if you work at it you can find some Empathy for the part of you that Feels it.  “You Poor Baby, that’s Horrible!” and Embrace that Poor part of you.  Even if you Hate that part of yourself, you may be able to find some Empathy for your Hater.  “You Poor Hater, they really treated you Horribly!” 

One small step toward Loving some orphaned part of ourself.

Just opening the door a crack.  More will follow, but none of it will be as hard as that first small step.

If you are lucky enough to have a Feeling-Expression partner to practice with, you’ll have plenty of Challenges with that too.  Mercury (Communication) is Retrograde in early Libra (Introduction to Other), after all.

Mercury Triple-Crosses Vesta, Juno, and Pluto during this Retrogradation.  We usually refer to a Triple-Crossing as the Can-Opener, the Exposition, and the Confidence-Builder; look up one of those terms in the CATEGORIES list if you’re a new reader.  Vesta (Limiting Beliefs) and Juno (the Edges of Consciousness) are the Star Dancers in this weekend’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.  And we know about Pluto now!  Mercury thrice Conjoins Juno, Opposes Vesta, and Squares Pluto.

And by the way, the Eclipse chart features a Quintile Yod to Mars.  A Quintile Yod says this is what we’re Learning here.  Mars symbolizes Action and Assertiveness; it may be Asking you to tone down certain Reactions where you verge on Power-Over, and it may be Asking you to beef up other Reactions where you allow Others to Power-Over you, and probably both.

So what suggestions can we provide that might make Feeling-Expression a little easier?  Maybe these…

• When someone succeeds in Expressing a Feeling, and they know that it’s been Heard, they usually don’t need to say a lot more (about that Feeling).  You’ll see a shift in their shoulders or their breathing or the tension in their face.  If they’re intellectualizing their Feelings, they’ll go on and on about them and you’ll never get a word in edgewise.  If you get filibustered and can’t find a way to change it, you may just need a different Feeling-Expression partner.
• Sometimes it works to ask whether or not you’re Hearing their Feelings correctly; “So it sounds like you might be Angry about the way they treated you?”  If “Angry” is a hot-button word for them they might Hear your question as an accusation, but even if they do, it has the potential to move the exchange from Venting to actual Communication.
• When is it your turn?  Some people are so tangential with their Feelings, or so backed up, that they have no room to Hear anyone else.  Don’t martyr yourself to try to rescue them; that’s a lose-lose strategy.  When you’re bored listening to them repeat themself, it’s time to change venues.
• If you can introduce a Talking Stick or a timer, that might help, but you’re better off watching for that deep breath or lowering of the shoulders or relaxing of the face muscles as your cue to hand off the Talking Stick, rather than a timer.  A timer can easily introduce greater Frustration.
• Be watchful for your own Fears and Protections.  If you get uncomfortable hearing someone Fearfully talking about their Fear or Angrily talking about their Anger, that’s a huge clue for you about what you probably need to Open up to.  If you’re unable to be Present and Neutral for the Other, it’s probably best to change the plot.  Even just saying “Whoa, that scares me!” or “I’m really nervous around Anger; can we detour?” or the like has the potential to create progress.  They may be comfortable enough with their process to be able to stop and be Present for you to talk about what’s coming up for you.  Or you may need to take a break and work on your own with Lovingly and Gently Embracing your own Feelings for a while.
• Any exchange of Feeling Expression can get lost in the Emotions.  It’s a fabulous way to Notice when you or they (or both) get hijacked by the Emotion and are unable to Witness it from a more Present and Neutral part of the Self.  That’s invaluable Guidance, but your exchange may or may not be able to recover from a hijacking.  Even if you can’t recover the exchange, you can follow the Guidance.

It’s a lot easier to list these things than it is to do them.  Remember that Confusion is the First Sign of Growth and that Curiosity is what gives the Cat nine lives.  If you start to get Overwhelmed, Tap on it.  Use Trial and Success – give it a try, see what worked and honor yourself and your practice partner for it, Gently look to see what might be improved and be Loving and Gentle with your tendency to self-criticize.  If you can do such a post-mortem with your exchange-mate, that’d be very valuable.

Authenticity and Self-Sovereignty

Rhodochrosite Crystals, symbol of the Heart’s Tenderness.

A reader writes…

“I still seem to be alienating everyone in my crosshairs; my orphan, abandonment, archetype, as well as non.acceptance from my ‘family of origin,’ and other sundry members, mirroring back their disdain of me?  hmmmmm.  I speak what I feel, and that is very hard for others.”

Yup, welcome to the club.  Our Olde Ego will try every trick at its disposal to help us Resist Rebirth, because the Ego is in charge of keeping us Safe, and at least in some sense it’s been working (we’re still alive), while that Rebirth stuff is Unknown, and very risky!  What it we lose the Privileges and Comforts we have?  Rebirth is a one-way ticket, you can’t go Home again. 

So you bet, all of our historical and Karmic trans-Lifetime Traumas are up in our face.  The modern experiment with Individualism is not old, and our current Uranus-Pluto version of it dates only from the 1960s.  The roots of our Species are in Community, the realms where Identity was not Individual at all, Identity consisted only of our roles in our Community.  It’s so easy to Identify with job and family and locality (and religion and race!) because those Archetypes have deep history – Patterns developed in millennia of  Repetitions. 

Through most of Western Civilization, only Royalty had any opportunity to explore Individuation, and that was very constrained.  Once the Industrial Devolution elevated Money to the primary means of exchange (rather than, eg, labor exchanged directly for the right to eat), anyone could potentially live as Royalty, if they were avaricious enough.  The lure of that potential is what feeds Greed.  If you read French history, it’s shocking how similar the stories are to today, Royalty is just replaced by today’s sports heroes, entertainers, vulture capitalists, and the rest of the 0.1%.

The Uranus-Pluto Cycle alternates between 115 years and 140 years, depending on whether Pluto is closer to us, in and around Scorpio, or farther from us, in and around Taurus.  The previous Cycle began in 1851.  We don’t get a lot of practice – that is, few Repetitions – with this Energy.  This is only our second Exploration of it since the Industrial Devolution began.

When we personalize our Traumas, it was our fault that we were Traumatized.  The result is a lack of Self-Trust and a deep-seated lack of Self-Love.  That’s what’s being Mirrored back to you.  What happens when we move to the space of “What you think of me is none of my business?”  The Abandonment and Fear we feel when we Imagine that space is our Community Archetype in action.  But we do need to Imagine that space, and perhaps even Embrace it and work towards it, PIAVA it.  And we most certainly need to be Actively Loving and Gentle with any and all of our Resistance to that space.  Compulsive Pleasing is a guaranteed ticket to the lowest common denominator.

Then there’s the matter of how we Speak our Feelings.  There are useful protocols, like Non-Violent Communication or NVC…

https://www.cnvc.org/

To start with, you might want to take your associates out of “your crosshairs” and instead put them In the Light.  There are many “rules” for Speaking our Truth that aren’t always easy to use.  A random sample of these…

• “I” Statements only, using only Emotion words as the adverb, and no object allowed – “I Feel [Angry, Sad, etc.], period.”  You can find lists of Emotion words on the internet, but be very careful using adjectives or nouns instead of adverbs; you’re on thin ice.  For instance, one list includes “a waste” as an Emotion-word, but it’s really a very loaded intellectualization of an Emotion.  To me, even “wasted” seems more like a Physical condition than an Emotion.
• “I am [Emotion-word]” is an expression of Identity, not an expression of Feeling.  By simply switching from “I am” to “I Feel” you may be able to Witness your Feelings rather than being Possessed by them.  That simple step can produce Miracles.
• “I Feel E-word because __” isn’t an expression of Feeling, it’s an intellectualization of your Feelings.  Intellectualizations of Feelings are almost always wrong.  You could Feel that way because of unprocessed remnants from your Lifetime in Rome, not because of your family of origin.  Even if your family-of-origin members were with you there in Rome (which isn’t unlikely), they’ll probably interpret your remarks as Present-Moment.
• “I Feel E-word because you __” isn’t an expression of Feeling, it’s an accusation.  Don’t be surprised if Defensiveness is the result.
• “I Feel like __” is also an intellectualization, not an expression of Feeling.
• Just because you’re expressing your Feelings cleanly, doesn’t mean they’ll be received cleanly.
• For instance, “I Feel E-word when you __” is part of a strategy that NVC recommends – it’s relatively clean, but will often still be heard as an accusation.
• If you are able to express your Feelings cleanly, and you do it meticulously, it at least allows you to Discern whether or not you’re being heard.
• If you aren’t being heard, there isn’t much you can do about it.  That’s when people raise their voices.  When someone else raises their voice, do you recognize that you need to Listen harder, or do you stop Listening?  When you raise your voice, do others recognize that they need to Listen harder, or do they stop Listening?
• Expressing your Feelings, cleanly or not, does not obligate another to want to hear them.  It’s useful to test the waters first, before you throw your Pearls before pink animals.
• You can gain a great deal by exploring your Feelings in your Body rather than talking about them.  Where do you Experience it?  What does it Feel like, Physically?  Is it constant, or variable?  Tense or loose?  Physically Painful?  Does it move around?  Are you thinking?  Do thoughts change how you Experience it?  Stay with it for a while.
• If your Feeling is intense, you might want to Tap on it a few times until it lightens up a bit, before you talk about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzVd6Ww0as4 .
• We are all moving toward our True Community or Tribe, where we are usually understood, but that search will be delayed by lack of Self-Love.  If we Judge ourself, we’ll Judge our True Community too.  We may need to Date a Mystic.
• Imagine how you’ll Feel when you do find your True Community, and do that as frequently and as long as you possibly can.  If you’re honest with yourself when your Yes-Buts arise (you’ll be Dating your Mystic Self), this is probably the fastest way to Manifest True Community.
• Once it’s easy for you to sink into that Feeling and stay there much of the time, you’ll be your own True Community, and you won’t need Others to Validate you.  Then you’ll attract Others like you because they’ll enjoy your company, not because they feel obligated to Validate your Feelings.
• For many of us, our Families of Origin are a primary source of our current-Lifetime Trauma.  We can’t expect them to help us work through our Trauma, because they were very likely either as Traumatized as we were, or they were the perpetrator!  Unfortunately, it’s often both.  We have to work through our Traumas with Supportive Others, professional or otherwise, before we can be Discerning about our Safety around our FOO, and Self-Loving enough to permanently remove ourself from People who are Toxic to us.

Bessel Van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score is an excellent summary of the latest research in methodologies that do and don’t help us release the Trauma that can arise from Abuse (remembered or not), Accidents, Disasters, Karma, and even from chronic mistreatment such as teasing, bullying, or disrespect.  He points out the research showing that Trauma is lodged in the brain, not in the mind.  While it can be accessed and healed through the Body, the mind can’t even see it.  Most of us carry some degree of Trauma, and it’s a major contributor to our Alienation.