Post by MaryAnn Layton on Feb 3, 2010 14:20:14 GMT -5
One of our members at MJ's Army just sent me this great article... it really does help to explain some of the things we are going through as we grieve. PLEASE do read this to help you understand... NO you're not crazy You have been "touched," you have been "chosen."
Remember to find some time to be happy, and that Michael is with you.
Spiritual Emergencies: An Alert
A special Michael Message:
After 9/11 my son who is a pilot with a major commercial airline, called me to tell me that on his last trip, he had to fly over the still smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center plaza in New York City. "There's nothing there Mom, it's gone; there's nothing but a big hole."
It wasn't what he said that alerted me, it was something in his voice... I knew that he would never be same again. The something in his voice prompted me to travel across several states to a seminary specializing in Spiritual Emergence Training. I had a feeling we were going to collectively experience many, many more of those defining moments and spiritual emergencies. We've all had them:
"Where were you when..."
The towers came down?
Kennedy was shot?
Martin Luther King fell?
The hurricane made landfall?
They announced Lady Diana was dead?
Mother Theresa died?
The earthqauke leveled the landscape?
They said John Lennon was killed?
You got the news that Michael Jackson was gone?
Those are defining moments and they touch something deep and leave us forever changed. Big grief especially can precipitate an existential crisis and leave us wondering how now to we define our self? Our life? How do be begin to figure out what is important now?
The processing of something of that magnitude can open a well of grief that seems as deep as a chasm. We can wonder how now, do we show up for life? A life that has become black and white bland or perhaps very dark? Things seem unreal or it feels as if we are looking at life from the wrong end of binoculars.
Those are all very normal reactions to overwhelming grief. Is there a standard amount of time that is normal for grieving? No. Grief is individual. Is there a normal amount of grief alloted for a family member versus someone we lost but never met? No. Time is subjective and relative. All of it is very personal. Do it your own way.
There is another phenomenon that can occur with a deep grief or shock and an existential crisis. A Spiritual Emergency can occur.
Existential shock can feel like a psychic earthquake. The very foundation of the soul shifts and we lose our footing. Familiar structures crumble: the way we process; the way we cope; the way we survive and go on with our lives; the way we relate to others; the things we are interested in; what is and is not meaningful to us.
A defining moment can also create a Spiritual Emergency. Spiritual emergencies are real, are a shake up of the very soul, can be very ripping and always hold hidden blessings. I am not talking about normal grief that may involve overwhelming reactions: sobbing, crying continually, losing interest in normal activities, etc.
No, I am talking about something that happens that is beyond the realm of ordinary. In fact, it is quite extraordinary, can even seem paranormal.
Enough people have written me about experiencing things they do not understand that I felt a word (or many) about Spiritual Emergency is necessary...
Spiritual Emergencies are very unusual, disrupt a psyche or a life, are mystical and can come in many forms. Here are a few examples:
Kundalini awakening: Streaming energy, tremors, hot/cold sensations, violent shaking, involuntary laughing, unusual breathing patters, visions of light.
Shamanic Experience: Dreams, visions, sensing special connections to animals, nature, others. Themes of death and rebirth.
Psychological Renewal via activation of the Central Archetype:
Preoccupation with death-rebirth, a return to the beginnings of life, focus on clashes of opposites with dramatic resolution of these opposites.
Psychic Opening:
Experiences of extrasensory perception, including out-of-body experiences.
Emergence of Karmic Patterns:
Experiencing dramatic sequences which seem to be occurring in a different temporal or spacial context. Strang occurences that don't make sense in any normal context.
Overshadowing and possesive states:
Face and body involuntary take on traits of another person. Involuntary movements. Choking, vomiting, frantic motor activity. Feelings that do not seem like your own.
Involuntary and Spontaneous Weeping:
Another spiritual questing that can occur in an existential shock and crisis is weeping.
There are characteristics of spontaneous and involuntary weeping that connote spiritual questing and development:
The relinquishing of superficial concerns and aspects of the self-breaking through the facade.
A sense of the re-integration of lost aspects of the self.
Being in relationship with the impulse of life througout the Universe or of touching realities beyond one's ordinary awareness.
Holding together the seeming polarities of human existence: life-death; joy-despair and so on.
An understanding of the tragic dimensions of human existence seen as universal instead of uniquely personal.
Changes in body awareness that feel like a sense of integration of body, mind and spirit.
Changes in visual perception: seeing things in their essence or seeing with more than the physical eyes.
A sense of being startled, awakened, and triggered into an expanded awareness of reality.
Inward sense of freedom, vastness or pure consciousness from which all activities begin.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of occurrences that accompany a spiritual opening that propels one into an inner emergency and its outer manifestations.
Many people are having unusual reactions in the processing of Michael's death. Some people who were not fans of his music or him before are suddenly enamored with his work. They are collecting everything Michael and spending a great deal of time listening to his music and messages and watching him perform.
For some of them, it seems excessive. They consider themselves intelligent normal people who were, before his passing, engaged in normal lives. They quesiton if their sudden excessive interest is normal.
What is happening is a worldwide phenomenon that is affecting people from all countries, all walks of life and all stages of admiration of Michael's work-- some long term and some new. Some are finding his loss unbearable, the aftermath unthinkable, and the world colorless now.
This is the same response that a devotee has to losing their guru, or a disciple losing their master. Michael was a spiritual leader for many and for some, the only one they ever knew. His loss is devastating. Understandably. The only thing that will lessen the pain is time.
You are acutely feeling the void that a loss of his energy on the planet brings. You are feeling the void his absence has triggered. He was a spiritual anchor. Without an anchor, the boat drifts.
I suspect that Michael is a Bodhisattva and I will say more about that later as this journey unfolds for me too.
Michael's leaving has thrown many into the tailspin of a spiritual emergency.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Divine Madness:
Yes, there absolutely is such a thing as Divine Madness which is a reaction to having an awakening or opening by spiritual emergency.
An event, occurence or something unusual can precipitate a spiritual quest. Sometimes it is involuntary at least it appears so but the soul is always in charge and it's important to remember that.
The feelings and experiences associated with such an awakening can be very unsettling, seem out of character, feel threatening or bizzare but they are well documented in literature. Mystics, saints, monks and devotees have experienced these phenomena for centuries.
God intoxication is real and can cause all kinds of side effects and can seem scary. But it is God, nonetheless. It's friendly fire!
If there is a diagnosed mental illness, it is important to differentiate between God intoxication and spiritual awakening and an actual mental health crisis.
Cautions:
Paranoia, feelings of dark despair that do not resolve; compulsive behaviors that cannot be interrupted; outrageous involuntary behaviors; hearing a voice or message to harm self or others; being out of touch with reality for long periods; hallucinations; delusions; homicidal or suicidal thoughts; obsessions with death; hysteria; grandiose, persecution or conspiracy obsessions; grossly disorganized thinking; incessant hyperactivity are not spiritual phenomena but may be symptoms of a mental health problem. A manic state for example is ongoing hyper-arrousal. These problems requre professional intervention.
Cautions with Spiritual Awakening:
A person who is in spiritual awakening or crisis can be hyperarroused but it is usually intermittent.
Spiritual awakening can feel like rushing energy, a preoccupation with the source of the spiritual experience, and can interfere with normal sleep and functioning. To "turn down the volume" of this kind of experience, stop or slow down spiritual practices like Yoga, Martial Arts, Tai Chi, Meditation, breathwork and so on.
Eating meat and heavy meals can slow the energy.
It is important to be in contact with nature-- touch the earth, walk in the woods, embrace a tree, breathe the air, feel the sunshine, stand near the water, keep a rock in your pocket or place a flat one under your belly.
Do things that will ground you, bring you down from the high and slow down the rush of energy.
Use essential oils, skip the coffee and drink herbal tea, take hot showers or baths and use salts and lotions.
Wrap yourself in warm nubby blankets, wear your Turkish or terry cloth bathrobe.
Drink plenty of water and get lots of rest; treat yourself very well. Do not isolate but engage in life even if it's painful or doesn't interest you.
If you have consistent mood swings or depression that won't lift, talk to a therapist or cleryperson.
For Relief in Spiritual Awakening:
Journal. Journal. Journal.
The act of writing in connected to the power of confession. It frees your mind to go where it needs to go and for you to follow. If the situation is scary, confusing or chaotic, writing gives it some order.
Getting thoughts on paper is healing. Stepping outside yourself to reflect is empowering.
It can be something as simple as making a list of what you can do and what you can't in order to empower yourself and move forward through this.
It doesn't have to be overwhelming. Just a few minutes a day to reflect and heal will bring you through this a new and more fully present and expanded human.
Thank you for being and being willing. I am so excited for you, for us!
Blessings and Peace,
Rev. B
"One Wordsmith" at Inner Michael
Remember to find some time to be happy, and that Michael is with you.
Spiritual Emergencies: An Alert
A special Michael Message:
After 9/11 my son who is a pilot with a major commercial airline, called me to tell me that on his last trip, he had to fly over the still smoldering ruins of the World Trade Center plaza in New York City. "There's nothing there Mom, it's gone; there's nothing but a big hole."
It wasn't what he said that alerted me, it was something in his voice... I knew that he would never be same again. The something in his voice prompted me to travel across several states to a seminary specializing in Spiritual Emergence Training. I had a feeling we were going to collectively experience many, many more of those defining moments and spiritual emergencies. We've all had them:
"Where were you when..."
The towers came down?
Kennedy was shot?
Martin Luther King fell?
The hurricane made landfall?
They announced Lady Diana was dead?
Mother Theresa died?
The earthqauke leveled the landscape?
They said John Lennon was killed?
You got the news that Michael Jackson was gone?
Those are defining moments and they touch something deep and leave us forever changed. Big grief especially can precipitate an existential crisis and leave us wondering how now to we define our self? Our life? How do be begin to figure out what is important now?
The processing of something of that magnitude can open a well of grief that seems as deep as a chasm. We can wonder how now, do we show up for life? A life that has become black and white bland or perhaps very dark? Things seem unreal or it feels as if we are looking at life from the wrong end of binoculars.
Those are all very normal reactions to overwhelming grief. Is there a standard amount of time that is normal for grieving? No. Grief is individual. Is there a normal amount of grief alloted for a family member versus someone we lost but never met? No. Time is subjective and relative. All of it is very personal. Do it your own way.
There is another phenomenon that can occur with a deep grief or shock and an existential crisis. A Spiritual Emergency can occur.
Existential shock can feel like a psychic earthquake. The very foundation of the soul shifts and we lose our footing. Familiar structures crumble: the way we process; the way we cope; the way we survive and go on with our lives; the way we relate to others; the things we are interested in; what is and is not meaningful to us.
A defining moment can also create a Spiritual Emergency. Spiritual emergencies are real, are a shake up of the very soul, can be very ripping and always hold hidden blessings. I am not talking about normal grief that may involve overwhelming reactions: sobbing, crying continually, losing interest in normal activities, etc.
No, I am talking about something that happens that is beyond the realm of ordinary. In fact, it is quite extraordinary, can even seem paranormal.
Enough people have written me about experiencing things they do not understand that I felt a word (or many) about Spiritual Emergency is necessary...
Spiritual Emergencies are very unusual, disrupt a psyche or a life, are mystical and can come in many forms. Here are a few examples:
Kundalini awakening: Streaming energy, tremors, hot/cold sensations, violent shaking, involuntary laughing, unusual breathing patters, visions of light.
Shamanic Experience: Dreams, visions, sensing special connections to animals, nature, others. Themes of death and rebirth.
Psychological Renewal via activation of the Central Archetype:
Preoccupation with death-rebirth, a return to the beginnings of life, focus on clashes of opposites with dramatic resolution of these opposites.
Psychic Opening:
Experiences of extrasensory perception, including out-of-body experiences.
Emergence of Karmic Patterns:
Experiencing dramatic sequences which seem to be occurring in a different temporal or spacial context. Strang occurences that don't make sense in any normal context.
Overshadowing and possesive states:
Face and body involuntary take on traits of another person. Involuntary movements. Choking, vomiting, frantic motor activity. Feelings that do not seem like your own.
Involuntary and Spontaneous Weeping:
Another spiritual questing that can occur in an existential shock and crisis is weeping.
There are characteristics of spontaneous and involuntary weeping that connote spiritual questing and development:
The relinquishing of superficial concerns and aspects of the self-breaking through the facade.
A sense of the re-integration of lost aspects of the self.
Being in relationship with the impulse of life througout the Universe or of touching realities beyond one's ordinary awareness.
Holding together the seeming polarities of human existence: life-death; joy-despair and so on.
An understanding of the tragic dimensions of human existence seen as universal instead of uniquely personal.
Changes in body awareness that feel like a sense of integration of body, mind and spirit.
Changes in visual perception: seeing things in their essence or seeing with more than the physical eyes.
A sense of being startled, awakened, and triggered into an expanded awareness of reality.
Inward sense of freedom, vastness or pure consciousness from which all activities begin.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of occurrences that accompany a spiritual opening that propels one into an inner emergency and its outer manifestations.
Many people are having unusual reactions in the processing of Michael's death. Some people who were not fans of his music or him before are suddenly enamored with his work. They are collecting everything Michael and spending a great deal of time listening to his music and messages and watching him perform.
For some of them, it seems excessive. They consider themselves intelligent normal people who were, before his passing, engaged in normal lives. They quesiton if their sudden excessive interest is normal.
What is happening is a worldwide phenomenon that is affecting people from all countries, all walks of life and all stages of admiration of Michael's work-- some long term and some new. Some are finding his loss unbearable, the aftermath unthinkable, and the world colorless now.
This is the same response that a devotee has to losing their guru, or a disciple losing their master. Michael was a spiritual leader for many and for some, the only one they ever knew. His loss is devastating. Understandably. The only thing that will lessen the pain is time.
You are acutely feeling the void that a loss of his energy on the planet brings. You are feeling the void his absence has triggered. He was a spiritual anchor. Without an anchor, the boat drifts.
I suspect that Michael is a Bodhisattva and I will say more about that later as this journey unfolds for me too.
Michael's leaving has thrown many into the tailspin of a spiritual emergency.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Divine Madness:
Yes, there absolutely is such a thing as Divine Madness which is a reaction to having an awakening or opening by spiritual emergency.
An event, occurence or something unusual can precipitate a spiritual quest. Sometimes it is involuntary at least it appears so but the soul is always in charge and it's important to remember that.
The feelings and experiences associated with such an awakening can be very unsettling, seem out of character, feel threatening or bizzare but they are well documented in literature. Mystics, saints, monks and devotees have experienced these phenomena for centuries.
God intoxication is real and can cause all kinds of side effects and can seem scary. But it is God, nonetheless. It's friendly fire!
If there is a diagnosed mental illness, it is important to differentiate between God intoxication and spiritual awakening and an actual mental health crisis.
Cautions:
Paranoia, feelings of dark despair that do not resolve; compulsive behaviors that cannot be interrupted; outrageous involuntary behaviors; hearing a voice or message to harm self or others; being out of touch with reality for long periods; hallucinations; delusions; homicidal or suicidal thoughts; obsessions with death; hysteria; grandiose, persecution or conspiracy obsessions; grossly disorganized thinking; incessant hyperactivity are not spiritual phenomena but may be symptoms of a mental health problem. A manic state for example is ongoing hyper-arrousal. These problems requre professional intervention.
Cautions with Spiritual Awakening:
A person who is in spiritual awakening or crisis can be hyperarroused but it is usually intermittent.
Spiritual awakening can feel like rushing energy, a preoccupation with the source of the spiritual experience, and can interfere with normal sleep and functioning. To "turn down the volume" of this kind of experience, stop or slow down spiritual practices like Yoga, Martial Arts, Tai Chi, Meditation, breathwork and so on.
Eating meat and heavy meals can slow the energy.
It is important to be in contact with nature-- touch the earth, walk in the woods, embrace a tree, breathe the air, feel the sunshine, stand near the water, keep a rock in your pocket or place a flat one under your belly.
Do things that will ground you, bring you down from the high and slow down the rush of energy.
Use essential oils, skip the coffee and drink herbal tea, take hot showers or baths and use salts and lotions.
Wrap yourself in warm nubby blankets, wear your Turkish or terry cloth bathrobe.
Drink plenty of water and get lots of rest; treat yourself very well. Do not isolate but engage in life even if it's painful or doesn't interest you.
If you have consistent mood swings or depression that won't lift, talk to a therapist or cleryperson.
For Relief in Spiritual Awakening:
Journal. Journal. Journal.
The act of writing in connected to the power of confession. It frees your mind to go where it needs to go and for you to follow. If the situation is scary, confusing or chaotic, writing gives it some order.
Getting thoughts on paper is healing. Stepping outside yourself to reflect is empowering.
It can be something as simple as making a list of what you can do and what you can't in order to empower yourself and move forward through this.
It doesn't have to be overwhelming. Just a few minutes a day to reflect and heal will bring you through this a new and more fully present and expanded human.
Thank you for being and being willing. I am so excited for you, for us!
Blessings and Peace,
Rev. B
"One Wordsmith" at Inner Michael