The Awesome Power of Unlearning

I used to be a competitive barrel racer. I’ve ridden dozens of charging horses through the cloverleaf pattern. Many horses, after running the pattern over and over again, would begin to anticipate each turn so much that they’d cut too soon, either smashing my shin into the metal rim or knocking the barrel over entirely, or both. Those horses had become so trained they’d become losers.

The only way to make them winners again was to “untrain” them. We’d go back to a walking pace and take the corners in different ways so they could unlearn what they thought they knew to do.

A few years back life nailed me hard and I found myself questioning, a lot, about a lot of things I thought I knew — myself, God, how life works. It was scary. I mean I’d spent decades forming my opinion of who I was, what I was, what my strengths and skills were, how to do things and get through life. Sitting in the question, “What if I’ve been wrong about it all?” was deeply disturbing, verging on a psychological or existential crisis.

Yet under the veneer of fear, was also curiosity, a little spark of excitement, a fragile thread of hope as I began brushing against the possibility that maybe I, and life itself, was actually far more than I’d believed.

The more I let go of the false security blanket of knowing based on the past and shaped by what this insane world puts forward as real, the more I began to experience Source, God, Holy Spirit and my Higher Self directly.

Allowing space and uncertainty for our minds to be untrained doesn’t mean we’re losing our minds! Just the opposite, it means, we’re starting to use more and more of our power and potential. Our True Norths – our deepest values and genuine loves — are still in place as our consciousness expands beyond the chains of old dogmas and programming. We don’t throw away old skill sets or talents; we just open up to use them more fully. We don’t lose our ability to make decisions; we give ourselves a chance to make better ones.

A Course In Miracles advises:

Simply do this: Be still, and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false, of good or bad, of every thought is judges worthy, and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world … and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.

As we all strive to improve ourselves and our lives, we take in a lot of personal and professional development education and training. That’s all well, good and worthwhile, but I think it’s important to remember, that whether it’s winning at barrel racing or winning at life untraining is often the key.

One of the most powerful statements in the Universe is, “I do not know what this situation means, or what I really want from it, or even what I really am, but I am genuinely willing to deeply listen and to learn.”

And guess what?  Yoda agrees!

Here’s to emptying our minds so that they can be refilled, refreshed and re-empowered.

Cylvia Hayes

Unplugging into the Now

One of the visitors to my campsite. Angels anyone?

I celebrated my birthday last week with our annual raft trip down the Wild and Scenic section of the Rogue River. Four solid days with no cell phone, emails, TV, radio or motors of any kind. Just flowing water, wild critters, dear friends, decent food, good beer and my journal.

There is no more calming, grounding therapy than getting unplugged from devices, and so-called news and plugging into Nature. Feeling the warm earth under my feet, rocking on the water surrounded by, immersed in, flow and cascading river song. At night, the brilliant display of truly dark skies pin holed by a billion bright cosmic lights.

There is a beautiful practice in A Course in Miracles known as the Holy Instant.

Loving my chaise lounge camping chair after a day of rowing rapids!

This is becoming fully present in the now, releasing any notion of past or future. In that space we remember who we really are, spiritual beings, at one with, an extension of, the Creator, Source. Touching that place, the Truth behind the illusions we regularly plug into, is one of this life’s most beautiful experiences.

I’ve stopped being surprised, but haven’t stopped being saddened, by how many of my clients, my fellow advocates, activists and social entrepreneurs, get so caught up working to protect the planet and change the world that they fail to get out there and actually experience it!

By the time I emerged from wilderness I was excited to reengage with business and life’s busyness, with texts and emails and errands. I’m happy to note that a little bigger piece of now is with me in the process.

So, friends, if you are feeling stressed, or sad, overwhelmed or worried, leave the devices behind and go get a hug from Mother Earth. She’s there for you whether deep in wilderness or at the corner park. Breathe her in. Listen. Remember you are an extension of God, ever supported by the spiritual substance from which you were created.

Unplug. Choose a different outlet. Plug into the present moment. Remember who you are.

One of my favorite campsites on the rogue River.

Namaste,

Cylvia

 

P.S. I just added A Course in Miracles coaching package to my store.

Also, this fall I’ll be offering a group Course in Miracles teleconference class. Please let me know if you might be interested in being part of it. I love sharing this life-changing set of teachings with friends and colleagues. I would love to share it with you.

#CylviaHayes  #Empowerment  #ResiliencyMuscles #ChangeMaker

Light is What Transforms Darkness

I lead a regular Course in Miracles study group. Today we did something unusual — instead of studying and discussing the text, we watched the movie, I Am.

There could have been no better way to observe Martin Luther King Day. We hadn’t planned it that way; our group always meets on Mondays. This was one of those beautiful, meaningful synchronicities that happen all the time, even when we don’t notice them.

This day, celebrating a great leader in the movement toward equality, freedom, civil rights and civility, makes even starker our current ugly and divided political and cultural climate. The fact that the divisiveness and othering is being encouraged and amplified by a president who repeatedly demonstrates racism and sexism is beyond the pale.

The movie, I Am, covers the scientific evidence that we are all connected — literally, physically connected at the quantum level. It shows how our misled belief in separation and aloneness harms us on many levels. Along with the science it covers the ideas and words of many of our wisest historical leaders. Martin Luther King is featured.

King’s message of using love to transform hate and honoring the fact that we’re more alike than separate is so profound and so timely. Famously he said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Importantly, the movie also covers scientific evidence that basic human nature is not competition, us versus them and purely survival of the fittest, but is actually cooperation and caring for one another. Primates (including humans) have unique neural systems that include mirror neurons and Vagas nerves that make us hard-wired for compassion. Pull this together and it means that cooperation, compassion and empathy are survival strategies for our species.

As King said, “We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”

And, “Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.” … “We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization.”

Amen.

We must focus on the love, not the hate, if we want to shift our destructive trajectory and heal the sickness in our cultural consciousness.

As a next step I strongly encourage you to watch I Am.

Please share this post on Facebook.  Thank you.

#CylviaHayes