But that is the rub.  What we focus on expands.  And so in focusing on what is missing, we get more of missing it – the hole seems larger the problem more expansive and the depths of our despair deeper.  If instead, we focus on what we have, we can change our perspective and thus our experience.  We have an abundance of love to give.  It’s not a limited-supply commodity.  It’s there, inside us, just waiting to get out.  And the funny thing about love is that it reflects so easily.  So when we express our love for others, through small acts and big ones, we see it reflected back to us in the faces of the recipients.  And when we are being loving to a stranger (or a loved one) who doesn’t see or appreciate our love, this is a reflection too – of our own inability to receive the love that is all around us.  It is a kind reminder to look around and see where we are not receiving love and to go and claim it.

One of my favorite acts is to go back in time to before I learned how to open to receive love again in my life and to find memories of people who were loving me but I didn’t see it.  I go back to those times and receive that love now.  I take it in and let it fill me to overflowing.  Those people have no idea that I’ve finally received the love they offered me all those years ago, but I have.  And those to whom we offer our love today who cannot receive it, may be able to receive it in the future just like I did.  No effort is wasted, no time lost, no love is ever completely without purpose.  Love.  Love everyone.  And see how your life can change.

Sometimes we get stuck.  No matter how hard we try, we are mired down.  We’ve avoided negative thoughts, taken responsibility for our actions, and made a concerted effort to bring ourselves authentically into the world and nothing works.  This is when you know that there is a piece of you missing.  Something that is holding onto you for dear life silently screaming “NO! Don’t leave me here!”  And it is that part of you that holds you back.

It is in these times that we have to go digging around in the muck and the mire of our shadow selves – those parts of ourselves that we don’t usually want to look at.  You know, the ugly bits that we’d rather not admit exist.  We often find parts of ourselves that, over the years, have become stuck in the ugly places.  And, because we didn’t want to look at the ugly bits, we abandoned those parts of ourselves to that space.  But eventually, as all things do, this process catches up with us.

Because as much as we’d like to believe that we can just jettison the cruft – we can’t.  We’re attached to it.  And until we deal with it, we won’t let it go.  Meaning that we would have to leave that part of us that is attached to it behind in order to move away from it.  But eventually you end up with a soul filled with holes crying out for healing.  And it is in these moments that we have to go back and find those lost parts of ourselves.  We have to root around in the muck and get our hands, feet, and faces dirty.  We have to finally face whatever it was that caused us to cut bait and run before.

I find that we are often braver for others than we can be for ourselves.  We would run into a burning building to save a loved one – or even just some random child we see begging for help from the window, but we won’t look at our fears to save ourselves.  So here is my invitation to you today.  See that missing piece of you as a helpless little girl in a burning building begging for rescue.  Be brave – if not for yourself – be brave for her.  Go into the fire, face your demons, and be reunited with the part of you that you abandoned because it was too hard to deal.  That part of you has gifts to contribute to your life and you won’t be the same if you don’t save her.

Get help if you need it (and we all need help sometimes).  But do it.  It’s the hardest and most rewarding work you’ll ever do in your life.

by:  Kelle Sparta

He had loved her forever.  He sat on the hilltop watching the clouds build and the sky darkenover the valley.  Around him, the winds grew from dancing sprites to forceful gusts, buffeting him, threatening him with the power yet to come.  And still he sat, waiting.  The clouds approached and the sky above him grew dark and foreboding.  The rain began to fall, softly at first but growing in intensity until his skin began to ache with the pelting of it.  The winds beat at him, tearing the warmth from his body.  He threw his arms open and laid back onto the grass, allowing the rain to feel all of him, to beat into him with the intensity of a waterfall on rock.  The winds no longer buffeted him as much from his prone position.  He opened to the storm and she washed him clean of the world: the pain of the drops turning to ecstatic thuds against his body, loosening the sore muscles that he had held taut for too long, relaxing the tension of his thoughts and awakening him to himself.  And as the storm ebbed, the drops softened to sweet caresses and the winds turned into soft susurrations, warm laughing whispers.  A last caress on his cheek and she was gone, back to her gentle stillness once more.  He stood, and made his way back into the world once more.

She had loved him forever.  With his quiet bearing and his strength, he wooed her, patiently waiting for her to gather herself together and come to him.  He stayed with her as her intensity grew.  She warned at his senses, putting him on notice about what she was about to bring.  Testing his resolve and whether he was willing to be with all of her.  And still he stayed, silently inviting her in.  She came, softly at first but growing in intensity – slowly letting go of the limits she had placed on herself to protect him.  Until finally, she released herself fully into him, raging wildly with the force of a thousand storms left unfulfilled, pouring her passion into his body with abandon, beating against him with the rhythms of the drums used to call her for generations.  She unleashed the fury of her love into his being and broke open the carefully crafted, tightly woven box he had built around him to protect him from the world.  Her heart exploded into fullness as he opened to her, surrendering to her in her beauty and her power.  And their love cracked across the sky in great swaths of lightning and thunder, announcing to all their divine union.  And when they both were spent, and her passion flowed into warm affection, she softened once more, leaving behind a smile, a caress, and the promise of more to come.  She relaxed back into herself and watched with love as he arose refreshed and went back into the world.

You can get back from being fully consumed, but it is like an addict breaking the addiction.  The negative thoughts become your identity.  Instead of something bad happening to you occasionally (because things happen to all of us – good and bad), you become a victim.  And people who see themselves as victims, energetically invite more of the same to support their self-view.  We are amazingly creative creatures – we will create whatever we believe.  It is one of the most difficult things to do – giving up the story of being a victim.  Because in being a victim, we get sympathy and support from others and a reason we can blame something else why our lives aren’t the way we want them to be. We don’t have to be responsible.

And yet, that is an illusion.  Because, ultimately we are responsible for everything in our lives.  We draw things to us and we engage the world with a specific energy.  And sometimes, even when we are being clear and open, something random will come, something unpleasant.  And even then we are responsible for how we react, how we choose to take it in (or not), and who we become as a result of the experience.

And when you are losing your personal battle with the slime, reach out to others.  Read inspirational writings, listen to beautiful music, engage the passion and joy of another who has kicked the slime off of their feet for one more day.  Because that passion is powerful.  It will entrain with you and pull the slime away from your feet, just enough to allow you to kick it off with some effort on your part. When you don’t have the strength to fight it anymore, borrow someone else’s.  But get out of the slime.   No one can do it for you (just like you can’t do it for someone else).  But we can offer you support in your battle.

But here is the challenge.  How do you fight something you don’t want to feed?  How do you get rid of something without adding energy to it?  The answer is that you starve it to death.  So a battle with the slime is an inner battle with yourself to stay disciplined.  It is a choice to only engage in thoughts that bring you up and support you.  It is a choice to turn your head away from the seductive thoughts of being a victim.  It is a choice to completely forget that anything negative can cross your mind.  This isn’t denial – you know these things exist, you accept them, but you don’t feed them.

And so, the key is to not engage the negativity.  Because, once engaged, it becomes depression and depression becomes a self-definition of being a victim – a victim of circumstance, of another person, of life itself.  The slime is always sucking at your toes, waiting for the moment when you will feed it.  It is hungry and wild and it wants to grow.  It isn’t sentient – you give it form.  It knows only how to feed and grow.  But part of our practice of personal power is to hold the slime at bay.  It is never eliminated – even the great masters have times of doubt and pain when the slime overcomes them, you are no better than they.  And so, do not expect perfection in this.  Do not expect to ever be done with it.  It is a daily practice.  Choose to be positive, choose not to engage in thoughts that don’t serve you.  Choose to keep the slime at bay.

I’m a Complex Person

I’m Too Big For a Simple Explanation
The universe keeps telling me to “be who I am”.  But that person can seem schizophrenic to the casual observer.  I’m a bottom-line business woman – and a psychic and shaman.  I’m someone who doesn’t want to do anything I can’t get at least three uses out of – and I’ll spend an entire day doing nothing – or offering hugs to strangers.  I’ll be factual and hard nosed one moment and then chuck it all to go with my gut the next.  In short – I’m a study in opposites.  I stand in both ends of opposite poles at the same time, and I see no problem with that.  But try turning that into a brand.  Try making it seem like anything other than someone who hasn’t a clue who she is.

I Bring Different Things To Different People
Yesterday I wrote a post about “Who Are You” because I know clearly who I am – and that person is someone who is deeply affected by those around me.  I am someone who is a reflection of the person in front of me – while still being me.  The benefit of being multifaceted is that I bring a different part of me forward for each person.  If you need me to be soft and comforting, I’ve got you covered.  If you need me to be a drill sergeant – I’ve got that too.  Practical?  No problem.

What You Need When You Need It
And yet, we live in a world of sound bites.  Where you have to be able to tell someone what you do in 30 second elevator pitches.  Where I am expected to sum up 30+ years of study into a single tag line or phrase.  I find this limiting and a little insulting.  If you make me say it succinctly, I’ll tell you that I’m what you need – when you need it.  And if I’m not it, then I know who is (did I mention I’m also a massive connector?)  But is this compelling?  Is it something that someone would want to spend time/money on?  Who knows?

No Tag Line Required
All I know is this – I’m so much more than a tag line.  And today, I’m feeling really chafed by the idea that I have to fit into one.  Know what I mean?

Part of this is because we have been taught over the years that what we say doesn’t matter, or that we’re not good enough or that we should mind our elders and speak only when spoken to.  Part of it is because we don’t want to offend someone or put ourselves in the position of being a target.  But I think it’s also because we don’t really know who we are completely.  I mean, think about it.  Who are you?

If you had to define yourself today, could you do it?  And how would you do it?  Perhaps you’d try defining yourself in terms of the roles you play:  mother, father, child, partner, career title, etc.; but is that all you are, the sum of the roles that you play?  What if you did it by personality traits?  Now you’ve got: open-minded, adventurous, kind, charming, welcoming, loud, brash, etc.  Is this everything?  Probably not.

I had someone floor me with this question once.  I introduced myself and she said “okay, so who is Kelle Sparta?” and ten years ago, I couldn’t answer her.  I stammered and hemmed and hawed and didn’t manage to say much.  Today I would likely have responded with “I am me.  I have many facets but the person you see before you is the essence of who I am.”  I would say that not because it is a good definition, but because there is no real way to answer a question like that.

Who we are is ever-changing depending upon our circumstances and our self definition.  It is solid insofar as the stories we tell ourselves and the places we frequent and the people we spend time with are consistent; but change even one of those factors and we change –  our definition of who we are changes.

People think that change is hard, but this is a myth.  Change is easy – getting past our resistance to it is the hard part.  Change is happening all around us all the time.  It is the natural order of things.  We are the ones that make it difficult.

So here’s your question for today.  Who are you?  Take a little stock right now and look at your actions (not your intentions – your actions say who you are, your intentions are who you wish you were).  Who are you?  Who do the people around you see you as?  Is that the person you want to be?  (Hint, look at how well your actions and intentions align.)  If not, what are you prepared to do to change it?

And I think this is why it’s so hard for me to see that I wasn’t “stuck” last year – I was healing.  It might have been easier for me to accept if I had been in the hospital or had an injury I could see.  Then I could have pointed to something and said “see – there it is – I’m waiting for that to get better”.  But when it’s my emotional state, it’s hard to point at it because it’s hard to see it when you’re trapped in the midst of it.  And so I spent much of last year going “yeah, ok, I’m still healing and it’s slow-going for me to get stuff done, but I can snap out of it and get moving”.  But I couldn’t.  It wasn’t until the damn started to crack earlier last month, that I began to see any improvement.  I went through the motions, but I was getting done in a month what would have taken me only a day to complete two years before.

And now, as the damn breaks and the waters begin to flood through, I can really see where I was.  I was floating in that deep water abyss formed by the dam.  Periodically, I’d tread water to prove to myself that I could get my head above the water, but mostly I didn’t.  Mostly I stayed immersed in the murky depths, sinking down into the gestational fluids of my own healing.  Soaking in the pain and the grief and the overwhelm until it had permeated my being.

I can’t say that I’m happy that I had the year I did in 2010.  But I will say that I have a much greater understanding of depression, grief, pain and shut-down than I had before.  I am a better coach, shaman and healer for the experience.  I think I’m probably a better person for it.

But that’s not what I wanted to write to you about today (although clearly I needed to say it).  What I wanted to tell you about today is the change that is flooding through my life and the lives of those around me.  In the last week, I’ve gotten my mojo back.  I’ve gotten a ton of work done compared to the last year.  It’s still not quite up to the level I had done before everything fell apart, but I’m feeling that level of energy returning.  And there’s more.

I wrote on Valentine’s Day about the new man in my life and how amazing he is.  Well, he brought change with him.  Just before he met me, he had gotten a job in his field for the first time in two years.  Then he met me.  Then, we found him a new apartment, so that he could reduce the commute from his old place to the new job.   And over last weekend and this weekend, we cleaned out his car and got it detailed so that the last vestiges of his depression from the last couple of years was gone.  Then he helped me get started on mine.

This weekend, we cleaned the front hall of my house, got one year of my mother’s back taxes done (one step closer to being done with the estate work), and we got my headboard mostly covered.  (It was built for me as a gift from a friend almost a year ago now to keep my head and neck warmer since the wall over my bed is sorely uninsulated, but it was delivered as raw plywood that I needed to decide how to finish.)  We also reset the altars in my home.  It was well past time for that.

I have three altars in the house that we changed.  One is a personal altar.  One is a house altar.  And one is the altar I set up around my love life.  (I also have an ancestor altar and a money altar, but we didn’t change those.  Perhaps those will be next.)  Obviously, since I have manifested this amazing new man in my world, it was time to change the love life altar to include him in it.  I reset that and my personal altar and built a connecting point between them (previously, although they had been side by side, they had been completely different and not energetically connected.)  Below is a picture of the new altars.

And then I reset the house altar and that really made things feel different in the house.  Here’s a picture of that one.

I see a lot of change happening around me.  One of my housemates got a new job (he starts today), another friend ended a long relationship.  Things are changing a lot – again.  Thankfully, this time most of the changes seem to be for the better rather than the massive breakdown of a couple of years ago.  We’ll see how it goes.  I’m hanging in.

Why Do Abuse Victims Stay With Their Abusers?
So this weekend, I was musing on why that is.  I’ve been in emotionally abusive relationships in the past (which can be even more insidious because the abuse is rarely witnessed and sometimes difficult to admit because there are no physical bruises to prove it to yourself).  Why would an otherwise intelligent person decide to keep putting themselves in harm’s way?  They haven’t lost the ability to reason.  They know that if they stay, it’s likely to happen again – no matter how much they may wish to live in denial.  They will tell you that it’s because they love the person that they stay.  But even this doesn’t make sense when you look at the underlying mindset of codependency.

Who Are They Really Expressing Love For?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that they don’t love the person – they do.  But this isn’t why they stay.  Think about codependent behavior for a moment.  It is manipulative, sneaky, and entirely focused on controlling the abuser’s actions.  Granted, there’s good reason to want to control their actions – self preservation being primary.  But that’s not an act of love from the victim to the abuser, it’s an act of love from the victim to themselves.

The Last Act of Love
I would like to put it to you that the last true act of love a codependent person does for their abuser is to map their self-love onto the other person.   When the victim takes their own sense of self-love and gives it to the victimizer, they have placed all the power into the hands of the one they love.  (There are cultural reasons for this, but that’s for another blog post.)  Every act from there forward is and act of self-love as the victim tries to manipulate the abuser into giving them the self-love they need back.

Demanding, Controlling Behavior
This explains why codependents have such a strong belief that the other “should” take care of them, nurture them, love them.  Because of course, they would expect their self-love to do this for them.  The problem is that the other person isn’t them.  And that person is never going to treat them as well as they should be treating themselves for that reason.

Fragmented Sense of Self
What’s my point here?  The reason that victims don’t leave their abusers is that to do so would mean abandoning the piece of themselves that they have mapped onto the abuser.  They have literally fragmented themselves in an effort to hold onto the relationship and to leave it would mean making that fragmentation permanent.  So long as they stay with the person, they can see and touch their self-love on the other person.  If they leave without knowing how to take their self-love back, then they will be forever less than their whole selves.  THIS is why victims stay.  Not out of love for the abuser but out of preservation of the energetic self.

Unmapping The Self-Love
It would seem that the key to freeing the victims is in helping them to reclaim their self-love.  If we can help the victim to unmap their self-love from the abuser, then we can begin to reach them.   If we can help them to realize that what they are doing in manipulating and controlling the other person isn’t an act of love for that person but is an act of love for themselves, then we can begin to help them see that there are more effective ways of loving themselves – starting with taking back the responsibility for that self-love from the abuser.  It is through the act of personal empowerment and the development of self-love that these people free themselves.  Let’s help them by giving them a visual they can work with to empower the process.

He sets the container for me to feel safe to share myself – all of myself. He doesn’t ask me to shrink myself to avoid triggering him or intimidating him as many men do. He doesn’t freak out when my wild woman comes out to play and asks him to stretch his boundaries. It’s clear to me that if I ask for something, and it is within his power to give it, he will – unconditionally and fully – without fear or regret. And I feel the same. However I can help him, whatever I can do, be, offer, or create, I will. Because I can. Not because I will get something in return, but for the joy of the service, for the fulfillment of the love – offered and received.

When both people live in service to each other and in absolute loving reception of each other – all of each other, there is nothing greater. The love that is created is whole, solid, and continuously ongoing. It isn’t something that you notice every now and again, it’s something that you ride like a wave throughout the day. It’s something that keeps you company as you go to sleep at night – even if you’re sleeping alone. And, in those every now and again moments when it really hits you, your heart bursts with the intensity of the love inside just busting to get out.

And so, today, I wanted to offer you this glimpse into a love that I had dreamed was possible but had never experienced. I wanted to share with you the gift that I have received. Because love shared grows. And this energy is one that I would hope that everyone could entrain with – to help you manifest your own Mark (or Mary) into your life. May love be your constant companion in this life and the next. Namaste.

BREATHE
All of this running feels a lot like panic.  And with panic comes the shallow breathing and the tension that signals the fight or flight response that high-stress times like these bring.  The adrenaline dumps into our hearts and sends our pulse racing but racing for what?  There is nothing to run from and there is nothing to fight off.   We are simply spinning ourselves into an artificial panic state.  And this serves no purpose.  So take a few moments over the course of each day to stop and breathe.  Breathe deeply.  Breathe slowly.  You cannot panic while breathing deeply and slowly.  The two are mutually exclusive.  In doing this, you will break the cycle of panic that you’ve created in your world.

Take Back Your Energy – Do Only What Matters
The other thing to look at in these moments is where you have placed your energies.  What are you feeding energetically and does it serve you?  Are you feeding your worries and fears by thinking about them?  Or are you feeding your happiness and gratitude by focusing on it?  (Trick question, I know, if you have to stop to breathe, I guarantee you’re not feeding your happiness.)   Then look at what you’ve got on your “To Do” list.  Is it REALLY necessary?  Can you have someone else do it?  Can you just not do it at all?  Is there a way to do it more efficiently?  One of the first things to go when you get panicked is your ability to plan and make decisions based on efficiency rather than crisis-management.  If you will give yourself a few moments to breathe, you might find that there is a significantly easier, better way to do the things you have to do – or that you don’t really have to do them at all.

Hum a Little Tune
Believe it or not, music can smooth your way through the day.  Classical is particularly good for reducing stress levels.  I like to play classical music in the background while I’m writing – it actually helps me to focus by giving me something to block out of my consciousness.   Singing is also a way to open up your throat which can clamp down in times of stress and the resonance of the vibrations helps to loosen up your energy as well.

See What’s Important
I’ve recently been hearing about deaths from every corner.   And what I’m hearing most often is that the advice offered on people’s death beds is this:  nothing matters but the relationships in your life.  Nurture these and your life is a success.  Deny them and you will feel a failure.  Sadly, when we get stressed, it’s our relationships that are the first things to go.  We put our task list ahead of our relationship assuming that the relationship will be there later.  Today, instead of prioritizing your list – prioritize your relationships.  How can you nurture your relationship with yourself, with your partner, with your parents or children, with your friends? In short, how can you increase the love in your life?

Love – The Ultimate De-stressor
In the end, we’re all looking for ways to reduce our stress levels.  We’re trying to get a grip on things, take of the details and hope the train doesn’t run off the track and kills us.  But really, what we need isn’t control – it’s love.  We need to feel loved.  We need to love others.  It is the foundation of our existence.  And if we can feel love coming and going in our bodies, then everything else gets easier.  It’s just that simple.  So look to increase the love in your life.  If you can’t figure out how to get it coming in, no problem!  Send some out. Eventually, it’s sure to come back to you.