The more that We commit to Self Honesty, the more We stockpile its benefits. When you are honest about everything you have nothing to worry about. Sir Walter Scott said, “Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive!” Being fully honest with your Self and others is the ultimate survival strategy.
The foundation for my writings is the koan from the contemplative discipline of Zen WORDS ARE TRAPS. If there are things that We do not want to face about anything, We are cheating Our Self by not dealing with what We do not want to face. When We face what We do not want to look at, or notice, about Our Self, and think Our way through the uncomfortable thoughts to a Self-Resolution, We gain personal power from the resolution. It took energy to repress, or suppress, or hide what We did not want to face. The energy that you use to keep things hidden from your Self can cause you to have psychosomatic illnesses. The repressing, suppressing or hiding of your thoughts from your Self can also make people around you sick and this includes pets. We are energetically interconnected.
When We do not want to face something about Our Self, the hiding of the problem inside Us can come with Us making up some kind of personal fable to Our Self so We can live with Our Self. The personal fable that We make up to Our Self in order to live with Our Self is a word trap. We are making up a self esteem maintenance strategy to Our Self in order to keep Our pseudo self esteem. We lie to Our Self. We are a phony to Our Self. Many times to keep Our lies going We may take aggressive or passive aggressive action against others because we are laboring under the delusion that We will be embarrassed in some way if We don’t. We really subconsciously know that We are a phony but We would rather be a phony then resolve the problem.
Our personal fables stem from fear and can cause Us to spread defensive lies to others and this is the tangled web that Sir Walter Scott talked about. If We are spreading many lies, those lies contain a lot of energy. If We do not want to ever resolve the lies, it means that We do not want to get caught in Our lies to others; this is a great amount of false energy to have to manage. A person like this is separate from others. A person like this has not risen to a love vibration where they realize what word trapping does to their Self and others. Other people should not be part of a false reality or nastiness.
COVID-19 is causing Us to be honest with Our Selves and each other – the ultimate survival strategy. Being honest with Our Selves makes Us love Ourselves. We are a world tribe. It is taking Us back to Our Sacred Roots. Our Sacred roots embody the GOLDEN RULE which is to treat others as you want to be treated or to love Our neighbor as Our Self.
I was born in Wisconsin to a Roman Catholic family. My mother June was a talented writer and started her own service club. My father Joe was a Right-of-Way agent for Bell telephone. Joe was an avid golfer and overall sports enthusiast. Joe would play sports with me and I became a life-long athlete.
I was known as a rebel and was expelled from the Catholic school I attended at the age of fourteen. I was arrested at nineteen for being a thief and was placed on probation. Around this time, not being happy, I turned inward. I worked at different jobs that did not satisfy my budding inner life. I traveled down south several times reading books trying to find myself. In 1980, at the age of twenty-seven, I enrolled at a local college. I was now in an interesting environment. I was curious about almost everything and I eventually majored in speech and psychology or speaking and thinking.
Many people told me that I was funny. I was able to make them laugh about unusual subjects. In the summers of 1981 and 1982, while still a college student, I traveled to Minneapolis and pursued the art of stand-up comedy. During these summers I would write comedy, run twenty-five miles a week and perform comedy at night. I was also a juggler but did not juggle in my stand-up act. I took up Hatha yoga and studied nutrition. In Minneapolis, I interacted with the local up-and-coming comedians. Minneapolis at that time had a small close-knit comedy culture that produced a good number of comedians and some became quite famous. I was making audiences laugh shortly after I started. During this time I was also performing comedy in other cities. I planned on being a professional comedian.
Catholicism conditioned me to have a clear inner voice. I had to make people laugh and the only way I could see to do it was to be brutally honest with myself. I thought honesty would align me with common reality. The Sisters of St. Agnes, who taught me, always told me to tell the truth. So I was continually examining myself and weeding out delusional thinking. This became my way of life.
One day in 1983, I was alone at my parents house and all of a sudden I had a massive spontaneous kundalini awakening. The awakening of this spiritual energy made me realize my self. I achieved the ability, among others, to see through other peoples egos or read their hearts. I was forever changed. In 1983 there was no internet or otherwise easily accessible information for me to be able to find out what had happened to me. Because of the massive explosion of energy my nervous and digestive system had to rebuild.
Due to what happened to me, I changed my plans and soon moved in with my best friend and her son. We lived together for many years. I hid out in college going on and off for thirteen years. I read one book after another to understand what happened to me. I eventually received an M.A. in Speech/Rhetoric and also amassed many extra college credits. Currently I am an investor and forever a student.
I am repentant of the trouble I got into years ago and the embarrassment it brought to my parents. People that knew me when I was a kid remark that I sure changed my ways. I went through what I call psycho/spiritual/physical alchemy or I transformed myself by healing the past and living in the ongoing present.
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WORDS ARE TRAPS 