Authentic Language

Reminder from Mano: When eating a meal, give thanks to the carrot elementals, the broccoli elementals, etc.

NOTICE: Barbara will be a presenter at the Starseed Visionary Conference event in Santa Cruz, hosted by Narayani Gaia and Chief Elk Man, on May 13 & 14, 2017. If you cannot attend in person, you can still join the event Livestreaming online. LOCATION: 1119 PACIFIC AVE. 3RD FLOOR. SANTA CRUZ CA (above Logos, enter from Cedar Street side)

Since the spring of 2013 when Mano recommended to Barbara that I help create this blog, the three of us have had a remarkably smooth ride, with precious little conflict or disagreement. When that happens in my life, I know I’m meant to learn from the subtle rubs, the hard-to-grasp feeling blocks—the wisps of wisdom I’m pulling back from. The April blog’s focus on “I” messages coming from the heart and “you” messages from the intellect brings to mind one of these subtle issues. The most consistent correction, or adjustment, Barbara has made when she reads the blog draft is to gently point out when I use the universal “we”, as in “we’re all crazily busy these days”, so “we have trouble remembering to greet the flowers each morning.” She typically asks if I’m writing from my heart or from my head. I took to her point early on, since I’d just had a year when healers and others were consistently telling me that I think too much. But once in a while I felt rebellious, wanting to use the collective form because others might feel more included with the “we” and then connect more easily with the elemental world—a sort of bridge building idea. “This is a perfectly legitimate way of writing,” I would say to myself, and then I would change it. With the change would come one of those “deep involuntary breaths” of knowing I was moving closer to claiming my own feeling life.

One of Barbara’s early-on feedback notes was: “In the Conscious Living Program Jim and I taught many years ago we brought Authentic Language, which involves ‘I’ messages. These are more powerful and direct and people are left free to identify with them if they fit or feel right. ‘We’ is a generic term, for me a little fuzzy. I never know who the ‘we’ people speak of is supposed to be. You say, ‘Sometimes, along the way we are just moving one foot after the other when, suddenly, we receive a gift!’ With authentic language it would read: ‘Sometimes, along the way, I am just moving one foot after the other when, suddenly, I receive a gift.’ ”

These days I am learning about Living Room Conversations, which bring people of different persuasions, lifestyles, political views together in small groups to listen genuinely to each other. I wonder if these conversations might have grown in some way from the authentic-language impulse Barbara taught years ago. I learn to listen in the “walking in someone else’s shoes” way, to avoid judging, and when I contribute my piece with “I” messages I honor myself and the other.

I see, particularly with this cancer journey I am on, that I am always trying to act authentically out of my own story, to feel out . . . search out, the adjustments I am called to make within myself. Barbara’s notebooks are rich with her own efforts to learn these personal lessons, and I have always found seeds of hope and inspiration in the successes and lapses she faithfully documents.

During one Council of Gnomes session, one of the gnomes spoke to her about some judgmental thoughts she’d had about a friend who was worried about her own appearance. This dialogue, the gnome counseled, “needs to be turned to yourself and the care you take to look your best (deep involuntary breath)—to glorify Presence. I speak to this small point of attention,” the gnome continued, “because you are also careless about the cleanliness of your house. This is because your vision is blurry, but the carelessness brings discord into the Holy Temple of the Presence. This discord can occur in the body or in the home, as each is the temple of the God presence. And never think there is not enough time. You are being called to a mastery in which you create the time you need, to do what honors the Presence.”

Barbara recalls another time when she came to council upset about a relationship. The council said, “As we begin, stop and receive the in-filling of well being and love that we are directing to you. When you get caught in a nit about your friend you close yourself off from ‘the heart of a gnome.’ We cannot live in that claustrophobic atmosphere. Come to us and spend time with us. We work with the laws of endings and beginnings, destruction and rebirth. This is what you are in need of at this time with your friend. We need you to hold your vibrations at a consistently high level. The thoughts you’ve arrived with today are destructive to the work we do together. It is time to let this friend go; she is no longer relating to you. Also, watch your thinking and emotions and do not entertain the five harmful human habits: criticism, condemnation, judgment, blame, and gossip. Protect your mental and emotional body from runaway ego control and attempted kidnapping.”

The following reflection from Barbara is another of these sweet statements of realization and process.

I once discovered, when my life was young, that wherever I looked I could see a “need to, want to, have to”—always something to do for others. And hidden in my heart was a soft “want to” for myself. I gave the “need tos” priority when they involved others in my life, when they involved commitment to family, husband, work, promises made, intentions implied.

 Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. My commitment to others, now, comes and goes.  I used to get sick so I could stay in bed and do what I wanted without a word being said. Then I learned to be honest, to be a woman of truth, to honor myself, my spirit, my soul, my vitality, my youth. I learned to answer my inner being and say “no” to requests that take me from my own work—the work that only I can express.

 When I came from that mental place of being nice and doing for others the things they wanted me to do, I ended up being exhausted, brain dead, with no time for my own or for the responsibilities only I can accomplish. I lost peace of heart and body rest.

 After a long, long time finally l learned that what is best for me, and even for my family and friends, is to be able to say no—to find my truth within, to be honest and free, to abide deep within myself. I learned that when my actions are true, what I want turns out to be the same as what the other wants. Together we can build a process that works for both of us, in which both of our needs are met. Each of us comes from within. We each do our best. And joy of joy, my old pattern reverses.