Tag: One

Q & A of the day: How can I be sure that what I feel is ‘real’?

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ Leave a comment

Like all magnificent things, it’s very simple. ~ Natalie Babbitt

Question: How can I be sure that what I feel is ‘real’ and I’m not having a hallucination? Or that I’m inventing the feeling?

This is so simple. In fact, you may say something like, “It can’t be that simple” or “No way.”

Ask yourself. When you find yourself on the edge of or in the midst of an unusual experience merely ask yourself if what you are feeling or seeing is real. Ask yourself if you’re having a hallucination or if you’re mind is inventing it (because it could be doing something else more productive, right?).

Way.

That simple.

Ask and listen to the response. It also helps to heed it but that may take more trust than you’ve got at this moment. For now, just turn this into an experiement, one in which you are participant and observer.  You’ll begin to notice that your created mental responses are different than ‘inspired’ ones or ones from outside of us entirely. If you haven’t taken the time to differentiate between these, try wrapping your head around the differences between these:

“Gee, I wonder what I should make for dinner?” = an example of the created thought. Maybe it appears as you’ve opened the refrigerator for the third time and nothing new has appeared on the top shelf.

 “Ice cream and pickles.” An inspired response. One that just ran through your head for no particular reason. It might be followed by a created one that says, “Where the heck did that come from” or “Am I pregnant?”

 “Hey, honey, let’s have black bean soup for dinner.” A response from outside of us.

The only difference between the latter with a breathing, visible companion and that of a not-so-visible, unbreathing one is how we ‘hear’ the voice.

Many times the response comes back to us in our own voice and in our own head. This confuses people who aren’t used to talking to themselves. There is a difference between you talking to you (and, yes, it is often the most intelligent conversation you might have on any given day) and another talking to you in your head. No, it doesn’t mean you’re crazy. It means you’re becoming adept at discerning what’s yours and what is not.

Seriously, y’all, this is not complicated stuff.  It is simple and can be quite fun and enlightening when you can begin moving through the unfolding of it all with a sense of curiosity rather than fear.

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The State of One

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ 2 Comments

is just that.  It is, was, and always exists. It is not a consciousness that makes demands. It requires absolutely nothing from you. There are no prerequisites, no conditions to be met. There are no laws or rules. You don’t even have to believe it. It’s helpful for yourself and others to recognize it–even through questioning the very idea–for a number of reasons but you need not:

Transcend where you are.

Ascend to another dimension.

Vibrate at a higher frequency.

Be healed, upgraded, downloaded, or activated.

Try to attain or reach another’s consciousness,

Practice yoga.

Lose your ego.

Suffer.

Wear a specific color or pray a certain way.

Have a master to show you the way.

Or love everyone.

All you need to do is recognize you are connected to everything and everyone around you; all the things you can and cannot see.  Once you recognize that, the rest of life just keeps moving as it has been.  However, how you move with it changes.

You recognize:

Where you are is transcended or transcendent from the last breath you took.

There are not different dimensions, just things you may not be able to see like others can.

Vibration is how everything already moves. You eversofine vibration is your frequency.

You and yourfineselves were upgraded, activated when you were born.

You download the music that let’s you feel the vibration of you and shows it to others through your dance through life. And, that, my dears, is how your eversofine frequency is shared with others.

You are aware, conscious even, that no one else’s consciousness is necessary or attainable.

You realize your body needs your attention and is able to make your dance through this world much more comfortable if you take care of it.  And that when you move it, you are not just feeling your own heart pound (maybe a little too fast?) but that there is another beat in there for someone else. So might incorporate a few downward dogs or do-si-dos into your health routine.

You become aware that leggo-ing the eggo is not complicated, that you are a human, and you have an ego. It helps keep you alive, not an egotist. What’s called the ‘loss of ego’ is recognizing it’s not all about you because you isn’t a solitary speck of humanity flotsam floating alone. And you move through life with that awareness being involved in your choices & actions.

The things above bring the knowing that your choices and actions include those to suffer or cause that to others.  And that leads to knowing you can prayer isn’t about you and what you wear may be but you can fly your own fashion flag as you like.

You’ll notice that in the same way others may not love your clothing choices, you won’t love everyone else.  You’ll just see them and, without attachment or judgment, will recognize them as connected to you and either love them or not.  You’ll be the master of your own domain.  Until you’re not. And, with any luck, you’ll realize that every.single.day.  That’s how we upgrade–we learn something new every day, we reach out to someone else who also doesn’t know a damn thing.

And we dance together.

It’s simple, y’all.  It’s simple.

What Happens?

What happens when your soul
Begins to awaken
Your eyes
And your heart
And the cells of your body
To the great Journey of Love?

First there is wonderful laughter
And probably precious tears

And a hundred sweet promises
And those heroic vows
No one can ever keep.

But still God is delighted and amused
You once tried to be a saint.

What happens when your soul
Begins to awake in this world

To our deep need to love
And serve the Friend?

O the Beloved
Will send you
One of His wonderful, wild companions ~
Like Hafiz.

On Integration and Becoming

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ 9 Comments

The string of events in the last few months that makes my life uniquely mine  continue at an amazing rate.   What others call ‘ecstatic experiences’ are, for me, quite normal.  Until, well, they are not. In An UnCommon Experience and On Fear and Stepping Up I shared two of my most striking ‘conversations with the universe’.

Two Tuesdays ago, I had the most profound yet.  Two Tuesdays ago I went for an hour massage. I walked out three and a half hours later with something much more. What follows is my attempt at putting something both surreal and very, very real in the only way I can.

After Ellen gave me a lecture about needing magnesium &  whatnot in the diet and said, “I’ve done all I can for your back now; roll over”, the room just ‘opened’ and filled with the most nearly-indescribable, amazing energies–100s of them and several ‘key’ ones that although didn’t speak to me were clearly identified instantaneously.

In that moment or however long it was, I ‘knew’ with striking clarity that what was with me was the presence & essence of each who has walked this path before me.  Again, although nothing was spoken, there was a clear message of who I am and what I’m to do.  Nothing needed to be said because I already knew.

For months I’ve been pushed/pulled to not necessarily name & claim or define for others all things me (although people keep asking for that & that’s how I sometimes interpret it) but to stand in it and move in it, in me.  I’ve been called out strikingly when afraid and pushed in more ways than one to move past the fear–primarily of what others will think of me and that of ‘lack’ (being afraid of not having enough $/food/fun/relationships).  I’ve known since last summer.

I’ve said before to a couple of people in my life that I’ve believed I’m walking an uncharted path.  In fact, others have come before me and though there may not be a Rand-McNally for it, the path is crystal clear. I’m continuing the ‘walk’ that others began–except in another time & space of things.   There are those that will think I’m not walking the walk their way because they cannot see.  I’ll not fit their boxes of who I am or should be in their view.  So be it.  I can’t be everything to everyone but I will BE. Again.

I don’t know how long the energetic experience my massage therapist and I shared lasted.  As I laid naked on a massage table, heart open, open eyes crying, breathing in a rhythm shared with the multitudes around me, each of them joined me in a way that cannot be put into words. The peace, strength, power, grace, compassion, ferocity, sublime serenity, and knowing merged.  Into One.  One who has work to do.  One who now knows beyond any shadow of doubt that she is not alone.  Over and over and over and over with increasing intensity and an unmistakable insistence “be.now.be.nowbenowbenowbenownownownownowiamnowiamnowiamNOW’ came through me. And in that merging, I emerged as one.

The energies dissipated with a message for me that moved through Ellen:

“Become NOW!  For in the light of the one we all become all that is.”

We both looked at each other, crying and without the capacity to say much of anything at all.  In fact, there wasn’t much to be said even later other than “Oh. Shit.” Knowing without having to say a thing that the time is now to own it & act on it.  So my string of ‘oh.shit’ moments has taken another leap, forcing me to move past my fear into action.  Or, moving in spite of the fear.

I am one of a handful of people who show up every now and again all over the world who have a job to inspire, lead, heal, change, stir the complacency shit-pot, share, love, piss-off, push, encourage, & connect in service to others.  This time I go by the name of Ingrid.

Fear and Stepping Up

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ 8 Comments

I make a point of putting myself out there in a number of ways.  I want to demystify this ‘healing thing’; create a relationship that hopefully allows others to connect to me or folks like me with trust; provide my own catharsis, and help myself keep it real…nothing like knowing there are a potential few million people who might read what you write and call you on your shit to keep you honest, no?

I hold back on things, though.  The first is how I’ve come to know myself.  In part, I hold back because I can’t quite articulate what I know.  I know (I think, anyway) the meaning behind & within it but I can’t wrap my head around it in a way that makes even sense to me.  If I can’t explain it to myself, I can’t explain it to anyone else.  No need to add to the confusion or otherwise muck it up more, I’ve said to myself & no one else (cue the Neil Diamond, yes?).  I thought I could wait until something (I dunno what) coalesces and later attempt to explain but that misses the whole point of me Stepping Up.

So, I’ve been a chicken.  Big fat lying chicken.  Not an overtly lying chicken but the holding-back, Imawussy type of chicken.  I fully admit that I’ve been afraid.  I’m afraid now.  I’m actually writing this and am going to hit ‘publish’ when I’m finished. ‘Publish’ means I can’t take it back. I can’t go back.  There’s no need to attempt kidding myself or anyone else.  In An UnCommon Experience, I shared an experience that pushed me where I didn’t think I was ready to go.  What I didn’t do was describe the subsequent experience of a week later like I said I was (yep, a wuss there, too). There’s been a progression of things since then culminating in another, more recent, powerful experience.

Two Sundays ago, when in a session with another amazing woman, I got soundly chastised by that voice that’s not a voice, the thought that’s not a thought.  I was clearly told that what I’ve been couching in terms of humility (I’m not special, we’re all just little ordinary people, blah-blah) & awe was not that at all.

I was reminded that it was fear. My fear. No doubt about it.  Good old-fashioned fear.  Fear of what other people will think of me.  Fear of what this means for my life.  Fear of moving into ‘not knowing’ as much as ‘knowing’.  Fear that I’m not cut out for this. Fear that I don’t know what the heck ‘this’ is. Fear that I’ll end up feeling more isolated from most other people than I do already.

Heck, I’m so afraid that I keep getting up and walking away from the computer after I type a sentence or phrase.  It’s taken me weeks of trying to figure it out, being slapped upside the head with a bazillion things that are nothing more than distractions, confronted by my own choices that I allow to hold me back. In fact, two weeks to work up the nerve to write and three days to actually do this.

The truth of the matter is that I’ve been called, pushed and pulled (dragged?) into stepping into me, into who I am, my true power.  I’ve been called to name it, own it, move with it and in it.  And I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.

I know the presences that merged with me two Sundays ago made it clear that I’m no longer able to duck & dodge who I am. “Did you think we’d let you forget?”  I have no connection to the three presences that were identified by the client (who gamely shared this experience with me step-by-step) with one exception. I happen to know of Paramahansa Yogananda because Autobiography of a Yogi is one of the books I bought to try to figure out what’s been going on with me  (I never did finish reading it.).   I’ve heard of Sai Baba somewhere but never of the third that she identified as one of the others’ teachers.  As an aside, I feel presences around me w/ some frequency and I occasionally I assign a personality to them—sometimes I call one Christ b/c it just feels what I think Christ-like is to me in the moment.  However, I don’t generally know a bunch of dead dudes like my friend, Simon.

I really have been afraid.  Without exception, I’ve been afraid to say out loud to another or even to myself that the presence I feel so profoundly—most profoundly during sessions—really is me.  Nothing from outside of me.  All of me.  My within put with-out to be shared.

You know, it has come naturally to me to speak of seeing you and me as the Divine.  To feel that, to know that at this level requires me to relinquish a few things I’ve held onto and admit a few others that I may not have wanted to.   It requires to me stand up and accept that I am special.  That I am extra-ordinary.  The thing is, you wouldn’t think that’s such a hard thing to do but for me it is.

For decades I’ve wanted to feel special. I wanted to hear it from parents, friends, lovers, and with very rare exceptions haven’t.  I’ve certainly known I was different.  That bit couldn’t be missed.  Despite that I still felt invisible.  Still do.  Hell, I feel like screaming “SOMEBODY SEE ME!  FEEL ME!! HELP ME!!!” as much now as I did when I was 2, 10, 12, 20 years old.   (And, when you don’t see me, I’m actually doing that! I mean, not all the time but when the goin’ is rough, oh yes!)

This new reckoning actually really does require me to not give a good shit what others think & put myself out there whether or not anyone will ever see me or, well, give a good shit about me.

The thing is, I really don’t know what this is.  I really don’t know how to articulate it. It’s an experience and a way of being that I never knew about, planned for, sought or imagined.  I don’t know me now.  I don’t know what to do with it.  I don’t know what to do with me.  It’s cool to hear from other’s that they feel God’s presence when in my presence.  A pretty nifty thing. Talk about some validation.  However, to intentionally move to the understanding that what they are feeling isn’t from some idea of God coming to visit while I work, that it is the whole of me–little ol’ Ingrid me—is another thing altogether.  To come right out and say that floors me. I don’t have the presence, it’s not a visitation.  I am it.  I am all of that it.  All of those things that string together these things between us and that are us. And all things. This is who I am.

I’m not a person of faith. I don’t ‘have faith in’ anything.  Never have. I don’t get that concept. I don’t ‘believe in’ anything. I ‘just know’ a lot of stuff but that’s not been much help lately.  I don’t know how else to be.  I do know that how I’ve been ‘be-ing’ me ain’t working so well.  I give in the way I feel I’m supposed to.  I ask questions, I ask guidance and get bupkus.  There’s no ‘fluff-n-stuff’ in how I’m me.  I was actually stunned when a person at my last group session said in response to my question of why they came,  “Well, I looked at your site and it just seemed like it came from the heart. Like it was all you. Not a packaged thing.” I think I looked at him like he had three heads before I replied, “Why would it or I be any other way?”

Why would it be any other way? It’s now time for me to own all of it.  I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know what that means for the rest of my life. I feel afraid. I feel alone. I feel frustrated and am tired of being hungry.   And, there’s so much more I don’t know.

I do know, though, that I’m getting ready to hit “publish”.  Here goes sumpin’.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

Marianne Williamson got that right.

Spiritual Naivety?

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ 8 Comments

There are those who think of me as ‘merely’ naive when it comes to things of spirit.  Here, I ask they consider their own limitation of expression that appears bound by others’ ideas & ideals. The string of logic posed by quite a few is that I’ve not studied spiritualism, metaphysics, any aspect of any religion, and not living/speaking/healing/BE-ing within the bounds of someone else’s playbook.   I’ve not sought out sages or saddhus, not read from mystics and mages, not worshiped at or made an altar,  I’ve not done enough things or read enough of stuff  to know of what I speak and certainly not enough to know Truth–neither my own nor that that is Universal.

So what if I get my inspiration from Dean Koontz as much as I do Rumi?  So what that I don’t have Lama so-and-sos books as reference guides?  So what that I picked up all those books you have on your shelves, read a few pages or chapters and said, “Nope. That’s not it.” So what that I can say I don’t know?  I don’t care to know.  I have no need or desire to understand.   I don’t need to read someone else version of how my life should/might/could be.   So what that I can say I Know more than has ever been forgotten of that for which there are no words to be written in a book?  So what that I don’t assign any more significance to a crystal than I do the chair that supports my ass, the friends that feed my hunger, or the wind that tousles my hair?

So what that I don’t give a crap about past lives, Akashic records, 2012, 11/11/11 or future-&-fortune telling?  So what that I’m not afraid of and cannot explain how or why I go formless; how or why I can feel more heartbeats than my own; how or why my vibrations intensify sometimes so that furniture and the air move around me? I just not afraid and just don’t care.

Why does it bother anyone that I can say with certainty that I am enlightened?  Why? Why does it bother you so that I don’t couch any of this in terms of ‘spiritual’ but consider it merely living.  Not a separate part of me or anyone/thing in the Universe?

With some frequency, I say to as many people as I can, “Forget what you think you know.”  That bugs a lot of folks.  Annoys, confuses, angers and frightens.  There is always one or a few someones who believe they know everything. Can recite left, right, upside down and backwards biblical & kabbahlistic texts, A Course in Miracles, Eckhart Tolle’s latest; carry around with them photos of their gurus, pocket angel cards, and other accoutrement; wear their crystals and white; repeat “peace and light”, and still live in a state of unawareness.  Unaware, unopen to change or other avenues of experience and expression.

Generally speaking, when I ask folks to forget what they think they know, I’m not trying to challenge the ideas they hold (although, sometimes, for grins & giggles that is my entire point).  We connect to and engage with those things that resonate with us, interest us and excite us.  I get that. I want, though, to push people past their limitations.  I want to push people past the ideas & attitudes of others that they hold so dear, onto so tightly that they cannot see their own.  There are a lot of people saying the same thing and slightly different versions of the same thing for a reason. I don’t know what it is and don’t care to.  What I do know and care about is people remaining comfortable and complacent in the ‘same thing’ in the same manner we, as humans, have done over the course of our existence.  The ‘same thing’ that leads to dogma, doctrination, discrimination of the negative sort without the discrimination of the discerning sort.

I have the unique ability to see in ways others cannot. Or, more pointedly, in ways others choose not to.  I can see through the veils, the stories, the fears, the mirrors, the cloaks, the stuff-n-stuff that holds people back from their potential. I see the essence.  It has nothing to do with form, fashion, or finessing of words. When I can see it clearly and they cannot fathom because of those limitations, I, quite frankly, get annoyed.  Because of this stuff is so ridiculously simple. Because if you can’t actually practice it, why do you preach it, and hold onto it–that thing–so hard that ?

Let go. Open yourself up. Entirely.  It’s not enough to say, “I’ve got an open heart” when the rest of you is shut down and shut out of the simplicity of the mystery of the Universe.  You don’t need to ‘figure it out’.  There is nothing that needs fixing. Nothing that needs to be rescued or saved.  Sure, tools are good.  As are crutches.  However, when you allow your tool to become the crutch for too long, you forget how to walk on your own!

Breathe. Be. Know.  Know thyself and be true.  And live fully, openly.

Inspired by Fucking-Sharing a Twitter experience of Being Ing (Get it? Be-Ing?)

~ Ingrid Oliphant ~ 3 Comments

Unknot the knickers, unpinch the panties; it’s not in the nikked sense of the word, it’s in the George Carlin sense. Not exactly rated-G but not porn.

So, I had an inspirational experience this morning on Twitter.  Because it’s one way I communicate w/ the world and because I believe in putting all of me out there in every way, I posted, “I’m fucking frustrated!”.  Oh. My. Yup, I said it. Folks seemed a little taken aback that a “spiritual” (whatever that really means) someone , one who posts about love, light, tranquility, peace, God, being God, knowing all things Godly dropped an F-bomb.  Oh. My.

One of the things I continue to find so amazing about this mysterious life that is Me is people’s response to all things Me.  I make an effort to explain that I’m not going to fit into any box that you’ve created as a way to make me ‘fit’ into the world-order as you see it.  Combine that with what seems to be an entirely different standard of living related to ‘being spiritual’–makes me wanna pull a Bill-the-cat and  ACK! As if, because we’re different, special, on a higher level/plane/playing field, we don’t do things like live ‘normally’.

Here’s the deal: I am freakin’ special and, get this, absolutely, brilliantly, fuckedupedly, fandamtabulously, ordinary.  I put on my pants and drop them the same way you do, my shit stinks, I curse, love, like brilliant sex, burn toast, shrink laundry, change the world, curse, shoot guns (Oh, for Pete’s Sake–really?! Again, unknot & unpinch), don’t like some people; drink red wine, beer, bourbon; overeat, under-sleep, befriend, unfriend, enjoy cigars, wash dishes, smoosh stinkbugs, rescue bees & turtles; all the while bringing the light of God, the Love of the Universe to every, single being I can connect with.

I may move through, see, and experience the world in a very unique way but I am a human being (Really. Not a ‘spiritual’ being having a human experience. I’m human!) and I live fully.  I am complex, beautiful, annoying, course & crass, unafraid, hungry for more than I need, more than I ever could want, more than I could ever imagine so that I can do the Work I’m brought here to do without limitation (back to why I’m frustrated!).

I love my Ruger (P95 for those that want to know),the smell of the gun range & cow manure, Neil Diamond, & strong coffee. I miss my dog, hate panty hose & shaving my legs, know that I am loved and Blessed by the seen and unseen, and breathe for all that live.    I am grateful beyond words that I  allowed to live the way I do because there are a few amazing people in my life who love me for being me, truly do believe I have a special Gift and need to share it with the world.  And, again, I am no more extra-ordinary than you, the grass, Christ hisself, the people that I don’t like, the Chopras and Oprah’s of the world (and, oddly, enough, despite the power they’re given, they ain’t all that extra-anything either!).  That’s the whole point, really, people.  To recognize that we are all unique and of the same.

I express my passions, emotions and connection to all that exists by moving energy in a way that is tangible & palpable. Sometimes that includes saying: Fuuuuuuck, Holy Shit, Hot Damn & Hallelujah, HolyMaryMotherofGod, Shitfire, Batman in Hotpants (really, I don’t know how or why I conjured that one!), Holy Christ, Great Day, crappity crap, OOhhhhhh Hell, WOOOOHOOOOOO, Quitcherbellyachin’, SHUT it, and a variety of other words that act as exclamation points better than anything on a keyboard.  My use of & the meaning behind the it is defined solely by ME.  I don’t apologize for it.

Especially when I say: “I love you.” Without condition, without expectation, in its purest, simplest form.  I love you.

I love George Carlin, too!