True Power: What do you believe?

Do you know what you believe?

Most people say yes. But I'm going to go out on a limb and say that most of the people who say yes, when questioned, don't really know what they believe about a whole host of things that affect their lives.

I believe (ah, here's one I know!) that what we believe is the key to how we feel, how we respond, how we live. I also believe (another!) that we can change what we believe; that things we hold as "truths" are more often than not "good guesses" and "cherished assumptions" that we've chosen to embrace; that many of those choices are based on faulty information and misunderstood (or missing) data; and that by changing what we choose to believe, we change how we see the world and how the world sees and treats us. Finally, and maybe most importantly, unless we do the hard and ongoing work of discovering what we believe and holding those beliefs up to the light, we run the risk of letting beliefs that don't serve us rule our actions.

To be in control of our own lives, we need to know what we believe, understand why we believe it, and ask ourselves, always, "Is it true? Does it serve?" Anything that isn't true and doesn't serve should be replaced.

We form beliefs based on things we're told, events we witness, experiences we have...and the way in which we perceive those things, with whatever level of understanding we have at the time, colors and shapes our beliefs. And since so much of what we think we believe about ourselves is based on input we receive and process and use to define ourselves and our roles in the world, we end up with colorful, oddly shaped self images, more akin to fun house mirror images than true reflections. We develop our beliefs about others in much the same way, often complicated and clouded by our ill-formed perceptions of ourselves.

Beyond what we believe about ourselves and others, beliefs about death, life, sex, work, love, learning, relationships...in short, everything that matters...shape our lives in ways we don't always think about. We act on what we believe most of the time, even when don't know or can't articulate those beliefs. At other times, we ignore what we really believe in favor of some false belief we've cooked up to justify doing something pleasureable or avoiding something uncomfortable.

Discovering what we believe isn't always as straightforward as it might seem. In fact, it's much more a sneak-around-the-back process than a front door process. Beliefs can hide, and often we have to examine both action and motive to uncover the belief.

My personal journey into my own beliefs started with a gift. My ex-husband brought me a little book, Celebrate Your Womanhood Therapy, one of a series called "Elf Help Books." It featured charming little drawings of elves and short insightful sayings on each page. I can't quote the page verbatim, but it said, in essence, "True happiness is not found outside yourself. Happiness is a result of your thoughts, your beliefs, and your actions in harmony."

The statement rang true to me and since I was anything but happy at the time, I started thinking about my beliefs, my thoughts, and my actions. What I discovered, to my surprise, is this:

my actions were based on what I felt;
my feelings were based on what I thought;
my thoughts were based on what I believed;
my beliefs were based on... what?

That's where I got stumped. I reasoned that if I didn't know what my beliefs were based on, then I didn't know why I believed as I did, And if I didn't have a clue why I believed it, how the heck did I know it was true?

For me, discovery started with discomfort. I wasn't happy; if happiness was, as the book suggested, the result of harmony, then places where I felt most unhappy were places to look for what was discordant. Once I started to look, I discovered just what a mess I was! Things I claimed to believe, beliefs I claimed to hold dear, were nowhere evident in my life. Some things I thought I believed, or maybe thought I wanted to believe, I really didn't believe at all; I thought I was supposed to believe them, so I said I did and went on. But my life was telling another tale and the discord and chaos were pretty damning evidence. One discovery led to another, like dominoes falling. It was and is a slow process, one that continues today.

I don't even know where to begin to tell you what I learned and am still learning. The biggest lesson of all,I guess, is that I am not powerless over my thoughts and emotions. When I feel discomfort - anger, disappointment, fear, sadness, betrayal - I am not "stuck" with that emotion. I can dig deeper, look for the underlying belief that causes me to think the thoughts that cause the emotion. When I find it, I can examine the belief, look for its roots, discern its truth. Often, I find that the "belief" I hold so dear is really an assumption, a creative filling of gaps between facts based on some deeper, bigger belief that I wasn't aware I held.

I also learned, in the absence of irrefutible facts, to choose to believe the explanation that brings peace. So much of the time, we fill in motives when all we have observed is behavior. Most behavior (and there are exceptions, of course) doesn't really affect us all that much. It's the motives for the behavior that cause us the most misery. If someone steps on my toe, it hurts for a little while. If I believe she stepped on my toe purposefully, that hurts a lot longer. And if I don't know for a fact that the step was dileberate, I choose to believe it wasn't. It hurts less that way.

Examining my life, I learned that anytime I was acting in a way that was not aligned with what my intuitive, knowing self knew and recognized as the path of honor and wisdom, my life was chaotic and discordant. Let me tell you, that little nugget of wisdom, as obvious as it seems now, was a long time in coming. I wasn't listening to my inner voice. But that inner voice is the voice of our truest, deepest beliefs. It's the one that tells us we're ok, even when we're surrounded by the echoes of other voices telling us we're not ok. It's the one that knows what we love and where we're gifted and our highest purpose in this life. It's the one that tells us when we're about to act foolishly and do something selfish, arrogant, stupid, unsafe, unethical, or unwise...the same one we ignore for so many ill-conceived reasons. I got married twice when my inner voice was saying, "NO! This is not right for you!" because I didn't know how to back out of the relationship and wanted to avoid the discomfort of dealing with it. Talk about trading up! There's discomfort, and there's discomfort! And I put myself through hell and contributed to my partners' hellish experience because I didn't pay attention to what I knew, what I believed.

So I ask you again...what do you believe? There is tremendous power in listening, asking, digging, and finding our beliefs, questioning them, discovering their sources. There is even more power in having the courage to change beliefs that don't hold up to scrutiny. One of my favorite Bible verses (yes, I have favorite Bible verses!), John 8:32 (World English Bible), says it well: "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." The power to cause change to occur in our lives in conformity with our will is magic of the highest order.

The True Power of a Witch - Introduction

I am a witch. A lot of different images and thoughts may come to mind when you read that, depending on your perspective. There have been a million and one (give or take a few) essays, articles, and books about what a witch is or isn't, and I'm not going to write another. Rather than providing yet another definition, I'm going to focus on what is, in my opinion, the single greatest tool and power a witch - or anyone - can work with.

Most witches practice some form or forms of magic. This is not stage magic for entertainment, but serious, concious effort to affect change using natural laws and forces. Aleister Crowley provided a definition of magic that I like, claiming magic to be "the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will." Indeed, being a witch is all about change, and nowhere is that more applicable than within ourselves.

As a follower of a nature-centered spiritual path, my personal walk also involves an attempt to live in harmony with nature. Mention "nature" and most minds turn immediately to the physical earthly environment. We've seen how important living in harmony with our environment is and the damage we've caused by not doing so. But the nature I refer to also includes me...I am every bit as much a part of the natural world as the rivers and trees. Part of my walk as a witch is to learn to live in harmony with myself and others.

For all the effort, mundane or magical, we put into changing things outside ourselves, we can expect only so much in return. Why? Because we are not the only actors and we are not in control. We have influence in the world, influence that can be increased with knowledge, skill, and applied will and intent, but we have control over only one thing. We control only ourselves - our behavior, our thoughts, and our emotions.

Through the power of personal choice, we have control over more of our lives than most of us know or acknowledge. The power to choose what we do, what we say, what we think and believe and, to a large extent, what we feel is inherent. It cannot be taken away from us. Circumstances can create limited or difficult choices, for sure. Yet even when the choices come down to "do or die," that is still a choice. Understanding, claiming, and using the power of personal choice is the power to create inner harmony.

One of the seven Hermetic Principles, The Princople of Vibration, comes into play here. I have not put in the time and study to call myself a serious student of Hermetics, but I have come to understand the Principles as universal laws. Like other universal laws, one need not ba a student to witness them in action. The Law of Vibration states: "Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates." Students of Hermetics seek to control their own vibration and, through that control, to influence the vibration of others. Of this law, it has been said, "He who understands thePrinciple of Vibration, has grasped the sceptre of power." Even without trying, we see evidence that the state in which we find ourselves, our vibration, if you will, influences the people and events around us.

I cannot count the times in the last five years or so that someone has said to me, "You have the most peaceful aura about you," or, "I feel calmer just being around you." Why would that be? Perhaps, despite all odds, I've been able to reach a vibratory state that is calm, confident, safe, and peaceful. Maybe...just maybe...I have found the center of my own personal power, and while I'm not perfectly in control all the time, I'm aware of and in touch with the choices I make about what I think, what I believe, and how I feel about and react to what happens to and around me.

My life was not always so, and while the steps I took and continue to take to reach this state were abundantly simple, it would be a boldfaced lie to say they were easy. Simple and easy are not synonymous.

It would also be a lie to say that I have it all figured out and nailed down in some sort of plug-and-play process. I don't. No one does. I've hestiated to broach this subject for so long precisely because it's impossible to tell someone, "Do this and you'll be happy." It's a very personal journey, one that requires a lot of intimate time with yourself, painful honesty, and constant catching of yourself in cherished lie after cherished lie. It's hard work...and the results are worth every single uncomfortable, foundation-shaking, long-look-in-the-mirror moment. Reclaiming power over your own life is dirty work with a huge payday. The kicker is that, in this sense, we live from payday to payday; the work of staying in touch with our own power never ends.

In a series of posts, I'm going to talk about my personal experience in reclaiming my personal power in my life. My experience is not unique, I'm sure, nor is anything I will share here groundbreaking news. We all have the same power, always have and always will. We give up that power and put ourselves into positions of victim or pawn, moved and controlled by forces inside or outside ourselves, forgetting that we are the source of most of those forces.

These posts will talk about how we can take back that control through:

What we believe
What we choose to think (and think about)
How we behave
How we feel and why we feel that way
Why the words, "I can't help it; it's just the way I am," should be wiped from your vocabulary
Why we create our own prisons and lock our own doors
Why then, no matter how bad it was, is not as important as now

I hope anyone reading will feel free to join in the conversation. I believe it to be one of the most important conversations we can ever have.

Sources:

http://www.muhammadfarms.com/hermetic_principles.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magick_(Aleister_Crowley)

If you call yourself a Wiccan...

...then you really need to visit Sitara Haye's beautiful website and join in the discussion there. Most recently, this post about lineage verses self-made Wiccans caught my attention. I've already voiced my opinion there, and I am eager to read the comments of others...including you.

Sitara's entire site is a wonderland and not to be missed. Go check it out and, should you be inclined, join in the conversation. There are some GREAT discussions going on! Her site is beautiful, too, and is the work of a good friend at LadyCelt Design.

That's it for now...just passing along nuggets of wisdom and beauty where I find them.  Blessing of joy and peace to all.

A riddle...

Riddle: What do you say when the Universe hits you in the head with a "clue by four"?

Answer: Ouch. Thank you. May I have another?

Synchronicity. Timing. Things happening in such a way that there can be no doubt that something is coordinating the events. Affirmation that evolution happens in the micro as well as the macro. We evolve in tiny increments all the time.

My friend Lynnette is busy preparing an Ostara ritual for our little group. She sent some questions to get us thinking and help us prepare for the celebration. She talked about balance, naturally enough, and drew a distinction between static balance - "...stand with outstretched hands holding the same amount of 'weight' on each..." and "... balance experienced as a flow of seasons, cycles...".

Her words evoked an image of a curved line, a wave that curves deeply to one side, then gradually swings toward the other, crossing the center point before curving wide to the opposite side, like a continuous S-curve.

My life is like that, and it's been brought home to me lately so very clearly. I've been living in a wide swing toward ideals that I embrace happily and that, at their core, serve me well. But the curve can't stay that far out, that far from center, without throwing the wave out of balance. Like that line, there are aspects of my life that need to curve back toward center.

Here is an example, one that currently occupies a lot of my thoughts: I am a very accepting person. Acceptance is a part of my personality, but I've also worked hard to cultivate it in my life. I've conciously nurtured the part of me that takes people as they come and sees good in just about everyone. The problem is that I've also developed the habit of ignoring red flags, warnings and danger signs. It's not that I don't see them. If I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that I do, indeed, see the red flags waving. I just ignore them.

Why? Because I think I might be wrong. Or because, for some reason, I have come to believe that saying, "I don't like her" is just...wrong. It sounds so arrogant, so self-centered. What do you mean, you don't like her? What makes you so special that the universe should care whether someone pleases you or not? Why are your likes and dislikes more important than the other person's right and responsibility to be who they are? That's a person, not a flavor or a color. Focus on the other person instead of yourself for a change. People act on what they believe. Look at the reasons behind the actions instead of weighing everything in the light of whether it pleases you or not.

So I allowed myself to develop the habit of ignoring things because I was convinced somehow that I had enough understanding of human nature to see beyond the behavior to its cause. Once I knew the cause, I could ... I could...what? Change the behavior? Disregard it because I knew why they did it? That's more likely, I think. I just overlooked a lot of things because I thought I knew why they were doing them. It didn't make them any less annoying, dangerous, or unhealthy, but I could just be the bigger, more superior person and rise above it all.

Hogwash! I've been ignoring red flags and it has cost me. More important, my ignoring my own instincts contributed to friends being hurt. No...I'm not trying to take resonsibility for everything in the world...but facing the fact that, had I listened to certain instincts, raised a question when I observed things that weren't quite right, or just spoke up and said, "Hey, I know BS when I see it and that was some of the S-iest B I've seen in a long time!" is just facing the truth. I've been so focused on not being self-centered that I forgot to use common sense and simple self-preservation, practicing a special brand of self-centered, cleverly disguised as acceptance and other-centric living.

Though the reasons were very different at the time, I have been ignoring warnings and flags since I was young. I got married twice under a fluttering, flapping, sea of garrison-sized crimson beauties. I knew it wasn't right but I chose to ignore them. Why? That's a whole 'nother subject for a whole 'nother time. Regardless of the reasons, the behavior was the same. Was the pattern being set even then? Maybe.

So...lessons learned...and being learned...again...still. I feel the curve turning and flowing more toward center, away from the wide arc too far out to the side. Of course, the curve continues, and I'm sure I'll swing wide again on some other issue...or the same one, though I truly hope not.

I am still an accepting person, and I don't want that to change. I like that part of me and I'm glad I've cultivated that trait. What I do want is to accept my own right and responsibility to listen to the warnings.

It doesn't do much good to be a very intuitive person if you ignore your own intuition, does it?