Diane’s Blog

As you’ve probably noticed by now, these entries are getting farther and farther apart.  When I first started this blog, I thought it would consist of my jotting down some random thoughts weekly — that turned out to be unrealistic on my part.  It turns out that what wants to come out of me are short essays, and that takes more time and effort on my part than I am willing or able to give on a weekly basis. 

Thus, the once-in-a while blog is born!  At some point I guess I’ll have to have my web designer remove the “Weekly” from the top of this page, so as to not confuse.  Quality over quantity, people…

I’d like to share with you a little epiphany I had last weekend.  I started having an off-and-on pain in the upper left quadrant of my stomach — after 24 hours it had not changed.  So I did what I’ve been practicing for a couple of months now — I told my body that I’m sorry, I’m here, and I’m listening.  Having had an adversarial relationship with my body for practically my whole life, I finally got it that this needs to change in order for me to create not only better health for myself, but the sense of well-being that I want to experience at all times. 

When I receive messages via my intuition, they appear as just another thought, but I’ve learned to distinguish them from the messages that my ego sends me, which are almost always directive, often negative, forcing, and urgent.   Therefore, I knew I had a “hit” when I suddenly heard the words “Lighten Up” spoken gently. 

Well, that’s it, I thought.  Of course.  Even though I’ve tried to tell myself that I’m pretty relaxed these days, a deeper part of me knew that this wasn’t so.  I immediately began to remind myself periodically throughout the day to lighten up.  This helped a little, and indeed, the pain was gone by the next morning. 

Because I felt I needed to know more details about what was going on, I sat quietly the next afternoon and asked for guidance.  Because I am connected to my inner guidance system, and because this is what I do, I always receive an in-depth answer.  It turns out that a great deal of my anxieties about not being somehow “good enough” are still with me, and the pain that manifested did so as a reminder that this is so. 

It’s true — when I thought about it, I realized that I still have the fear that I am somehow inadequate to do the work that I am here to do.  Here’s where it gets complicated for all of us — I know intellectually that I am more than prepared and skilled.  Emotionally, however, part of me is constantly sabotaging this knowing.  This particular fear is rooted in my childhood — I am quite familiar with its origins. 

It was a reality check for me to be reminded that it is still active in my life, even though much of the time I may be unaware of it consciously.  My guidance suggested that I notice daily when I start to feed myself any sort of negative thoughts about my abilities or about how much I am “doing” since part of this fear manifests as forceful messages from my ego self that I should be doing more to prove my worth. 

The bottom line is “Stop The Should-ing!”  It’s always humbling to receive a reality check like this.  Especially because there are times when I receive the opposite message from the ego — the one that says “I am more evolved than (fill in the blank).  Our egos are funny that way — they like to keep us on quite an emotional roller coaster by informing us that we are at either one end of the spectrum or the other. 

What we seek of course, is balance — the middle point between better than and not good enough.  The process of waking up is now in full swing on this planet, and as I’m still being reminded, noticing and changing the thought patterns that no longer support us is our basic spiritual practice.

I’ve been spending some time considering what my deepest desires are lately.  Have you done this?  It seems to be a very effective way of paring away the superficial in life from what really brings us joy.  At least it is for me.  This is partly a function of aging — hell, I know that.  I turned 58 in November after all. 

But there’s also more to it.  It seems to me more and more that in this consumer-driven society it has become increasingly difficult to separate MY desires from those that are created artificially and funneled into my home via a television,, the Internet, etc.  Perhaps you’ve worked your way past these manufactured “needs”.  There’s still one more hurdle to jump, and that’s the trickiest one – the ego. 

It’s my understanding that one of the main reasons we are here is to learn to recognize and follow our inner voice over that of the ego, and for most of us this is a lifetime’s work.  In other words, you will probably receive one list of desires from someone to whom you ask, “What are your true desires?” 

That list will look quite different if you ask them to spend a week holding the question lightly in the back of their mind, letting it drift in and out, especially before they fall to sleep at night, and then allowing the answers to bubble up  from the heart in their own time.  If you are at all interested in following your spirit’s lead, this exercise is an effective measure of how far you’ve come. 

I’m not saying that your deepest desires have to evolve to the point where they are all non-material — please, spare me that.  As long as we have bodies it’s probably better to stay in them.  I would simply say that if after 20 years of telling yourself that you are working on your personal baggage your list of desires is still heavily weighted on the material goal side, you may need to go deeper. 

 I’ve noticed that over the last 10 years or so, my list of heart’s desires has become more and more weighted toward nature — I seem to need ever-increasing amounts of time spent walking through forests and observing the birds’ behaviors.  Having this information available to me on a conscious level has made it easier to act on.  And harder for others to convince me that something else is more important.

“Well, I’ve done it again.  Yup — caught myself any number of times in the past week trying to figure something out again.  Thought I was past that.  I certainly know it doesn’t work, which is why I worked so hard to drop this particular strategy from my repertoire over the last eight years. 

What happened eight years ago, you may well ask?  Here’s what happened: I decided to participate in the “Whole Life Expo” in Cleveland by purchasing booth space.  I was at the time calling my work “The Heartlogic System” and this seemed an excellent way to promote it.  This turned out to have been a naïve move on my part, but it was fun.  Across the aisle from me was a man named Gary Bonnell, whose booth seemed to promote books he had written; he also seemed to be giving brief readings of some sort. 

I paid little attention to him until the third and last day of the Expo, when I had a little free time and spent some of it looking over his books.  I was fascinated; here was all sorts of information about such topics as reincarnation, various esoteric wisdom teachings, and the Akashic Records, about which I knew next to nothing at the time.  I sought Gary out, and, to make a long story short, he sat me down for a free five-minute reading. 

I only recall one thing from that reading, but it’s a doozy.  He said, “Stop trying to figure things out!”  I said something like, “Yeah — you’re so right.”  Then I spent the next few days driving around in my car trying to figure out what he meant by that.  I finally got it, but it seems to have taken a long time for me to really implement this in my life.  After all, I spent the whole of my life up until then doing just that most of the time — trying to figure things out in my head, mostly so that I could experience some sense of control over life.  Some degree of safety. 

 Isn’t that what we do?  If I can just figure out ahead of time exactly what it is that my boss wants, I’ll have it made.  If I can just figure out how to make this relationship work — etc., etc. and so it goes.  In this analytical, left brain-worshiping society we can’t leave anything to “chance.”  The problem with this approach is that it ignores at least half of the information that is available to us. 

That information is contained within what you could call “intuitive knowing.”  We don’t know where we got that great idea that just came to us, but we know it didn’t come from analysis of the situation.  It just appeared.  In fact, it is just this process by which almost all of the world’s greatest ideas, inventions, and art have manifested: you do all the practical information-gathering, and then you let your intuition guide you. 

 I know this is so from my own experience, because I have now tried it again and again over the last few years, and it always works so beautifully — really beyond any initial expectation –that I am always shocked that I spent so much time “up in my head” going around in circles trying to force my brain to do work it was not cut out to do.  Once in awhile I still have to remind myself that this is so, and that happened this week. 

 I always catch myself at some point in the “chasing the answer around like a rat in a maze” mode; I notice that I am starting to feel a fuzziness in my thinking process as I continue to try to force an answer to come but keep hitting my head against a brick wall.  How does this work for you?  If you’re still trying to “figure things out”, why not step back and give life a chance to lead you?  I’ve found myself led to magnificent vistas that I never “figured” I’d experience.

Before I begin this week’s entry, I want to state that the classes I mentioned in last week’s entry are on hold for now.  For a number of reasons, I will probably not present anything until spring.  So — more on that in a few months.

Having been back from my trip to Cleveland for a couple of weeks now, I am really struck by the connection between travel and perspective.  It seems as though I can go along in the same groove daily — repeating my routines, as it were, almost indefinitely.  But yank me out of that groove, even for a week, and suddenly I am seeing many things more clearly.  I imagine that many of you have had this same experience. 

When we drove up to Cleveland, Jim and I were planning to build a house here in Asheville.  Two weeks later we are planning to move to Massachusetts at that time instead.  What happened?  Change is a funny thing — you have to be ripe for it or it doesn’t happen.  No one can MAKE you change your mind about anything.  That’s nonsense.  But if you already have a million little questions swimming around in your noggin, then all it may take is one whack on the side of that noggin and presto — those questions suddenly coalesce and new awareness pops up. 

 Apparently the questions in my own head had been multiplying over the last few years — questions regarding what I really need in terms of where I live.  Seven days in Cleveland and I know I belong in New England! Realizations happen in just that way, I have found.  The simple act of spending time with a few of my good friends in another city was enough to push me out of denial and face my true needs.  Let’s face it — we are all in denial about various things in our lives.  It’s the American way. 

 We have fears, mostly about change, it can seem much easier to not rock the boat.  The problem is, the nagging questions in the head don’t go away — they get louder over time, and more difficult to suppress.  Sometimes we project them on to something else, so fearful are we of looking at what we really need to thrive.  I thought I had invested so much in my choice to leave Cleveland and be here in Asheville — but the truth is, a couple of very important needs were not being met. 

On our drive home from Ohio, I decided to blurt out to Jim some of my feelings of unhappiness, and I wasn’t too surprised to hear him agree with me.  A few days later, I asked for guidance about how to know where to live among the numerous options we seem to have.  Among other things, I was guided to spend some time thinking about what my needs really are — particularly those which determine where I live. 

This turned out to be extremely helpful; out of six major needs, I have two that are not being met.  At this time in my life, it’s clear to me that I will not be happy allowing one third of my major needs to go unmet.  Sure, there’s plenty of natural beauty, space, and a benign climate here; what there isn’t is: people of my kind (bright, Northern, liberal, irreverent, literate, humorous, compassionate) and a close proximity to culture: museums, plays, etc..  Oh, there are some folks that fit the description I just gave, but not many. 

Mostly this is a Southern culture, and I have never acclimated.  Let me put it this way — hearing country music on the loudspeaker in every single store I walk into here is a form of water torture, and I need to be released.  I realize not all of you will agree with me about that, and that’s as it should be.  It seems to me that at this particular moment on the planet, when we are speeding towards an uncertain but undeniable destiny, one of the most important things we can each do to assure our individual groundedness is to find the geographical spot on which we feel most at home. 

 Look around you — what works for you and what doesn’t work so well?  Is there something you can do about it right now, or within a year or two?  More and more I find that I’m not willing to settle, especially when that means compromising my ability to feel joy on a daily basis.  How about you?

Last week I finally read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.  I’d heard about it for years, but never got around to reading it.  As you may know, it involves a re-telling of human history with a different storyline then we have been taught.  The interesting thing to me is how drastically this history is changed by simply telling the story from a different point of view. 

 I started to think about how we are bombarded every day with “facts” about our health, our opportunities for advancement, and our safety, to name a few.  Then there’s the whole realm of political persuasion, in which every elected official and pundit assures us they speak the “truth” with their “facts.”  Isn’t it funny — a large percentage of our U.S. population believes the “facts” spouted by one political party, while an equal or greater percentage sucks up the “truths” of the other. 

 What’s going on here?  Can that many people be wrong?  How do we separate fact from opinion and truth from “truthiness”  before the next generation of history books are written?  I’ve noticed that we are now being lied to.  By everyone.  All the time.  I’m no longer referring to politics alone.  Oh, no.  Apparently the rules changed without fanfare a while ago while we as a nation were collectively napping. 

 Suddenly it’s not just OK — it’s a “strategy” — to lie about the free trip to Florida  you’ve just won but didn’t really; the “natural” ingredients in that jar of peanut butter; how much weight you can realistically expect to lose on the latest 98% caffeine diet pill; how you, too, can qualify for this shiny new house (car, boat, whatever) even with that basement-level credit score. 

 All this has got me wondering — who determines where we go next as the most advanced brainstems on this planet?  Telemarketers?  Political operatives?  Fortune 500 corporations?  In other words, who will we, as sovereign individuals, allow to not only determine the course we take from here on in, but also interpret the story of that course for future generations — if there are any. 

 I keep coming back to the lowest common denominator — personal truth, the kind you can only gain by experience and observation.  We tend to reject personal experience out of hand in our society — it can’t be measured in a lab, so it’s fairly worthless stuff.  If that’s ”true,” I ask myself, then why does my life keep improving and feeling increasingly authentic and “safe” the longer I do all my own testing in the laboratory of Diane’s daily life? 

 Each of us has to make a decision based on the following question: ”Do I need to look to others for “truth” and hope that I follow the “ right” authorities, or is there an innate wisdom within me that I can tap into and allow to guide me safely through life?”  Once we know the answer to that question we can make one of the following our conscious decision:  “I will put the future of this planet into the hands of those whose agendas I cannot know” or “I am now ready to take responsibility for my role in determining the success or failure of the human experiment.” 

Last week I talked about my concern that we tend to not get worked up enough about the state of the world.  Funny how you can step around a corner and Bang!– you’re looking at the other side.  My father sent me a newspaper article this week from the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Although at first glance it seems to provide useful information — graphs, statistics on medical care for retirees — a closer look had me jumping back like I’d stuck my nose into a funky garbage can.  After checking out my response with that of my husband Jim, I tossed the thing into a file drawer.

 Why, you ask, did I flip out?  Well, I’d be pleased as punch to answer: I no longer conspire with worry-mongers.  My dad, on the other hand, is a full-out black-belt, proselytizing worrier.  I can remember hearing his voice back in my teen years, responding on many occasions to my innocent statement that I wasn’t worried about whatever it was.  “Well,” his deep voice would boom, “You SHOULD worry!”  And so I did.  I learned to be a champion worrier.  Hell, I’d worry if I even suspected that I might run out of toilet paper before my next scheduled trip to the grocery store.  Did you notice the word “scheduled?”  Yep — I was also a world-class control freak.  More on that another time.

 But as I began to look at my life in a new light in my 40s I realized there is a hidden hand guiding everything we do (not necessarily “God” — but a greater intelligence.)  And then I understood that a soul that is lovingly, purposefully guided and supported every step of the way is wasting absurd amounts of energy by worrying.  As James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy stated in an interview, “Worry is negative prayer.”  Oops!  That really hit home for me.  The last thing I want to do is send more negative energy out into an already gasping world.

The aforementioned article on the growing cost of medical care for baby boomers meant well, but its whole point of view was to scare the shit out of us about how “unsafe” retiring at any age now is, unless you’re Bill Gates.  Worry because of scarce resources is big in the media these days. While I agree that there will be people going under financially, and who knows, I could be among them, I know that worrying is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Especially harmful is dwelling on “statistics” and anything quoted from “experts.”  Please.  Who can be more expert than me about how I choose to create my life? 

 Interestingly, large numbers of people (also sheep) are quite easily directed if someone yells “Fire!”  and then points to the door they want said sheeple to pass through. So I hope you’re not in “worrier” mode.  Here’s an interesting fact: You can’t worry and be fully present at the same time.  It’s not possible — our conscious mind can’t achieve that particular multi-tasking challenge.  Try it out if you haven’t already. 

 Whenever I’m tempted to worry, I ask myself — “Is everything okay in THIS moment?”  The answer can only be “yes” unless you just expired. (Now THERE’S a whole other topic)  Then I remind myself that the future is just a string of “this-moments.”  So the chances are really good that they’ll be fine, too.

For most of my life I had a fickle relationship with practicality.  Or at least with my beliefs about its meaning to me.  I wasn’t conscious of this and so I got into a lot of trouble along the way, blaming everyone else for my unhappiness and misfortunes. I remember being expected to choose a major for college and being stumped.  If I had allowed myself to believe in following the desires of the heart, I would have chosen theater or dance.  Instead I chose home economics — I hear you snickering out there — in the 60’s this was still considered a viable choice for “young ladies.” 

Within a year it was the “Summer of Love” — 1967 — and my world was flipped on its head.  The rebellious impulses on which I had begun to act rather meekly in my freshman year went into overdrive and my grades suffered accordingly.  I dropped out halfway through my senior year.  Hey — I didn’t need that piece of paper, man!  I was so Mary Tyler Moore meets Janis Joplin — a truly half-assed, reluctant hippie who still had not a clue about who she really was — but now I felt empowered in my cluelessness.  Wasn’t I part of a movement? In other words, I still had a very unhealthy relationship with practicality.  The only difference was that now, instead of completely buying into my parent’s notion of what’s practical I completely rejected that same notion. 

 Hello!  I couldn’t see that I wasn’t following my own blueprint — or rejecting it.  I was rebelling against an image of myself that had been projected onto me by people who thought they knew who I was–or should be.  No one, least of all me, realized how far off we all were. I was 40 years old before I began to suspect that my life was little more then a continual allergic reaction to other people’s vision of me, particularly what was “practical” for me.  How can we make smart choices for ourselves if we aren’t on intimate terms with our own deepest needs?  With our true intentions?  Yet I talk to people every day who never seem to check in with their own gut feeling — or, having checked in, refuse to honor it.  Why?  It always seems to be a variation on “Not practical.”

If we truly are at least as much Spirit as we are matter, can we afford to live our lives as though these vital impulses of our heart are anything less than practical?  If they aren’t, then who IS driving our car?  Have you ever suddenly just KNOWN something is wrong but you ignored that knowing and persisted in acting on what your head told you to do, only to later regret that betrayal of your own inner wisdom?  (Yes–my first marriage, but that’s another story…)

I have a feeling that if we each decided to expand our definition of “practical” to include our gut reactions, within a year we would have successfully steered this planet in a much healthier direction.  I know, I know — that would require a leap of faith because most of us still accept the consensus reality that the ego voice is the ultimate authority.  What if it turns out to be the other way around?  What if our own personal inner guidance system, driven by our intuitive voice is actually the smarter CEO?  What do you think?  Isn’t it time we try something different?

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This is a subject I intend to return to again and again, in many different guises: We have to begin to trust our own inner knowing/gut feeling/guidance/inner voice/intuition — whatever words feel most comfortable to you — above all else.  We tend to allow much of our personal power to be sucked up by others.

Yesterday I started thinking about an article I read recently by a doctor of naturopathy.  At first her advice seemed reasonable, since it was about homeopathic medicine.  Then she apparently was nudged by her ego voice which told her to go for it — and she did.  She commenced to wax pedantic on all manner of topics, from healthful foods to sleep habits.  Specifically, how many ounces of broccoli to eat how many times a week, all the way to what time we should go to bed every night, and for how many hours.  There seemed to be no exceptions allowed.

I know this is the information age, but some of us seem to get carried away.  Do adults really need to be lectured on when to go to bed and how often we should experience “evacuation of the colon?”  And who is doing the lecturing?  Isn’t every fourth person you meet an “expert” on something these days?  Personally, as soon as I hear someone being introduced as an “expert” I head for the hills.

How do we discern where the expertise ends and personal opinion begins?  I had an intuitive reading by phone a number of years ago from someone whose work I admired.  About the fourth time I listened to the audiotape of this session, however, I got a funny feeling.  Although 75% of the information was obviously received from Spirit, the rest seemed to be his personal opinion.  Ordinarily I have no quarrel with people stating their opinions.  But it is incumbent upon a healer to differentiate for the public between information or conclusions arrived at from a higher source and that which rests solely on the say-so of the ego mind.  This healer — and a few others I’ve run across — didn’t do so.

As with any other position where people seek you out — politician, doctor, Minister – one has to guard vigilantly against loving the platform more than the truth.  Isn’t this happening everywhere today?  Everyone’s a pundit.  I hear increasingly nutty opinions every day by all sorts of folks who take themselves way too seriously.  And there’s always an audience.

I got pulled into this power matrix briefly myself when I began teaching adult classes about our inner wisdom, and here’s why — Reason #1: A lot of people treated me like a guru.  I was shocked.  They couldn’t divest themselves of their own common sense and wisdom fast enough, so eager were they to hear a “definitive” truth.  Reason #2: I was insecure about Diane’s worthiness.  It feels safer to hand out information as though it is 100% guaranteed certainty than to couch your knowledge in terms of degrees.  “This is fact” rolls off the tongue with a satisfying smoothness that “At least in my experience, here’s what works” never could.

I believe that the human race will not continue to evolve unless they get this issue straightened out.  It’s that basic to the fulfillment of our potential.

I still accept too much information as “fact”, but I’ve trained myself to notice more of my behaviors.  More and more I catch myself in my old habit of throwing away what really feels right to me in favor of someone else’s “right.”  I ask myself, “Does what they are saying really apply to my life, or do I need to check that out by getting quiet and sitting with it for awhile?”  Or alternately just acknowledging the cognitive dissonance I feel.  That’s guidance too.

 We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water.  If we pick and choose what really seems right for us from the constant onslaught of wall-to-wall opinion, we can only become our truest self.

If any of this doesn’t fit who you are in this moment, please set it aside.  You’ll be that much closer to your own truth.

Earlier this week, during a visit with my friend Ken and his twenty-something daughter, the two of them recounted the blow-up that finally ended his second marriage.  Back then he had not yet developed the degree of self-respect needed to end an abusive relationship early on.  His wife had always been verbally abusive, but this time she crossed the line and grabbed her stepdaughter by the throat.  Ken had to separate them; it got uglier; Ken and his daughter walked out for good.

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Hi, people!  Welcome to my web log.  When I first thought of creating a web site to offer the spiritual guidance I’ve been providing for years, I felt very excited.  Then the fearful part of Diane’s mind rose up in horror: “Why would I choose to expose myself globally when what I do is still so misunderstood, not to mention so little known that there isn’t even a name for it?  Why would anyone want to do such a thing for that matter?  No, I’ll stay safe and just keep offering my services here in Asheville where my work is accepted.”

This inner dialogue ebbed and flowed over the next few days until suddenly I thought of Ethel and asked myself, “What would Ethel do?”  I knew the answer before I finished asking the question.  Allow me to back up and introduce you to Ethel.  In 1992 she changed my life and will always be a touchstone for me.  That October I was a recently divorced, fortyish social worker just beginning to reawaken my long dormant creative powers.  There was a Halloween party coming up at my workplace.  I knew this was my chance to break out.  I didn’t want to go as someone famous — anyone can do that.  Perhaps a twist on that theme; an unknown, barely talented but ambitious relative of some celebrity.  I kicked this around for awhile.

A couple of weeks before the party it came to me in a dream: Madonna’s cousin!  Oh yeah.  Over the next few days this character unfolded and Ethel walked — no, strutted — into my life.  Ethel Ciccone, Madonna’s cousin from the Bronx (with appropriate dialect): a part-time, freelance dental hygienist whose real talents (according to her) lay on the Broadway stage, although so far her talent had eluded anyone casting anything.  I’ll let Ethel take over: “I am aw-bviously the more talented one in the family.  I wasn’t named afta my idol, Ethel Merman, for nuttin’.  Madonna’s all twalk!”  We now watch as Ethel yanks open her lace jacket to reveal a black bustier (French corset) à la Madonna, and belts out the first verse of “Like A Virgin” with a Merman-esque delivery that knocks ‘em dead every time.

The afternoon of that office party I was, for the (very) first time (oooh!) the life of the party.  I had acted in children’s theater and knew I was a performer at heart, but as sometimes happens to young girls, I became too self-conscious by adolescense to follow it.  The next day my boss, who was a New Yorker, accosted me in the hallway.
“Doi-ane,” she said loudly, unwittingly  reminding me who had actually inspired Ethel’s accent and style.  “Do you think Ethel would be available to sing at my reti-ya-ment pah-ty next week?”  “Yes,” I said.  “I believe she would.”  And so she did.  Before 60 people, Ethel, in g and full regalia, sang “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” Ethel Merman’s signature tune from “Gypsy.”  After a little initial nervousness, she was a sensation.

What does this have to do with you, dear friends?  In the ensuing weeks I began asking, “What would Ethel do?”  Whenever I felt intimidated or shy, she was always there, being who she is in a big way, with no apologies.  We each have an Ethel within us, urging us to play big instead of staying small and safe.  Ethel gave me permission to allow the boisterous, life-embracing part of Diane (who had learned early on to stuff her anger and please others) to come out and announce “I’m here!” to the back of the auditorium.

Acceptance of the entire cast of characters we each call our own plants both our feet firmly on the road to wholeness and fulfillment.  Who is your Ethel?  She may have something very different than mine to show you about yourself, but chances are you’ll find her in a dark corner where you may have left her long ago, out of fear that was real to you.  You and the world need to hear from her.

“Now’s your inning
Stand the world on its ear.
You’re gonna set it spinning
That’ll be just the beginning…”
              –from “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim