KUMU CONSULTING
  • Home
  • About
    • Kumu Consulting
    • Ann & Robert
  • Services
    • Leaders & Executives
    • Professional Development
    • Intro to Personal Development >
      • Individuals
      • Couples
  • Ann G
    • Blog
    • Paradigm Practice
    • Offerings
  • Testimonials
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • About
    • Kumu Consulting
    • Ann & Robert
  • Services
    • Leaders & Executives
    • Professional Development
    • Intro to Personal Development >
      • Individuals
      • Couples
  • Ann G
    • Blog
    • Paradigm Practice
    • Offerings
  • Testimonials
  • Contact Us
Picture

  • We may at first have thought consciousness was in the mind, or even thought it was the mind itself. That it was somehow part of our domain; our personal interface with life or our go-to source of thinking and reason.

    Exploring the mind however, we discover it is not consciousness that is personal, but the mind. We discover the mind is limited and finite and that we can go beyond it — to consciousness itself. Even as a new explorer, we are aware of something here vast and whole, an infinite peace, potent and complete. And we know — as if remembering — that this is also the intrinsic, intimate truth of ourselves.

​Welcome!

This is a blog for those who travel an inner path, seeking truth, beauty and the source of being.

Here are ideas and practices to help and encourage the traveler, and to address the obstacles that we, as students of consciousness, inevitably encounter. Everything you find here you can do at anytime and take as far as you want.
Picture

​I invite you to use Paradigm Practice as a foundation for your practice, which you may find here, free and available for your use. Paradigm Practice is a powerful guide for bridging the gap between limitation and new awareness.

Awakening into the happiness and peace of your true nature benefits all the world.
May you be blessed on your journey!
Ann
Consciousness is the ultimate teacher:  it is always sh​owing us what we are.​​​

Every step on the inner path, however seemingly small,
is a benefit to all of life and advances the whole of consciousness.



How to Be Okay When You Don’t Think You Are

9/25/2022

0 Comments

 
Ann K Gryczan
Picture

​There is almost nothing more painful than believing there is something wrong with you, as if you came with some innate, but undefined flaw hidden deep inside your soul. Exactly what the flaw is, you are not certain, only that it exists and that others can sense it too.
​
As painful as this is, the flaw, if it exists at all, is not even the real problem. Believing oneself flawed – and more people feel this way than you might guess – is only a cover for the real problem, and that is why trying to fix it almost never works.

The real problem is being separated from life, feeling disjointed and apart, isolated and unable to connect – really connect – with anyone or anything, like a plant uprooted from the soil, or bones that have broken apart.

But we don’t often see that this is the real problem, because the feeling of being cut off from our source and lost in a void of endless nothingness with no ground and nothing to hold onto, puts a lie to the fact of life itself, and that is too painful to bear.

So the ego/mind says, “There is something wrong with me,” and this thought feels like a safe harbor, finally, in the emptiness; a place to land where pain has a name and a reason, and where we have a purpose and even a ready excuse.

In truth, we can never be separate from our source or lose our connection with life. But it is part of the human condition to forget this and become lost in the fragments of our thoughts and the portions of our lives rationed out in time and space. We can mistake ourselves for one of these fragments and wander adrift and buffeted by an anonymous, uncaring universe in which we have no roots and no place. That is the only pain we ever really feel and that is always the real problem.

Fixing the Real Problem

Forgetting ourselves is a problem that comes with being human – “something wrong with me” – being only one of the ego’s many fixes for it. But the fixes can never work because the ego is the problem it is trying to solve.

​Fortunately, there are two ancient and well-traveled pathways for addressing and resolving the real problem. One is the way of the heart and one is the way of the will. They both have infinite variations and they both lead to the same result: remembering ourselves and knowing our perfect and innate worthiness simply by virtue of our existence.


Taking the first step on one of the following paths might feel difficult or painful at first – if you feel isolated, it can feel hard to step out the hard shell of exile that has formed around you. But if we start the process, like gently moving broken bones into position so they can heal, life will take it from there, entering the pathways made whole by our intention, and flowing through them again.

Each step leads to the next and the next, returning us gradually to real life where we can remember who we are and what we are doing here. Try either of the following pathways, start small, take the smallest step you can imagine, and that will be the perfect step.

The Way of the Heart: Serving Life

When our goal is to help someone else we forget the ego/mind for a moment, and draw upon the infinite well of our true essence. We may feel that we don’t have the strength, desire or wherewithal to offer anything to anyone – but this first step always has to be taken by us. This is like gently pressing the roots back into the earth and patting the soil firmly around them. Even by creating these first conditions for life to take hold, we will feel its flow returning – but this first step is ours. Start somewhere:

  • Notice the presence of someone walking past you in the grocery store.
  • Listen to what your child or pet is trying to tell you. Join your awareness with him or her and listen, for even just a moment.
  • Return back to the soil an earthworm washed onto the sidewalk by the rain.
  • Let another car move ahead of you in traffic.
  • Open the door for someone.

Love is powerful and fear is not, so caring for others draws upon the innate power of Self, which is the same as love. Even if you can hardly imagine the idea of caring about anything, or access only the tiniest stream of kindness, then be that. Love will start to move in you and give you more strength. Now take another step. Say “Hello” to your neighbor or volunteer at an animal or homeless shelter.

Each action will help you remember and return to yourself, inspiring you to new ideas and further actions – follow these ideas and inspirations and let them lead you right back into yourself.

As the 13th century poet, Rumi, says: ​
Picture

The Way of the Will: Being Impeccable With Your Word

The ego, in its limited capacity, defined the pain we felt as, “something wrong with me,” and devised many clever ways to resolve the problem – getting more stuff, more attention, the best prize, being “good,” being on top, seeking oblivion, avoiding commitment, and myriad others. Only, none of these things can ever work because they are all attempts at making the experience of separation tolerable, which it can never be. 

If we let the ego/mind have its way, we get lost, and the more we let it have its way, the more lost we get. The initial freedom it seems to offer only leads to steeper gradations of meaninglessness and separation, and a greater need for more stuff, more attention, being good and all the rest. 

It often takes half a lifetime before we recognize that the ego’s solutions are not working. But once we do, that is a good day because that means we are ready to develop the spiritual will over the ego’s will – and now we are following the way of happiness and peace.

Keeping the spiritual will, even if we start with the smallest promise and keep it only one day, and then another, immediately allows a new awareness: that we have the necessary qualities to keep a promise, and therefore, we have something intrinsic on which we can rely, we have value, there is something good and true within us that we are. With steady progress we also discover that staying true to our promises for chores and obligations allows us to apply that same strength to our dreams and goals; our lives start working out.

But keeping one’s word requires strength, strength we often don’t have. Like a muscle, if we have lost our spiritual will the muscle is weak and we can’t count on ourselves – it feels too hard. So just like building a muscle, we have to start small: start with one small thing and keep your promise – no matter what. Start with the tiniest promise: 

    • Sweep the porch.
    • Clear a space on your desk for the next day’s work.
    • Go on a walk.
    • Say a silent grace before the next meal.
    • Make the call you have been putting off.

By keeping our word, one small promise at a time, we build an inner strength that allows us to touch down upon something true and real – and it is us. 

Rumi says:​​
Picture

Following the Path

We may forget life, but life never forgets us. Remembering ourselves often dawns gradually, like fingers remembering they are one with the hand, that remembers it is one with the body, that is one with the whole of humanity, and one with all of life, with the earth, seas and sky, the planets, galaxies and the whole of everything. In fact, the dismembered self remembers Self, not as any one thing, but as infinite consciousness that has no boundaries.

No matter where we are in our lives we can begin anew today and take the first, or another step on one of these pathways that are really one path. When the path reveals a deeper level of separation – one we never knew before existed – we know the path will help us make a bridge back to ourselves and to life. After a while, we look back at our old lives and who we were, and wonder in our new happiness how we could have once felt so apart and so lost. Then we take the next step into life and to knowing our intrinsic value simply because we are.

See you on the path!


Get the latest posts delivered to your inbox!


Find out more about Paradigm Practice — a powerful method for healing and spiritual development.
Download free: Paradigm Practice, Handbook and Audio Guide
Subscribe       Follow



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    ANN K GRYCZAN
    Ann K Gryczan



    Ann is a long-time student of consciousness and has been offering guidance for remembering the true Self since 1987.


    You may find more information about her here.




    Find me on Facebook

    @AnnGPage

    Get the latest posts
    delivered to your inbox

    enter your email below:


    Follow

    Learn about
    Paradigm Practice

    Receive the
    Paradigm Practice
    Handbook & Audio Guide
      spam prevention
    Go!
    Share

    Guided
    ​Meditations​

    Held in Life
    You always are
    (13:49 min)
    ​The Deep Seat
    ​Awaiting your return
    (10:27 min)

    Definitions

    The ego/mind is based in the ideas of identity and duality, and committed to its survival over all else. To ensure this, the ego/mind uses any means necessary to get what it desires and avoid what it fears. Over eons, the ego/mind and the survival instinct evolved in the manner it fulfilled this purpose, developing increasingly sophisticated and complex capabilities: it learned to conceptualize, manipulate, imagine, deceive, convince, invent and so on. All of this bundled together with emotion (another evolutionary development), created what most of us now experience as our identity — as myself.”



    A paradigm is the framework of belief, perception and emotion through which we experience and understand ourselves and all of life. It is the filter through which we perceive, the lens through which we see. Like water to a fish, it is our unquestioned sense of reality. The paradigm both creates the appearance of reality and confirms to us that what we call reality is as we believe it to be. Normally, we are oblivious to what makes up this paradigm — the framework of what we call reality.”



    Consciousness is often thought of as being located in or created by the brain; its origin purely chemical or physical, and its function that of creator, recorder and experiencer of our interface with life. Consciousness seems like our individual and distinct sense of reality, but what we are actually experiencing that seems so unique to ourselves, is the ego/mind.

    Consciousness is an infinite and omnipotent field, a unified and congruent wholeness of unlimited creative power whose source, and ours, is Absolute Reality.



    God, Divinity, Ultimate Reality, Self and one's true essence all seek to describe the indescribable: the Absolute, which is omnipotent, omnipresent and eternal; the infinite unity out of which arises all existence, consciousness and life.



    The world exists,
    but our perception of it
    does not.

    Categories

    All
    Collective Consciousness
    Ego/mind
    Healing
    Marriage
    Paradigms
    Relationship
    Self-esteem
    Spiritual Practice
    True Self


    Archives

    September 2022
    November 2021
    September 2020
    July 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    February 2018
    November 2017
    August 2017


    RSS Feed

Share

About 

|  Kumu Consulting
|  Ann & Robert
|  Testimonials

Mentoring

|  Professional Development 
|  Leaders & Executives
|  Personal Development

Vertical Divider

|  Offerings
​
|  Paradigm Practice
​
​|  AnnG Blog

​|  Write a Testimonial
​
|  Contact Us

Vertical Divider

    Join our mail list

Subscribe

Copyright  © 2022  Kumu Consulting,  All Rights Reserved