Embracing the empath

Recently I shared an article on my Facebook from Elephant Journal called, "How to love an empath."  I've blogged about this before, and I think about it all the time.  What it's like to exist as a highly sensitive person (HSP).  How to describe it, and how overloaded my mind and emotions can get.  They are at level ten just about all the time, and while I've lived this way my entire life, there are times when all I want is out.  To be somewhere else for awhile.  I want to crawl out of my body and escape it for awhile.  It took me a long time to realize it's not only okay to be a HSP, but that it actually has a name.  While I appreciate those things, I often long for a break.

I don't let many people in deeply, so if you don't know me well you'd never know.  I am often outgoing and funny and lighthearted on the outside.  This also reminds me of how complex every human must be, and how they must be going through a million things at any given moment, no matter the scale or the depth of their feelings.  Being human is weird and hard and unnatural for everyone, not just me.  I am not alone.

Back to this article.  I posted the link and tagged a couple of my friends who I know exist at this level with me, and one of them, Sarah, responded with this: "It's by far and away not the easiest creature to be, but to experience the highest highs and the deepest depths of being human is something I'd never give up at any cost."  A few days later, her Facebook status read, "Some nights, the swirl of human emotion surrounding me reaches a feverish vibrational pitch and sleep escapes.  Still, I'd rather be turned into the song of the universe than be deaf to it's cadence and somnolent."

I realized that my feelings have been betraying me for some time now when it comes to the accepting of being a HSP.  She appreciates the being she is.  But do I? I constantly struggle with "surrender, accept, allow."  In fact, I'm sure at this point that those are the lessons I am in this life to learn.  Since I'm in a line of warrior archetypes, this is the hardest thing you can ask of me.

Dear Athena before me, how did you do it?

I'm recently experiencing things that are setting off an alarm deep in my subconscious.  I'm not yet accepting.  I can say it, but it's not true.  I'm still fighting all that I am.  When I wake up in the morning and I'm already overwhelmed with my questions of the universe and instantly analyzing every choice in my life that led me to this journey…well, it can be a bit much.  I want to fight it off, get out for awhile.  I start to tell myself how alone I am and how strange this is, and that it's just too much.  I think how much easier it would be to be a being who's thoughts and feelings never ran too deep.  I want out of my gift.  Gift.  Is it a gift?

Is it a blessing or a curse?

What we learn in childhood really does stick.  It can be undone, I do believe that, but boy is it deeply seated.  Maybe I'm truly not over being told in my youth, "you're too sensitive!" Almost as if I was in trouble for it! Long before my family knew better.

The thing is, I just thought I was squared away, and I've recently learned I've still got a lot of work to do.

That's all for now.


Deena Marie

I think, therefore...

I'm on the freeway and I'm taking a minute to think about the magnitude of the universe.  I see it in my minds eye.  I start with my center of awareness and expand from there.  I see the pale blue dot called Earth.  I see how tiny it is.  I try in vain to keep expanding my view.  I know (although I don't really know) it's too big to every honestly comprehend.

I consciously like to remind myself daily of how big the scale is.  How small we are.  I like to remind myself of the fluke that we are.  That we still have a long way to go.  We've only gotten started.  This never fails to reset me.  It calms and comforts me.  I accept my place in time and all is bearable.  Dare I say, good.

I also think about something that's been in my head the last few days, and that's wondering why I experience my consciousness and awareness from the point of view of what those on earth know as Deena Marie.  This body.  This particular time in the history of the world.  This life.  Why this? Is it random? Or is it perfectly matched?

I think about how a man and a woman can create a human life, and how that means suddenly a new consciousness comes spinning into being.  Bam.  Just like that.  This leads me to struggle to remember the exact Rumi quote, "we come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust."  

I then realize it's not even 10 am and this is what I've spent my first few hours thinking about on a monday morning.  Then I think about the Frida Kahlo quote, "I used to think I was the strangest person in the world.  But then I thought, there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed int he same ways I do.  I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me too.  Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it's true I'm here, and I'm just as strange as you."

I'm suddenly inspired to keep track of my thoughts through the day and decide to ask my friend JayC to do the same, and put it in a blog that we could both post tomorrow.  I think he'll dig the idea, I think it'll make a great joint post and I guess that he's probably already had a million ideas, deep thoughts, or profound moments this morning as well.

It's been coming and going for the last few days.  My suddenly remembering I'm driving a personalized car with not only my name on it, but three cartoon faces of me, and a unicorn.  I'm struck with the words, "this is my lot in life."  I find this so funny.  My life has always thrown me unexpected and strange turns.  Who gets to do these kinds of things? I do.  Why? Who knows.  But I'll take it.  It fits.

I get into the building where I've been headed and it's cold.  I start thinking about how soon it will be fall.  How last summer was the worst of my life and while this one has certainly come with it's share of surprises and transitions, it's also been the best in many ways.  A dream come true.  How I only have August now and that's it.  Done.  I'm already starting to mourn the sun and this summer and prepare for the nostalgia and melancholia that only fall can bring me.  But I don't want to.  I don't want to rush it.  I don't mean to rush.

This reminds me of being a little girl and discovering for myself the concept that as soon as we're born we start to die.  Sure I'm growing up, growing older, but I'm dying every day.  This didn't make me sad, it just made sense, and I didn't understand why people didn't like to teach this or to think of life that way.

Despite the dying and the rushing, I never have nor will I ever consider myself a pessimist.  It's just that I want more of everything, always.  I am better at being in the moment nowadays more often than not, but I just want more...time.  That's what it is.  More time to savor.  I want to savor.

I'm aware I'm thinking poetically again and I like that.  I'm getting back to the me that I am at the core, when I'm not covered up by too much of the goings on around me.  I'm settling in once again after another storm of change that kept me swept up over the last few months.

I think about how open I am now.  How if last year hadn't cracked me open and rebuilt me, I wouldn't be who I am today to receive what I'm being given and know how to deal with it.  The dark and light.  I've been braver than I ever thought possible and I feel the difference in what I'm doing now.  It's living.

I'm not existing, I am living.

Manifestation.  That word keeps bubbling up.  I'm contemplating.  Thinking that the old cliche, "be careful what you wish for" is absolutely true.  It may look different.  It may not come at the moment you think it should, but if you manifest it, get ready to live it.

I also think about manifestation in another way.  How holding too much in for too long, and never letting it out manifests itself physically.  Months of anxiety attacks, dizzy spells and feeling at times like I was losing my mind are finally behind me.  Be careful.  It's okay to let it out.  And follow your heart.  Listen, listen, listen.  Hear that voice? You can follow it.  I swear to god.  You can.

An F. Scott Fitzgerald quote comes up, "there are all kinds of love in this world, but never the same love twice."  Each love I've experienced brings out a different version of me.  It molds me ever so gently.  It is a delicate difference.  It turns me up in some areas, and turns me down in others.  I love differently each time.  I am so different as I awaken.  I am better at love as time goes on.  At loving.  At being loved.  At recognizing the right, or best, love for me.

That evening I find myself at a read through.  How strange it seems to me that I get to do this.  That this is what fuels me in this life.  That when I leave, I leave happier, having been surrounded by creative folk I very much admire in this community.  How smart they are, I think.  How lucky I am, I think.

Later, it hits me that the key to my feeling happier overall has to do with the word yes.  Over the last few months the yeses have replaced the nos.  It's been so slight it took a minute for me to see it.

Delicate differences.  Molding me ever so gently.  I tune into my truth a little more each day.  I am getting better at this life thing as time goes on.

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Thanks for reading,

Deena Marie

Made of Stars

When I'm asked about my religious beliefs, it's hard for me to answer.  Simply because I don't know that there's an existing label that fits, nor do I find the vague answer of "I'm spiritual", satisfying or informative.  I can claim New Age more than anything, as I don't dig dogma.  I can tell you I lean toward Eastern Philosophy.  That I find a lot about Hinduism and Buddhism both beautiful and sensical. That maybe a part of me deep down feels like we can't be anything other than agnostic.  That I believe all religions are true, because they are all someone's truth, meaning it's their reality and their right to believe what they need to believe to guide and comfort them through their human experience.  That "if there is only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it?" That "we are all just walking each other home".

But maybe the pairing of words that ring truest for me are a combination I came up with myself back when I was writing my speech for the funeral for my uncle Chuck, last May.  I called myself a Spiritual Scientist.  I feel the most comfort and the deepest sense of truth in my Scientific Spirituality leanings and learnings.

Funny enough, my deepest sense of home, truth, soul, magic, absolute wonder, view of humanity, and comfort have come from science.

Some people come to Earth with minds so ahead of their time.  We are so lucky that sometimes they not only choose to share their thoughts and knowledge, but find themselves with a vocation or status to do so.  Like Carl Sagan.  Nothing has opened me up quite like his influence of understanding the universe, or of finding and trying to endlessly understand our origins.

So much so, I recently tattooed "star stuff" on my arm to serve as a reminder that we are so much more than these physical bodies and will be so much more again when they expire.  Literally.  As much as I'd love to think our consciousness goes on, and I'll wake up time and time again as something else (and even feel as if that's what I've always done) right now the literal is comfort enough.  The thought of recycling.  Reincarnation in the most literal sense.

It's enough that I can look into the sky and know I'm looking into my origins.
Ancestors.
My future.

Nothing else has ever brought me a deeper feeling of complete and total spirituality.

We are Literally Made from Stars

by Gerald Grow

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I was moved by an editorial about how the Hubble telescope is showing us the immensity of the universe. With our sun one among 50 billion stars in our galaxy, among more than 50 billion galaxies, it is easy to think of ourselves as lost on a speck in space. 

Indeed, one common outcome of modern education is the widespread feeling that we humans are forever separated from the rest of the universe by unimaginable distances, and that the forces operating in the universe are utterly alien to us. 

Spiritual traditions give us ways of feeling connected with the universe. I want to remind you of another, scientific, way of feeling connected to the stars. 

The same science that reveals to us the vastness of the universe also tells us another story: Astronomers explain that all the elements heavier than hydrogen originated inside stars. The carbon in the ink on a page, and the silicon in glass and microchips, were created in the heart of a star, long ago, as that star shined by fusing hydrogen. The iron that carries the oxygen in your blood as you read this, was created when a star, in its dying phase, exploded. 

You and I are not merely separated from the galaxies by unimaginable immensities of space; we are also connected to them by unimaginable immensities of time. We are literally made from stars. We are their descendants. The only difference between us and stars is time. 

I don't know how this way of looking at things strikes you, but it raises in me an absurdly wonderful sense of celebration, and I look at the night sky not with a sense of hopeless separateness, but with a feeling of kinship: There shine the origins of every element in our bodies. Because stars exist, I exist. The processes that created those billions of unimaginably distant galaxies also created us. 

We human beings are not separate from the universe. Those galaxies are not merely distant--they are distant cousins. 

With this in mind, I urge you not to miss the nightly wintertime rising of Orion in the Southeastern sky, followed by the star, Sirius, flashing red, blue, and golden light. Or the summer rising of Scorpio across the Southern sky, with red Antares burning at its heart. 

That is a kinship worth celebrating. 

11:11 Awakening

My mind is blown right now.

If you're a loyal reader of my blog, then you've followed my personal awakening and spiritual journey for the last few years.  You've seen my references to the date my journey began.  I talk about how I knew it one day, how my inner voice said, "mark this date.  Things are about to change.  Here we go."  

The date was April 11, 2011. 

As I've become more immersed with literature and conversation with like minded folks and fellow new age souls, I've recently (and I mean only within the last couple weeks recently) started to see and hear people refer to 11:11 as the code of awakening.  

Wait a minute.  

I just went back through my blogs and not only did I mention the significance of 4/11/11 to me here (as well as other entries) but I found another entry where I wrote about getting a fortune cookie on 4/10/11 that said, "you will be showered with good luck tomorrow."  And I certainly was.  The next day would mark my most important journey.  

I'm only now beginning to delve into the meaning behind 11:11.

Even though next month is my three year anniversary, I still have a long way to go. 

I am both shocked, comforted, awestruck, and yet it doesn't surprise me in the least.

One of my favorite things I found tonight is, "...similar to other phenomena like street lights going out when you go by. They just let you know underneath the facade of the physical world, there is magic at work, and it's wanting to play with you." 

Off to learn more...

Deena Marie 

Follow the omens

Do you believe in omens? Signs from the universe?

Every few years I read "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho.  I remember my first time through, years ago.  I wondered what all the talk of omens meant.  I sure wanted to believe that I could somehow follow a trail of omens to my destiny.  But how would I do it? Would these omens be something I would need to learn to conjure up?  Attract like "The Secret"? Whatever that means.  Why wasn't I lucky enough to have signs popping up around me, to show me I was on the right path? Or...could it be I wasn't quite understanding the concept?

Years later (and a whole bunch of books, life experience and new knowledge later) I got it.  It's not as literal as I originally thought.  You have to tune in.  You have to become aware.  You have to notice.  You can't brush them off.  They are there.  They are every bit as magical.

Deepak Chopra talks a lot about something similar, called syncrodestiny.  The coincidences of the universe.

"When a coincidence arises, don’t ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the message here? What is the significance of this? You don’t need to go digging for the answers. Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. They may arrive as a sudden insight, a spontaneous creative experience, or they may be something very different. Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue to its meaning. “Oh, so that’s what it was all about!”

The key is to pay attention and inquire.

I wanted neon signs with my name and and arrow signs, but if we're searching for something of that magnitude we don't see the our real guideposts.  

I have tuned in.  I have opened up.  I am listening.  I am slowing down and noticing.  In doing so over many months, I can tell you that we've got a great relationship, the universe and I.  She leaves me love notes to both teach and confirm what I know.  And she reminds me when I forget.  If we let the universe show us the way every day, we can't possibly go wrong.  

It is true that the greatest things we'll ever learn are love, self respect, that we are exactly enough just as we are, and that the greatest pilgrimage we'll ever make is within our own body.

Last year (my dark and dismal year) I started to take notice of peacocks.  Peacocks everywhere I looked.  On tv, online, on merchandise, painted on walls, in real life.  It got strange.  Really strange.  Okay, I thought.  I'm listening.  I wonder what they're trying to tell me? I looked up the symbolism of a peacock, and wouldn't you know it.  Renewal.  Resurrection.  A phoenix.  Spirituality.  AWAKENING.  And if you know me or follow me here then you'd know just how much that pertained to what I went through and how I'd describe the most trying and life changing year I'd ever had.  

One day last summer I was outside on a run, and out of nowhere on the sidewalk was this (just when I needed it more than you could know):

Something else happened that was so obvious.  So blatant.  I couldn't not see it as a sign.  It has to do with a name, but I'm keeping this one to myself.  

The one that really makes our jaws drop, happened right after my Grandpa died.  I was leaving Southern Utah a day after the funeral and on the way out my Grandma asked me if I wanted to take a box of candles.  My sweetheart loves candles so I said okay.  I took the big brown box and we put it in the car.  It smelled of my childhood home.  I brought it inside and it sat on the kitchen counter for a few days.  We all discussed my grandma.  At their age and after being partners for so long it can by typical for the other to pass shortly after losing their spouse.  We all wondered, would this happen with my Grandma? 

I had given them new nicknames and for the last few months I would refer to them as Tiny Brown or Little Brown and Mr. Shuffles when I would talk about them with my sweetheart or parents. One day, my sweetheart and I are sitting at the kitchen table and we can't believe we haven't noticed what the candle box says:

If you ask me, it doesn't get any more personal than that.  Her nickname.  And a message that her life is far from over.  

Two weeks ago I found this on the ground:

And today on a wall that was blank yesterday was:

For awhile I've been entertaining some thought about what I've jokingly called to my close friends and family, "quitting the biz".  Am I serious? Do I really want to give up acting? Kind of.  Hang on, let me explain.  I will never quit, but I do want more in my life.  I have too many other parts left waiting to be fueled.  And boy, they are hungry.  I'm suddenly craving adding more in and being okay with taking time away from.  But I also know how important it is to go with the flow.  To be open.  To have a plan but to be adaptable.  To follow the omens.  

The omens have shown me in huge and surprising ways that it's not meant for me to be announcing my "quitting" anytime soon.  From three theatres contacting me for various things at once, to my dream project that had only been a fantasy all but two weeks ago, to being recognized (as an actress) when I was in a place trying to get the ball rolling for the next new adventure in my life.  

And last but not least, a friend who had no idea I felt this way wrote me a message telling me he'd had a dream I wanted to quit and he was sent from the future telling me I wasn't supposed to.  

And then there is the number.  After my grandpa died I slipped back into a bad way...for a few days.  That's all I allowed myself.  I decided I needed to live.  I needed to go forward.  I needed to go on.  If I didn't, my sadness would eat me alive.  I would be gone.  So suddenly I did.  

And I have been okay.  I have been better than okay.  

As the year ended and the new one began, everything finally feels aligned! Things are right.  Things are in place.  Things are clear.  And during this time I started seeing a number.  The same number, everywhere.  Even more than the peacock.  It was starting to drive me crazy because I couldn't figure out what it meant.  Long story short this number is associated with a God of Healing.  My healing has been happening as I've been seeing this number everywhere.  

I've seen it less the more progress I made.

Now, I do find that a scientific truth about the world we live in is more magical to me than any religious story.  The amazements we can prove in discovering our own universe is far bigger and exciting to me than an organized religion with a god.  However, I believe that all religion is true.  What is your truth, is your truth.  What is my truth is my truth.  What his or hers is his or hers, etc.  We have no idea what each others journeys are about.  Who is anyone to tell another their truth is right or wrong? 

"If there's only one nation in the sky, shouldn't all passports be valid for it? - Yann Martel 

One thing I like about getting older is the need to explain yourself to others goes away.  You can finally just put it all out there and know that it is what you offer, and that it is enough. 

But despite anything that may be proven (as of right now), there are still things that can't be explained.  The omens being one.  

Could I have read too much into these? Could coincidence be just that and nothing more? Maybe.  Sure.  But I am going to choose to believe in taking notice.  In following my omens.  If it helps me to get to my final destination with a little more comfort, so be it.  

I'll see you at the end and I'll be able to tell you I have indeed enjoyed the journey.  

"We are all just walking each other home" - Ram Dass

This is the one of several joint blog / shared topics with JayC Stoddard.  It's amazing how our blogs on the same subject are so different, so similar, and so complimentary to the other persons.  Every time.  Coincidence? You be the judge: JAYC STODDARD his blog is brilliant, you should follow it :) 

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My life in pictures 

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