Movie Teachers

May 15, 2017 Sharon Jacobson

So often we think about teachers as people, sometimes experiences, even animals. However, sometimes our teachers can be films. It is one of the reasons that several times I have offered a film and spirituality group. It is amazing the spiritual lessons we can learn from a film. Sometimes what we learn is from the storyline, sometimes it is the setting, sometimes the lighting, sometimes the music, sometimes a character.

When I offered this group it was interesting to be sitting in a room full of people who had all just watched the same film, but we all walked away with different things or characters that spoke to us. It is like going to a restaurant and everybody eats the same meal, but different people like different things about it. What you see and take from it is for you and I see and take from it is for me.

Become a Dream Master

October 27, 2016 Sharon Jacobson

was reading the thought for the day from Don Miguel Ruiz this morning. He wrote, “Your life is the manifestation of your personal dream. If you can transform the program of your personal dream, you can become a dream master.” We cannot transform something, however, if we are not willing to open our hearts, minds, and souls, to the transformation process. Opening ourselves up to move beyond the limitations we place on ourselves is not always easy, however, it allows us to push our limits as Enigma sings about, and master our dreams rather than being enslaved to the dreams and limitations of others.

Thinking about this made me wonder how often we even realize that we are even enslaved to the dreams of others. This not realizing, is as I once heard a philosopher argue, the perfect form of slavery. When we are in a state of not knowing that we are even enslaved, then we have a closed sign on our dreams and blessings and do not even realize it.

Forgive Yourself

June 2, 2014 Sharon Jacobson

Forgiving others is one thing. Forgiving ourselves is another. It seems as if every day I become mindful of yet another piece of poison, as Don Miguel Ruiz would call them, that I somehow internalized as a child and have been living with for decades. The lies were all a part of my domestication to the planet. As we evolve and grow, we become mindful of those lies which we no longer agree to and which we must replace in our lives.

Removing them from our lives is one part of the process of healing and evolving. The other part is forgiving ourselves for internalizing them in the first place. Most of these lies, we may not have even realized were lies when we first internalized them. We just ate them because we were told they were good for us.

Works in Progress

April 14, 2014 Sharon Jacobson

I was once told relationships are not for punks. It took me a while to get at the meaning behind that, but what I have learned over the years is that being in an intimate relationship requires courage, strength, and a willingness to make one’s self vulnerable. By intimate, I am not just talking about physical intimacy, but emotional, mental, and spiritual intimacy. That intimacy is developed over time. Intimacy comes when we open ourselves up personally and make ourselves and our lives vulnerable. Over time, your whole life becomes naked to them and to yourself. In an intimate relationship, we open ourselves and are opened by our partner to seeing the powerful and weaker parts of who we are. We also give our partners the permission to do the same. Over time we learn how to know when to stand our ground and when to compromise. We work with each other to become increasingly grounded in who we are and support each other in the journey. When I think about the two human beings in my life with whom I am the most intimate with one thing is true of both, the Ultimate Consciousness is involved in both and the truth is ever revealing itself as we journey together. We are never finished growing or evolving. We are works in progress.

We are Tools

March 25, 2014 Sharon Jacobson

One of the things I have learned through my studies on Toltec wisdom is that the way we see ourselves is not the way other people perceive us. As don Miguel Ruiz teaches, when we write in our minds the story of our lives, we are the main characters, and others are the supporting actors and actresses. In their stories, we are written in as the supporting roles. How they construct our character in their story may or may not be the way we construct or perceive ourselves. Rarely, are we fully aware of how others perceive us. Even if they share their perceptions with us, they are limited by their ability to communicate their perceptions of us.

When people speak to us, it is a reflection of what they are saying as the character they have created in their minds. How we respond to what others have to say about us is about us. It is this self-awareness of how we respond which can become a tool in our own spiritual healing and growth. What others say to us are just lines from their story. They only have the power to affect us to the extent we allow them to do so.

Are you poisoning yourself?

March 18, 2014 Sharon Jacobson

About 3 years ago, I wrote a piece called No more poison!. In it, I reflected on something don Miguel Ruiz said in his book The Four Agreements. He wrote, “Taking things personally makes you prey for predators. They can hook your attention with one little opinion, and feed you whatever poison they want. Refuse to eat poison! When he put it in those words, “Refuse to eat poison!” I realized how logical that sounds. Most people would not voluntarily or consciously eat poison. Yet some of us eat and serve poison on a daily basis.

Any time we hold a resentment towards someone, we are poisoning ourselves. The longer we hold the resentment, the more poison we are ingesting. A steady ingestion of poison over time can lead to an early death. So, in actuality, when we do this we are not only poisoning ourselves, we are committing suicide. We are leading ourselves to a type of early death. Nelson Mandela once said, “Holding on to resentment is like taking a poison pill and waiting for the other person to die.” We are the ones who die when we hold on to resentment.

Enlightenment

November 12, 2013 Sharon Jacobson

Italo Calvino said: The more enlightened our houses are, the more their walls ooze ghosts.” So what enables us to become enlightened and why, or does this, create an oozing of ghosts? To become enlightened is to develop the ability to give spiritual or intellectual insight to self, and some would say to others. Being enlightened is about being present. it is about developing the spiritual practice of releasing our attachment to the material world and all things which seek to cling to us or to which we seek to cling. It is about becoming in tune with all human experience, which enables one to understand our connection to all of life and humanity.

Perhaps that is why this image was selected to go with this quote. One can look at this house and see it as empty and free of anything which might challenge us to become attached materialistically. At the same time, one can look at this house and see life being restored, an air conditioner, fresh air circulating through, rugs to be laid out. Whichever way we choose to look at this house and experience it is about us. We are free to determine our own lives and our own reality. This image is nothing more then an image. What we see in it and how we experience it can affect our understanding of reality. Like with anything else in life, we can experience things in a way that cause our understanding of reality to expand and contract. It is like breathing, our lungs expand and contract as we inhale and exhale.

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