"Putting On My Own Oxygen Mask First"

Dear Friends,

Here is the response from our worried Mother, "Helen." I feel her wisdom here can be helpful to us all ...

Dear Ami,

Thank you for "replacing my fog with sunshine." I am so grateful to be made aware that I am still learning something I thought I already knew. I know this is the truth. Common sense has returned ... I went back to the basics: quiet, still and present (took your advice that "if it feels urgent, it isn't"). It was a lesson to myself again to realize just how much one needs to slow down, to be able to be still, to have no attachment to the outcome (emphasis added), in order for one's common sense to flow up.

I do feel a sense of calm again. It is only in finding the calm now, that I realize how crowded my thoughts were. How quickly and easily we choose to "love fear" and "fear love" of oneself and others! This was one of the insights that came to me. Taking the time and space I needed for myself afforded me a way of finding my way back to my common sense: not taking things personally, and seeing that "it is what it is ... " Giving myself some distance from the situation gave me that Self-grounded feeling ... and that "knowing feeling" again. As a mother, sometimes I do "forget to put the oxygen mask on myself first, before I can help someone else!"

May peace be with you,

Helen

Question: What the &*%$! should I do?

Dear Mystical Mama,

(Note: Identifying facts have been changed for this Mother. Letter edited slightly for clarity.)

I am 50 yrs. old, divorced, and I've lived in Texas for many years with my two children. My daughter is a senior in high school. Since starting Greg's course (Gregory Drambour of Sedona Sacred Journeys), I have read all Syd Banks books, and the three principles approach absolutely does resonate with me.

I am very aware now that neither my ex-husband nor myself have applied anywhere near the three principles approach whilst bringing up our children. My Daughter was diagnosed one year ago with ADD and secondary Anxiety/Depression, which I'm sure is due to the misdiagnosis and frustration she has endured for the last couple of years. She has a very high IQ, and is creative and musically talented, but has been quite misunderstood for about two years at school, by friends and family, causing disagreement, conflict and gross misunderstanding between my ex-husband and myself, which, ultimately has had negative effects on my daughter. This has been a very difficult time for all of us in trying to find common agreement without judgment toward any other person, or projecting our own experience and programming whilst doing the best we can in coping with a mentally ill, sick child.

We have reached an agreement on some of the treatment, and "Eleanor" is continuing to improve and cope. This has been a very exacerbated time of heightened and prolonged realizations of absolute separate realities.

My Question is: Could you suggest a specific approach using the three principles in helping the family unit as a whole deal with a diagnosis of ADD or other mental illness's with children/teenagers?

Dear "Helen,"

Thank you so much for your letter. There is actually no such thing as a “specific approach” from a 3 Principles understanding to the issues you bring up here. It seems there is a great deal of conflict and confusion about what to do with your daughter, and even about the “separate realities” you have noticed, and that you say have led to “prolonged realizations.” I am assuming a “prolonged realization” here is not a breakthrough (bringing relief and understanding), but rather just seeing that everyone is in a separate reality, with no movement forward, or toward peace of mind. Is this correct? On the other hand, there is improvement and coping on the part of your daughter.

If this is all correct, then what seems to be very clear is that there is still a lack of clarity. Regardless of the situation, it is insightful simply to notice the lack of clarity. When there is lack of clarity, often there is urgency, and as I said on the Teleconference call with Greg, “If it feels urgent, it isn’t.” (Please note: this is barring actual physical emergencies!)

The reason I cannot recommend a specific course of action is because only your own Wisdom can do that. And right now, without clarity, Wisdom is not speaking loudly enough for anyone to hear. Actually, Wisdom is speaking, but the more fearful, ego-based and urgent thoughts are just “noisier” right now.

If one can start to become more present—not projecting into the future, not regretting, perhaps, parenting or relationship “mistakes” in the past—Thought starts to slow down, to quiet down. When the mind becomes quiet, insights emerge. The feeling of an insight (as opposed to worry, anxiety, projection, judgment) is quite distinctive—there is a calm and peace that accompanies an insight. No one is held “to blame,” not even oneself!

It seems to me that since you are the one who is inquiring (and are therefore receptive), becoming quiet, being patient, trusting your inner Wisdom to emerge at the right time is the best “three principles approach” I can recommend. Do you see how I would recommend this to anyone, in any situation?

When thoughts arise (and it seems that there are thoughts of regret about the past for you), can you see them as just thoughts—notice how they are not helpful in this moment, notice how we all punish ourselves through self-blame, although we are all quite human and subject to many flaws? Forgiveness for oneself can ignite forgiveness for others, including (believe it or not) ex-spouses! We have all done the best we can with the thinking we had at our disposal at any given time. We are all just trying to make it through life.

As parents, we are likely to engage in a great deal of worry and anxiety about our children, especially if they have a frightening "diagnoses." Can we see that this worry and anxiety is helping neither them nor ourselves? Can we allow ourselves the space and time—even while our loved one seems to be “suffering”—to calm down and experience our own mental health and peace of mind?

Truly, a parent’s ability to find their own peace of mind is the absolute best parenting “technique” on the planet. If you can discover your own peace of mind, Helen, this peace will spread with ripples throughout the family and this situation. Peace for you brings peace between you and your former husband, brings peace to your daughter. Answers spring from peace, and just as often, "problems" simply dissolve.

So, the answer, as always, lies inside of you.

Can you let go, and trust yourself fully?

Yours Truly,

Ami

Love!

In mystical and/or spiritual traditions, there is often a distinction between "Universal" or impersonal Love and "human," or personal love. Personal love is sometimes portrayed as a selfish, more narrow form of love, perhaps not love at all!

In truth, all pure feelings of Love are different flavors of the one True Love, the Love that you are made of, and that you always have to give ... When I love my children, my husband, my mothers (I have 2!), without expecting love in return, I am also opening my heart to love for others--for the kids, parents and teachers I work with, for clients, for the Barista who is taking her own sweet time, for my many, "differently opinionated" colleagues, for life and the world itself ...

And how about Yourself, my dear Friend, is there Love there for you, for this incredible energy that you are? Life ... and its unique manifestation as your beautiful eyes, fingers, and toes? Your beautiful Mind and humor? Your many gestures of kindness, accumulated into the thousands by now?

What a privilege to emerge as a part of this Life! Where will the flow of it carry you next? Can you trust the Wisdom of Love? Do you understand that it cannot fail? Do you know that Love whispers to you, from within your heart, every moment of every day, whispering, "Choose Me! Choose Me this time. I know exactly what to do here!"

Perhaps honesty and courage are required as a part of Love. In the end, none of this will hurt.

So, yes to Love! Love, love, love!

It's all good.

On Mental Health & Healing

Over the last 40 years, some of the most resistance to Mr. Sydney Banks' 3 Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought has come--and most vociferously, at times with hostility--from the mental health community itself.

I have experienced this hostility first-hand as a guest teacher in graduate psychology programs--and my father experienced it throughout his career. It is a wonder to me, because, as I look around, even casually, it seems obvious that the field, as a whole, does not have any kind of handle on mental health. Not even a definition for it!

People seem to suffer from more and more mental ailments, rather. The DSM grows and grows. Here in our well-heeled home base of Palo Alto, even people with tremendous resources and access to mental health services have committed suicide on the train tracks, several over the last year. (One woman jumped from a freeway overpass.) People here live with intense amounts of stress and pressure. Suffering "patients," or consumers, worldwide merely cope with and manage their mental illnesses.

I do not mean to disparage the very well-intentioned and innocent mental health professionals who try their best to help people ... Many of whom do help people through their basic caring and instinctive capacities for healing. It is simply a wonder to me, as I've said, that the mental health field, as a whole, would claim to know much, if anything, about mental health.

Mr. Banks did. A ninth-grade educated welder, his life-changing insight and awakening in the 1970's showed the world that mental health is not complicated. It does not come through "analysis," categorization, or re-living the past. It does not come from attaching more firmly to even positive concepts about who we think we are.

Mental health is simply being present, accessing the divine energy, Love, and creativity that is always with us.

Mr. Banks, of course, is not the only mystic or spiritual author who could define mental health. Yet his selfless dedication for more than four decades to working with those in the field--introducing neutral and universal "Principles" that can be understood in any setting--has led to development of practitioners throughout the United States, and globally, who both define mental health, and help people to find it, within. In my mind, Maslow's plea for a new "psychology of Being" has come to fruition.

"When clarity and purity of thought are present, the answer you seek will present itself, for what you seek is with you and has been with you always." --Sydney Banks, "The Missing Link."

Mental health is a quiet mind. Our birthright. Our access to a great, Divine, endless wellspring of insight, of spiritual knowledge, of connection to Life. It has nothing to do with the workings of our personal thought system. I suffered from depression in my 20's and my later research as an investigative journalist into medications and brain chemistry led me to the firm conviction that we had not found the panacea in Prozac. Indeed, my healing came from my own spiritual insights, insights into the role of Thought and feelings, and, finally, letting go of insecure thinking.

As the world seems to come crashing down around us: murders, wars, child abuse, drug abuse, family violence, perversions, ecological degradation, greed and materialism, and just plain old stress and insecurity--how can we say that we, as the human race, know anything about mental health?

It would be refreshing indeed if professionals in this field would summon the simple humility to say: maybe we don't know.

When we open up to the Unknown, the answers come rushing in. Suddenly, there is room.

Let's remember that once, we were convinced that the world was flat.

This is my deep, deep prayer for the world--that we open up to the Unknown, that true mental health, peace of mind, peace of spirit is unleashed within billions ...

What a wonderful world this would be!

With Love,

Your Mystical Mama

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life

Acknowledgment for the splendid Blog Title goes to Richard Carlson & Joe Bailey, who co-wrote a Principles-based book of the same title (and therefore came up with it first.)

Thought for the summer: "If we all slowed down by half, the world would improve by 200 percent ... "

At the very least!

Think of it! Do we want more money and stuff, or do we want peace of mind? Does the money and stuff sometimes substitute for peace of mind (quite inadequately, I would suggest)? To quote someone very wise and profound whose name currently escapes me: "The truly wealthy (hu)man is the one who is happy with what (s)he has."

Please see the following: "Possum Living" and "Why Work?" ... a book and news article that surfaced in my life most recently.

Might global warming be stopped simply by stopping?

Might more innate and universal wisdom surface if we allowed for more space in our minds?

Might we learn the value of every Thing ... & begin to care less about the cost?

I am on this bandwagon!

with Love,

Your Mystical Mama

Some Observations on Grief

Is there a “way” to grieve? Is our grieving influenced by what we think grieving should be? Are “stages” of grief true or even necessary?

I have been noticing the process of grief within myself since my father died, and actually, the sadness and feelings of loss started even before he died.

This process has not been what I expected, although I’m not sure I was actively expecting anything at all. I guess it’s not been what I expected given the way our society generally portrays grief.

A few days ago, a dear friend called to express condolences and we began a conversation about all of this. He suggested to me that my thoughts might be helpful to others who are dealing with grief. At first I thought, “Oh, it’s too early to put anything up about Dad’s death,” (he passed May 3) but then I realized that it didn’t feel wrong to me to do so … It felt wrong because of what “people might think.”

This ignited in me a sort of rebellious reaction to what I now see as societal thoughts and mores around grief. And so, I have decided to go ahead and post (!)

… My hope is that these reflections might help others who have perhaps come to find their grief unbearable and stifling.

Notes on Grief

Especially, somehow, over these last weeks, I have noticed the deep logic of Thought—of those Principles, Mind, Consciousness and Thought at work—as different flavors of “grief” wash over me.

I am discovering that, at least for me, to “grieve” … to experience the death of someone close, is much more varied than what I imagined. I am not experiencing “stages,” I am experiencing various thoughts, and the feelings that accompany them. My Stepmom, and Dad’s new widow, has been calling these “waves” or “surges.”

For example,

The thought: “I am so grateful to have had such a Father” brings with it its own set of feelings that are sometimes tearful, but also rich, and life affirming. I can well up with gratitude, and feel so very, very lucky.

The thought: “I will never do x, y or z with Dad again” brings the flood of “loss,” and even then, interesting to note, these thoughts are not actually related to the present moment, but to an imagined, or projected future, an imagined scene without Dad in it.

The thought: “I wish I had never done that/said that to him,” and the pain of regret slices through me.

The thoughts: “I am so glad I had a chance to do that/say that to him. To help him [in some way] … to be there for his dying,” bring the feelings of satisfaction, and gratitude again.

The thought: “He is gone now!” Bereavement. Something close to anguish.

The thought: “He will always be with me; he is in my soul, now, even in my very cells” and I feel Whole, I feel the sacred connectedness of life, of two souls who did love one another, and the eternal fruit of such love.

I went walking through the park, alone, late in the evening on the day of my father’s death. The clouds were closing up on lighter areas of the sky, in the west, where the sun had gone down. So there were silvers, grays, blacks, a background luminosity to the sky before the darkness of night. And I started to cry, thinking of Dad. I cried for some time, but it was not a crying I needed to stop, or even be comforted about. The crying was rooted in my love for Dad—I was crying over the beauty of the sky, the beauty of Relationship, the sacred passing of a Soul. It was sadness and joy all mixed together.

Later that night, I got a call from a dear, old friend. She was crying a “hard” kind of crying, it seemed. She told me she was angry about cancer. Several friends or people she knew had died from it. I shared with her that although I had been crying a lot that day, there was a safety in my crying, and that safety came from a kind of rootedness in Love. Like, yes, I could cry and mourn and be bereaved, but when I settled into the underlying current of Love there, I was safe within all of these emotions. I could allow them to come … and also, just as importantly, to go.

I must admit, there are times even now, with the death so recent, when I am not thinking of my father or his death at all!

When I go out in public, or get on the phone, people ask me:

“How are you?”

And they tell me,

“I’m so sorry … “

And these are, of course, common and appropriate comments from well wishers.

However, I can certainly say that there are times when I have been completely fine, good, even. Sometimes, I feel a great joy and freedom that seems related to the freedom of spirit I imagine for Dad now. There is also a new freedom in my life that is directly connected to his passing.

And when someone asks me, “How are you? … I am so sorry,” I remember that I am “supposed” to feel a certain way, as a member of this society (“death” is a bad thing) and so I try to look somber and tell the only truth I can in that moment without seeming to be disrespectful, or an unloving daughter: “Oh well, you know, I am up and down.” True enough.

There were so many aspects of my father’s death that were actually positive and uplifting. I shared this with another dear, old friend who called during my father’s dying, and she said, “Well, we can intellectualize it, or spiritualize it, but it is still difficult.”

I know my friend was simply trying to help me access my “real” feelings—to "let them out," as we say. And in many cases, this may be necessary. But truly, in that moment when she asked, the dying did not feel difficult. I want to honor that truth for me. Death and dying do not have to be difficult. They often are, but they don’t have to be.

Essentially, what I have discovered is that there is no one way to grieve. There are no rules. We get many ideas about death and grieving from society “out there.” The truest Truth for me, however, is always what I experience through direct observation: I have a thought, I have a feeling. I have sad moments, I have grateful moments, I have regretful moments, I have feelings of deep love and peace.

At times, I am overcome with an emotion, a feeling of flatness or sadness, without being able to identify any underlying thought. I accept this as just another current of feeling. I know Thought is there, perhaps subconscious, but I do not need to dig it up and find it. Eventually, this too shall pass.

For my Dad’s wife, in particular, I understand that there is “breaking up of a shared energy field” in the home, in the space (I got this phrase from the book, “The Light of Discovery” by Toni Packer, in her chapter on Grieving). That field must feel broken, a part of it gone, in the entire shared life, and that must feel like a giant vacuum at first. There are habits and activities that were always undertaken with “the Other.” There were perhaps future plans and dreams.

Unlike my Father’s death, which was, I suppose, “expected,” others die suddenly, younger, their deaths fly in the face of all reason, logic and expectation. Perhaps there has been a suicide. I can see how this kind of death would bring up all sorts of intense thoughts and reactions.

At the same time, I am sure that gentle, grateful, hopeful, connected thoughts are still available to survivors … in all cases. There is still the capacity to focus on what was learned and gained from the relationship, what still exists for us, how that person does indeed live forever within us. There is still the capacity to reach for and achieve forgiveness for oneself and for the One who has passed. It is never too late for love.

I read a quote in one book from a family member/survivor, who said, “They are in my DNA!”

Beneath all our thoughts of pain, of the future, of regret, guilt or loneliness, lies the deep, quiet, eternal Love for the Other … the true Relationship that cannot be lost. This Love has no capacity to hurt, it can only heal.

Can we give ourselves permission to go deeply into this Love and begin to understand that we have truly lost nothing?

The great beauty of my Father, Roger Clark Mills (now resting in peace), is that he shared with me the most valuable thing on this great planet earth—-peace of mind.

For the first two weeks after his death, I had a hard time “motivating,” getting anything done. I was tired, I was sad, depressed, whatever. Then, I had a moment in my backyard. The sun was out, the grass had just been cut. Bees were buzzing, and I finally took the time to just sit down in a lawn chair.

Looking out on the scene, my mind became still. It was then that I felt him ... Dad. This was the space he so cherished, and a space we often shared. This was his greatest gift to me, to know what is valuable and real in this mixed up world—-peace of mind.

Within peace of mind, we can feel grateful for anything. Within peace of mind, we come into what all Loved Ones truly want for us after their passing. And somehow, within peace of mind, we share in an energy that includes them still.

With Love,

Your Mystical Mama

Comments from the Family

"The only thing that matters is this moment of happiness, right now."

--Barukh Bennaim