Too Much On Your To-Do List?

You work your tail off to get things done.  You find ways to do things efficiently (you have actually gotten really good at this) and you still have to put the sweat, blood, tears and hours in, and often it takes longer than you planned.  You end up feeling lousy because it “takes you so long to do things,” thinking that your aunt or your sister-in-law could have done it in half the time – right?  If you’re not criticizing yourself for not doing enough, then you disparage yourself for taking on too much – though you can’t imagine what you could possibly leave undone.  Especially during certain times of the year, or even certain years, or in certain phases there is just so much to do it can feel truly overwhelming.  Holiday time and extra travel can certainly leave me feeling this way.  Here is a secret trick I have learned that ALWAYS helps:

  1. Remind yourself that this phase is temporary.  Though it’s hard to see the end of it, there are certain things you can do that will help in the short run.
  2. Make a list of AAAAALLLLLL the things that have to be done right now.
  3. Re-write the list so that it is actually 2 lists:

A.  The things I can and will do today (or tomorrow)

B.  The rest

  1. Ask your spiritual helpers, your higher self and the Universe to help you with everything on the B list while you are working as hard as you can on the A list (some call this God).  They can, will, and are already, but you have to take these items off the A list and ask your helpers for this to work really well.
  2. Focus your attention on what you have decided that you can do today.
  3. Each day, appreciate yourself for the items that you were able to get off the A list, reassess what you will commit to completing during the next day or two (or hour or two), and in the process notice how some of the things on the B list are taking care of themselves or progressing in some way that you did not have to be involved in.
  4. Thank yourself for remembering that getting things done is actually of secondary importance.  Being a decent person and staying connected to yourself and your loved ones is of primary importance – always.
  5. Notice and appreciate the help you are receiving from the Universe and from others and marvel at the magic you can do when you let go and focus only on what you can control.
  6. Go easy on yourself. It never helps to chastise yourself for not having the help you need.
  7. There are things on that list that only you can and should do. There are other things on the list that will take care of themselves on their own.  Over time you may see things that you’d love to ask others to help you with. But when you solicit the help of others remember that they may also be feeling the stress of their own responsibilities, regardless of how it appears.
  8. Ask your helpers to send you someone who would benefit from helping you (truly helping, truly capable, bringing positivity into your life).
  9. Putting items in your B list is trusting that you can be truly and abundantly supported, and letting go of rigid ideas about how things will turn out. If you can loosen your grip on them, you may be surprised at how they turn out even better than you expected!

Toni Rahman Embodied – Mid-MO Tour 2017

After being south of the border for 4 years, Toni will be coming to Mid-MO in October to share two things:

1) Being In My Body: What You Might Not Have Known About Trauma, Dissociation & The Brain

  • Coffee & Conversation at Heart Body & Soul, followed by Book Signing on October 7, 10:30 am
  • Daniel Boone Regional Library – Local Author Fair on October 28, 10:00 am-2:00 pm

2) Pop-Up Clinics – a new way of networking and connecting with yourself and the abundance around you.  Read an article about Pop-Up Clinics in Ajijic Mexico here.

You can hear an interview with Toni on the Trauma Therapist Podcast here.

Abundance Affirmations – Take Two

RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING
(Making adjustments based on what I desire moving forward)

I choose to address my compulsions directly, and I open to guidance about how this is gracefully done.
It is safe to have plenty of time. I can have plenty of time and not get derailed in anything even close to The Devil’s Workshop. (Unless, of course, the devil is a fine playmate.)
True abundance does not always mean a full calendar, or having several things lined up to do.
My compulsions have served to keep me disconnected from my feelings. I now choose to shift my relationship with my feelings so that my natural tendency is to notice and feel them directly.
I have plenty of money and plenty of time simultaneously.
I do not have to have access to endless abundance to have simplicity and peace, though it sure seems like it could help, sometimes.
I am well supported in managing abundance so that it does not detract from the quality of my life.
I can be trusted with free, unstructured time. I am allowed to play and relax. Playing and relaxing help me reach my goals, effortlessly.
I step up and do what is needed to make wise decisions that help me feel better about my future. I own my power. I am in charge of my life.
My values and integrity stay intact as I become a conduit of great financial flow.
I release any connection between busy-ness and righteousness. That is utter nonsense.
As a fully resourced person I make a bigger impact in the world.

I welcome the abundance that is already mine, and I am so grateful!
Thank you! And so it is!

Photo borrowed from Laughing Frog Gardens.  Check it out here.

Self-Imposed Monkhood

I have in the past year been thinking about money – fiscal flow.  It was last year about this time that the dust was beginning to settle, and I realized that the time had come to shift from spending more money than I was bringing in.  Thousands of dollars of credit card debt loomed – the hard-earned badge of taking chances, and the ball and chain that symbolized my vulnerability for stepping up and helping when I am not grounded myself (No regrets.  Just noticing).

My relationship with credit is one of gratitude and respect, having been the recipient of student loans and commercial credit that allowed me to get an education and the credentials needed to support myself in an honorable and dignified way, but my latest plunge into debt is the shadow side of a larger transition, and it brings into stark relief many of my previously unconscious beliefs and attitudes about abundance and money, no doubt passed down to me from my ancestors, and maybe the reverberating echoes of our shocked and traumatized poor and middle class brothers and sisters who move through life more like the living dead than their great, empowered selves.

Since I made that recent, important shift, I have been thinking about how what I’m going through might be similar to the withdrawal symptoms of a heroin addict, or an alcoholic.  But I try not to get too carried away.  What I have realized is that for me, pulling out of our revered middle-class rituals that have served as the “guarantor” of safety and stability, I have stepped into the unknown.  The result has been a self-imposed experience of low financial flow.  AND having a temporary period of self-imposed “monkhood” has helped me get more up close and personal with some of the baggage I have carried with me about money, wealth and abundance.  I’ll share with you here what I’m taking away as I move forward.  This is going to be an excellent year!

Self-imposed monkhood has served me in managing my compulsions:

  • To buying food in excess of what I need.
  • To buying to distract myself from feeling.
  • To buying things for others to get approval/acceptance.
  • To supporting the illusion that I’m responsible or invulnerable.
  • To keeping me rigidly stuck in my old roles of appearing “more capable.”
  • To taking care of the needs of others to my own detriment.

Not having money has forced me to slow down.  It has served me in helping to keep my life a bit simpler.

  • Fewer distractions.
  • More time with myself, my emotional life and my creative process.

Not having money has “served” me in helping me to feel more righteous.

RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING…RECALIBRATING

(Making adjustments based on what I desire moving forward)

I choose to address my compulsions directly, and I open to guidance about how this is gracefully done.
It is safe to have plenty of money.  I can have plenty of money and stay connected to my needs, my personal limits, my essence, my values and my purpose.
I am learning that true abundance does not always mean lots of food in the refrigerator, or cooking in advance so I have plenty of leftovers.
My compulsions have served to keep me disconnected from my feelings.  I now choose to shift my relationship with my feelings and feel my emotions directly.
I can have simplicity in my life and abundant resources and income all at the same time.
I do not have to sacrifice financial abundance to have access to simplicity and peace.
I am well supported in managing abundance so that it does not detract from the quality of my life.
I can be trusted with material and financial abundance.
I will step up and do what is needed to make wise decisions that help me feel better about my financial future.
My values and integrity will stay intact as I become a conduit of great financial flow.
I release any connection between poverty and righteousness.  That is utter nonsense.
As a fully resourced person I can and will make a bigger impact in the world.
I welcome the abundance that is already mine, and I am so grateful!

Thank you!  And so it is!

People Are Not For Comparing

I am eating ice cream off a stick, tasting the sweetness and feeling the coldness with only half of my mouth.  I put my attention on tasting with the “awake” side with double focus.  The chocolate shell is melting quickly, but I have a plate to catch it when it falls, here at my table in a small ice cream shop in Santa Tere, Guadalajara, where I can watch people walking by on the sidewalk.  The air is hot and dry.  I recall how my mouth dried so quickly when I was sitting in the dentist’s chair, under her bright light, less than an hour ago.

I am thinking about so many things.  About comparing; the energy of comparing.  What happens when I am afraid?  I analyze and judge.  For me, it’s automatic: When I am afraid, I see people in terms of their threat to me.  What I’ve recently realized is that I’ve found “safety” in being “better” in some way.  Growing up, us children divided ourselves into two groups: “the good ones,” and “the bad ones.”  At least that’s how I made sense of the world in my childhood.  Mind you, it wasn’t that I was “good” but that I was in that group because nobody knew how bad I was.  Just me.  And often staying out of harm’s way meant maintaining or nurturing this divide.  Now that I think of it, I am definitely responsible for perpetuating this idea among my siblings.

Problem is, the “safety” I achieved from this strategy wasn’t safe at all.  It might have protected me from disapproval, physical blows and contempt that my sisters received when they expressed dissent, but in terms of relating with people, it put me at a very unfortunate and decades-long disadvantage.  My already stressed-out body responded to this constant inner chatter (analyzing and comparing myself to others) by bracing, warding off confrontation, and maintaining a steady flow of stress hormones.  Judging and dividing my siblings left me with a sense of uneasiness in groups, an inability to let my guard down with people who were different from me, to feel close or to take in the goodness that other human beings have to offer, through their very essence.

Prettier, thinner, more deserving, etc.  In my adult life it has remained mostly unconscious, but it has never left me, particularly in social situations where I do not feel I have enough control.  It has been very, very present: “I am safe if I am on the right side of this divide – you over there; me over here.”  That’s how my attention was oriented.

As I gain tools, and a general understanding that judging and comparing are actually things that signal that I’m experiencing vulnerable emotions (feelings I had learned to automatically disconnect from), I’m vigorously exploring healthier alternatives.

This habit of comparing has affected all my relationships.  I’ve found safety in partners who are “good enough” to make me look good but not quite as “right” as me.  I found comfort in relationships where my opinions were the ones that “counted” (in my mind, for one reason or another).  That required – you guessed it – me feeling somehow “one up.”  I wasn’t at all confident in my ability to advocate for myself or negotiate.  And I had no concept of what it might be like to coexist peaceably alongside someone with whom I disagreed (who must be wrong, of course).

Moving through life like this did nothing but perpetuate my anxiety and fear about my place in the world.  Judging and comparing others always does this funny boomerang thing; fear of being judged and coming up short is always the result.

I did not know that I was chronically afraid, that I felt threatened by the “betterness” of other people, much less how to turn that around.

My lifestyle now offers me a time warp through which, rather than living afraid, I now Iive more consciously and at peace.  And my body, as a result, is learning to relax as my senses come back online.  I follow what gives me pleasure, choose what I desire, filled with gratitude for all that I have.  Since I live with a nervous system that is no longer on high alert, I am more aware of what there is to appreciate in this sacred moment, and in the other beings around me.

There’s a profound difference between seeing others through a lens of guardedness and anxiety and removing that lens and just allowing pure sensory information to enter, no longer needing to be “one up” somehow.  But this distinction is – more than you might imagine – a product of the nervous system.  What has happened to me in the past four years was a subtle but life-changing shift.  It has affirmed in me a deep knowing that I don’t need to pretend to be anything I’m not.  That I am safe, as perfectly imperfect as I am.  That all is well.  That regardless of what happens, I will be okay.  None of this was possible when I was constantly analyzing my safety based on how I measured up to those around me.  That kept my body tense and poised for battle.

In my new life, there is time to do my emotional work.  It is safe to feel what I feel and know what I know.  Though I am alone, I know that I am safe and have adequate support.  Alone, what I enjoy and what I want matters immensely.  I am curious about what amuses and entertains me, and it certainly varies from day to day.  And my interactions with others is based more on what I like and what leaves me feeling affirmed and inspired.

I’m thinking about the other evening that I spent with my sister, Tracy.  It was a very strange visit.  I’d had a long day.  I was returning from the lake, where I pack in a lot of socializing and play.  Back in Guadalajara with Tracy, I noticed my faculties failing me.  I literally felt “retarded,” kind of stunned, not at all able to express myself or even find simple words that I needed.  Her being four years older, there are a lot of things about Tracy that can trigger me.  But this time, while it is true that I was triggered and my body was not acting right, I did not go into an emotional flashback like I have during longer visits with her.

I had been looking forward to seeing her before she left on her trip to Texas.  Throughout our visit I was trying to understand what was happening, holding off on any self-judgment or despair about how stupid I was in comparison to her.  I was able to just notice the sluggishness of my mind.  I didn’t blame Tracy for directing her attention outward and interacting with others in her fluent Spanish from time to time as the evening wore on or for moving at a vibration that was too high/fast for me.  She was excited about her upcoming trip and her travels are always interesting to me.  Besides, it was a short enough visit, and Tracy is super kind, so I didn’t feel judged or even embarrassed, really.

As usual, my relationship with Tracy gives me so much to chew on.  Spending time with her always provides me with information that I can use to grow.  I “got through” the visit continuing to hope that I could rebound and be my fully-functioning before it was over, but I didn’t.  My brain didn’t come back online until after I left.  I did leave fully connected to my sense of humor, my curiosity, and a knowing that I would eventually recover, and that Tracy loved me unconditionally.

Among the triggers that tripped that night were:  Being the little sister.  In our family, Tracy has always been the one who reaches out for what she wants.  That hasn’t come so naturally for me.  Tracy is in full swing with her vibrant, exciting career, a career that she declared so many years ago when she went to school for journalism in her early twenties.  Tracy is many years ahead of me in terms of language acquisition (Español), so our visit threw me back to being two (when she was six) and she got real good at telling everyone what I meant, thought and wanted.  Or so I hear.  Tracy’s home here in Mexico has taken shape rapidly; a reflection of the amount of time she has lived in Mexico and the many harrowing and costly trips she has made across the border with trucks, cars and caravans.  She actually has furniture.

With my sense of humor intact, I could recognize, that evening, that there really was no competition involved here (and there never was), no one up or one down.  I could also recognize that I was not functioning at my best, and that it wasn’t her fault.  Some days I am likely to return, momentarily, to my habitual way of comparing and judging.  I apologize in advance.  But when I do, I more quickly remember that it is no more than a red flag to alert me to my own vulnerable feelings.

And as I do my emotional work, my body relaxes.  Intrinsic to this growth journey I’m on is taking responsibility for who I am, getting clearer about what’s important to me, and through staying connected with my entire system, returning again and again to conscious awareness of not just what is okay with me and what isn’t, but what I like, what I need and what I don’t.  The effect this has had on my nervous system is enormous, and that evening with Tracy gives me evidence of this.

When I am physically relaxed, novelty is the spice of life, and not a threat.  In this state of receptiveness I more readily greet the unknown with playfulness, laughter, and delight.  I don’t have to be perfect to be good enough.  Recovering from developmental trauma involves relaxing the body so that the world can be experienced as the rich and delicious place that it is.  Each of us brings our own gifts, our own essence to share in the world.  We are surrounded by inspiring, talented, brilliant and interesting people.  Not one of us more or less than the other.  Just different.  People are not for comparing.

Slowing Way Down

I’m watching the sky light up this morning.  I begin watching well before the sun comes up (6:45 is early enough, actually), so that I can be a witness to the contrast of the darkness, where the stars are still visible.  It’s nippy out, and I have leg warmers, fluffy socks, and three layers up above.  I’m wearing a fluffy purple muffler to keep my neck warm.  I’ve finished my tea and I’m at a point now where I might usually go and start my stretches because nothing is really beckoning me to continue watching the pre-sunrise sky in the east.  Then I notice two little groups of birds flying with each other.  They are flying in tandem.  They make sort of a figure 8 in the sky; they float toward and through each other and then out again in this rhythm where they are repeating the pattern over and over and over again, flying with each other.  It seems to me that they are playing.  As they continue this pattern, it’s kind of hypnotic to watch, and interesting too because they know what they are doing and they are doing it purposefully, and for some reason that I can only imagine.

I’m still facing east and it strikes me that these birds are right there, in my line of vision, and I keep watching.  It seems to me that there are no other little groups of birds doing anything anywhere else.  But this little group of birds has positioned itself right in front of me.  And I just continue to watch them until they merge and become one group.  And that one group of birds continues flying in my line of sight back and forth and around.  And there are little outsiders, and I watch how they have to fly extra hard to catch up, from time to time, to avoid falling out of the group, and the distance they have to fly to stay in the formation is bigger.  But they do their part to continue to be with the group, and the group continues to function like a group and it just keeps moving and dancing and doing what it does.

I think about this group of birds, and what motivates it to do what it does.  I can’t imagine that it is striving for perfection, or that any of those individual birds are working on a technique, or that they are trying to get it better than any other little group of birds or needing to get any better than they were before.  They are just doing it.  They are flying.  They are flying because that’s what they do.

I’m admiring patterns these days.  Some patterns that are emerging are the similarities I see between bodywork (tai chi, etc.) and being with other people.  The three levels of patterns that are occurring to me are 1) Slow down, 2) Let Pleasure In, and 3) Don’t Try; Just be.  Today I’ll focus just on the first, but I know they are also all woven together.

Slowing down when spending time with other people improves the quality of the connection.  It improves the likelihood that what is being shared is a person’s deepest truth and not some unexamined word pattern that emerges from habit or old wounds; discharge of (and/or distraction from) unfelt emotions, or defenses against really being known.  Our culture does not currently support being slow with one another, but I say this is where so much richness, beauty and potential lies.  What would it take to create an environment in which taking two deep breaths before responding would be natural?  And a listener would not rush in to fill the silence.  An environment like this would offer an unspoken, “There is no need to rush.  Take your time.  Take all the time you need to express yourself fully.”  How amazing and how terrifying would that kind of environment be?

I desire to mend old ways of relating with others: hiding, controlling, defending.  It is my intention to get better at staying connected with myself and my felt sense as I share myself with others, so that I can benefit more from the connection that human sharing can offer.  Talking before connecting with myself, I have found, can result in saying things that might be “true” but are unkind, or “true” only at a superficial (usually injured, egoic) level.  What I communicate when I am fully grounded and embodied is an expression of what I value, it invites a response from you that is an authentic expression of you, and the sharing creates something of value that simply nothing else can.

With the body, in activities such as yoga or tai chi, we are gently coaxed into asanas or forms that are different from what we would habitually assume.  Such activities give us opportunities to slow down – to explore and know ourselves better, to listen to our deeper truth, and to improve the quality of our lives.  Slowing our movements down allows us to bring awareness to unconscious ways we have used our bodies to avoid discomfort or pain it might have just been more “pleasant” to ignore.  When we rush from Point A to Point B we are likely to take the path we have habitually taken, whether it’s the most elegant, most expressive, most effortless, or most ergonomically sensible path.  When we take this path (from A to B) unconsciously, despite the extra effort this route may cost us (both in terms of its inefficiency and the energy required to keep information outside of awareness), we inevitably communicate our unconscious pain in the world – at the very least to the unconscious selves of others, who have brains designed to pick up such information.  Such subtleties match up with other information patterns they have stored in their memory banks, beneath conscious awareness and are likely to later trigger unconscious responses and unexplained emotions in your relating with one another.

In slowing down, we may feel something we’ve been avoiding.  And we might not like that, actually.  But in slowing way down, we may make connections, and gain understandings about ourselves we never had before.  In slowing down, we bring consciousness to those painful places we’ve been avoiding, to find out what is actually there.  And in bringing consciousness there, we can understand that the pain is nothing more than sensation.  You thought that was pain.  But approaching that sensation with curiosity instead of judgment, with gentle exploration and generosity in terms of time and pacing, this “pain” might actually offer you information that heals and pleasure that you hadn’t afforded yourself before (which besides feeling good, brings resilience, vitality and gentle supportive presence to the body).  It’s not the scary thing we’ve been spending so much energy protecting ourselves from and avoiding.

When the person I’m with is accelerated, I feel compelled to share what I have to say quickly.  I am somewhat skilled at meeting other people where they are vibrationally, and have built my identity around matching and attuning, and blending in.  Unknowingly, I have postponed developing the ability to claim my own vibrational frequency and maintain it in the presence of another.  As a result I have often settled for the superficial (shiny, exciting) interaction that happens between two people, when what I am yearning for is so much more.  The pleasure of a particular kind of connecting that I yearn for is one in which I am unguarded, grounded, and connected with exactly who I am.  Grounded, in this moment, is nothing more than being attuned to my senses in this moment, being willing to slow down and take those two breaths before responding, and speaking only those words that I need to speak to express my experience in the moment.

It’s not possible to be truly compassionate with ourselves or others when we are running on adrenaline and cortosol, on guard, defended and triggered.  That is why I recommend learning how to slow down, calm the body, connect with yourself and then communicate with those around you from a grounded, mindful place.  It takes more than a sound bite to express oneself.  And it takes more than sitting in front of the television to relax after a stressful day at work.  Changing gears after living a high-vibration lifestyle for years and years is something that has to be done on purpose; it doesn’t just happen on its own.  That is what I have put my mind to doing, and let me tell you, I will never turn back.

 

The birds this morning, in their flying and being who they are reminded me that we all know who we are, though we might have temporarily forgotten.  We have worked so hard to cover up what makes us uniquely us, to mask it, or to make it different so that it is acceptable to someone else.  The birds’ message to me this morning was: Don’t try; just be.  Right now, do what is necessary to reconnect with the God-given greatness of all that you are.  Be right here in this moment, now, and play as if right now were all that there was.  You have a way to express yourself, and you have your own, inherent vibrational frequency.  Re-member that it is right to want to do what you do effortlessly, naturally, and with great playfulness and joy.  And then give yourself permission to go out and do it.

Now Available!

web-page-bimb

Being In My Body is now available at Amazon.com

You can also get it at CreateSpace

I am in the process of scheduling a book tour for the spring, and speaking/training events for 2017.  If you’d like to get on the calendar, please e-mail me at:

e-mail address

Here’s what readers are saying about Being In My Body

“Toni has gifted us with a readable and rich handbook on how to deal with trauma. She carefully weaves well-researched information with examples and healing techniques. Toni stays with you as you read and you can feel her compassion coming through.”

David Richo, PhD: Author of When the Past is Present (Shambhala)

“Being In My Body is a testimony both to Toni Rahman’s personal work and her professional and clinical skills.  This book is not only easy to read and understand, but interesting and informative.

“Toni does an excellent job of explaining the different kinds of trauma, which is an important contribution to field of traumatology.

“I found myself feeling comfortable in my own body as I read her book, which told me that she was in HER body as she was writing it.

“Most of all, I appreciate Toni’s open-hearted writing style, and her compassionate approach towards herself, her family, her clients and her readers.”

Janae B. Weinhold, PhD LPC, Co-author of Developmental Trauma: The Game Changer in the Mental Health Profession, Counterdependency: The Flight From Intimacy & Breaking Free of the Codependency Trap

“Toni presents a unique and well-thought-out perspective on healing from trauma and attachment disorders. As a couple therapist whose business it is to put the dyad first, I nonetheless respect the importance she gives to individual healing. Toni offers a comprehensive primer on some of the key concepts for healing that are derived from neuroscience, attachment theory, and somatization/embodiment. And she brilliantly puts them together in a way that creates more than the sum of the whole.”

Stan Tatkin, PsyD, MFT is a clinician and teacher; he developed A Psychobiological Approach to Couple Therapy® (PACT), which integrates attachment theory, developmental neuroscience, and arousal regulation, and founded the PACT Institute.

Being In My Body offers a way for us to integrate with our bodies, not just to discover historic trauma, but also to obtain daily awareness of what is going on in our lives.  It seems so obvious, but we completely ignore our bodies instead of listening to them.”

“I feel like your book reached me in many different ways. So it was really a privilege to live with it over the last few weeks. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the same about or deal with my body in quite the same way (not that I disliked my body). It has opened new avenues for me to reconsider how I work with my body and perhaps bring out in the open locked memories and finally release them. Definitely serendipity for me at this time.”

– Stephanie Brooks, Business Manager, MSSD

“Being In My Body is a beautiful synthesis of powerful teachings, practices, and stories that have helped me tremendously in my still-unfolding journey towards greater self-understanding, self-acceptance, and embodiment. Toni Rahman has helped me understand the ways in which I experienced developmental trauma, how it has impacted me, and perhaps most importantly, what I can do about it in the present moment. This book has left me feeling empowered, supported, and deeply understood.  I have read many books that touch on these topics and themes, and what I found most unique about this book was Toni’s willingness to be vulnerable and open with her readers. As I read Being In My Body, I felt like I was being accompanied through difficult terrain by a gentle guide who was willing to share her own journey in the hopes that it would help others along on theirs. In my case, it certainly has, and I hope that many others will benefit as well.”

– Megan Farmer, Postgraduate Psychology Student, Calif.

Ask and It Is Given – Book Review

Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires, by Esther and Jerry Hicks (The Teachings of Abraham). Carlsbad: Hay House, Inc. 2004.  Has 1,402 reviews and a 4.5 on a 5 point scale on Amazon.com

For many years I had been hearing about Abraham, and I had seen YouTube videos of Esther channeling Abraham, and until I read this book, that energy was just a bookmark; a place I knew I needed to return to.  This book is power itself; abundant, generous, practical, accessible and compelling.  This particular copy came into my possession because a German friend moved back home and was forced to part with many of her books, and I offered to “babysit” some of them for her.  This one was among those I chose to babysit.

Ask and It Is Given has been such a joy to read, and so aligned with my recent discovery of Joy and Pleasure in Just the Right Measure as a tool for dealing with trauma and connecting with oneself.  It is also strangely aligned with another book I just read by Alexander Lowen, the student of Wilhelm Reich, for both of whom pleasure and body-mind connection has been a lifelong passion.  I share gleanings from that book here.

For me, Ask and It Is Given helped clarify how the Universal Laws work.  For me, fine tuning had been in order for a while, and such fine tuning requires focus, time and attention.

I love how this book approaches the time we’ve spent, so far, immersed in lives that have felt to us like struggle, scarcity and chaos, or just don’t feel like they express who we really are.   None of this time has been wasted, they say.


Go forth and attract life experience to help you decide what you want.  And once you have decided, give thought to only that.  Most of your time will be spent collecting data that will help you decide what it is you want, but your real work is to decide what you want and then focus upon it, for it is through focusing upon what you want that you will attract it.  That is the process of creating.

In order for you to know that you want something, you have to pretty well have chewed on details or events that have helped you know what you do not want. (pg 162)


I get goosebumps when I read this next passage.  It affirms what John Upledger teaches through the CranioSacral approach.  And it speaks to the repressed emotions that we all hold tightly hidden from ourselves, and how we cannot see how they shape our lives until we bring them to conscious awareness.  It has only been in the process of writing Being In My Body that have I realized the connection between my body’s information about my infant rage and terror, and my teenage resentment and disdain and how they were generating elements of my reality that I desired (for my growth and learning), but no longer need or desire.  For this I am simply awestricken.  I am calmed and comforted and my faith in something bigger on which I can always rely is affirmed.


Every cell in your body has a direct relationship with Creative Life Force, and each cell is independently responding.  When you feel joy, all the circuits are open, so the Life Force can be fully received.  When you feel guilt, blame, fear, or anger, the circuits are hindered and Life Force cannot flow as effectively.  Physical experience is about monitoring those circuits and keeping them as open as possible.  Your cells know what to do: they are summoning the Energy. (pg 286)


Where I am personally still challenged is in the area of physical pain, stiffness and staying connected to my body’s signals.  Abraham offers very clear information that I am trying to apply, but am still chewing and digesting:


Anytime you have physical discomfort of any kind, whether you call it emotional or physical pain within your body, it always, always means the same thing.  “I have a desire that is summoning Energy, but I have a belief that is not allowing, so I’ve created resistance in my body.  The solution, every single time, to the releasing of discomfort or pain is the relaxation and the reaching for the feeling of relief. (pg 287)


Esther and Jerry are real people, and they have dedicated their lives to sharing the wisdom of Abraham.  I find this phenomenon fascinating from the embodiment realm because Esther channels Abraham, a group of non-embodied beings who are working to advance the evolution of humankind.  When she does this channeling, she allows the wisdom of Abraham to come into her awareness, and she finds the words that can adequately convey their ideas to us through words.

Here is an example of this book’s practical approach.  It uses realistic examples that help to clarify how we get stuck in our creative processes and end up creating things we don’t want.  You may feel stuck in a job that you hate.  You know it’s time to leave, but you can’t seem to motivate yourself to leave.  You are scared and doubt yourself.  “I want another job” is what you believe you are thinking, Abraham explains.  But we create what we focus on.  You can shift up the energy by identifying the other thoughts that you are putting a lot of energy into.  Here are some possibilities:

  • I’m angry because my employer doesn’t see my value.
  • I feel bored.
  • I feel unhappy with my current salary.
  • I’m frustrated that I can’t make them understand.
  • I’m overwhelmed with too much to do.

If you can take advantage of this unique opportunity to recognize these feelings and thoughts and understand how they relate to your earlier life, while simultaneously developing specs for your new, desired job (using what you don’t like about this job as a launching pad), your desired new job will find you before you know it!  The job you are about to leave behind is a rich source of information and knowledge about yourself.  Use it and shift your reality!

What follows are a couple lists of things I gleaned from Ask and It Is Given that I plan to review until they take up permanent residence in my body/mind:

Affirmation:

  • I, Toni Rahman, see and draw to me, through divine love, those Beings who seek enlightenment through my process. The sharing will elevate us both now.

Universal Laws (How it works):

  • I will always feel the power and value of my own personal perspective for the ‘Non-Physical Energy’ that creates worlds will flow through my decisions, my intentions and my every thought, for the creation of that which I set into motion from my perspective.
  • I am here to experience outrageous joy.
  • Your feelings of increased tension, anger, frustration, and so on, have been your indicators that you have been adding to your resistance. You have been holding yourself in a vibrational holding pattern that does not match the vibration of your desire.
  • Everything you have ever desired, whether spoken or unspoken, has been transmitted by you vibrationally…now you are going to feel your way into allowing yourself to receive it, one feeling at a time.
  • You just have to feel it in your being: I desire this. I adore this.  I appreciate this, and so on.  That desire is the beginning of all attraction.
  • To stand on the brink of what is coming, feeling eager, optimistic anticipation – with no feeling of impatience, doubt, or unworthiness hindering the receiving of it – that is the science of Deliberate Creation at its best.
  • Feeling good equals allowing the connection; feeling bad equals not allowing the connection…to your source.
  • When you stop thought, your vibration automatically rises. And in every moment that you are in your state of non-resistance, the Law of Attraction will be responding to you in a positive way.
  • Your role is to utilize Energy. That is why you exist.
  • The standard of success in life is not the money or the stuff – the standard of success is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.
  • Your action has nothing to do with your abundance! Your abundance is a response to your vibration…release the word earn from your vocabulary and your understanding altogether, and we would like you to replace it with the word allow…decide what you would like to experience and then allow it in order to receive it.
  • All the resources you will ever want or need are at your fingertips. All you have to do is identify what you want to do with it and then practice the feeling-place of what it will be like when that happens.
  • You have a manager who works continually on your behalf called The Law of Attraction, and you have only to ask in order for this Universal Manager to jump to your request. 1) Make requests with an expectation of receiving. Identify the object of your desire. 2) Allow the Universe to yield it to you.  Setting goals is like delegating to the Universal Manager.
  • Treating the body really is about treating the mind. It is all psychosomatic – every bit of it.  No exceptions.  It takes the determination that you are going to put your thoughts upon something that feels good…any malady in your physical body was a lot longer in coming than it takes to release it.
  • Physical pain is just an extension of emotion. Good feeling: You are connected to your Energy Stream.  Bad feeling: You are not allowing your Energy Stream.
  • Illness or pain is just an extension of negative emotion, and when you are no longer feeling any resistance to it, it is a non-issue.
  • You can live comfortably, joyfully, resiliently, and healthfully as long as you have desire that summons life through you.
  • Look around less. Imagine more. Until your imagery is the most familiar vibration that you have.
  • Once you practice the thought that makes you consistently feel more secure – the money must follow.

Spiritual Reassurance:

  • Since we know who you are, we will easily help you remember who you are.
  • Since we are where you came from, we will easily remind you of where you came from. …easily guide you to help yourself to that which you desire.
  • Do you understand how much orchestration of circumstances and events on your behalf is available to you? Do you understand how adored you are?  Do you understand how the creation of this planet, the creation of this universe, fits together for the perfection of your experience?
  • We want to assist you in consciously allowing your connection, more of the time, to Source. …enthusiasm, passion, and triumph.  That is your destiny.
  • We want you to relax and not be so hard on yourself when you find yourself in a place of negative emotion. Negative emotion is a good thing in that it is letting you know that some tweaking is required in order for you to be in harmony with who you are.
  • You are an Energy-flowing Being – a focuser, a perceiver. You are a creator, and there is nothing worse in all of the Universe than to come forth into the environment of great contrast, where desire is easily born, and not allow Energy to flow to your desire.  That is a true squandering of life.  Be the Spiritual You, and create like a physical fiend.
  • You cannot get poor enough to help the impoverished people thrive. It is only in your thriving that you have anything to offer anyone.  If you want to be of help to others, be as tapped in, tuned in, and turned on as you can possibly be.

Here is a super interesting tool I plan to experiment with: The Emotional Guidance Scale.  Ask and It Is Given explains how this scale moves from low vibration emotions to higher ones, and that by generating thoughts that help you move incrementally up the scale, you can align yourself with flow and decrease your resistance to having exactly what your heart desires.  The goal is not to reach the top, but to notice the relief as you move from lower vibrational feelings to higher ones, one baby step at a time, if necessary.  Staying attuned to yourself is necessary here, as you are the one watching and discerning whether or not you feel a little better (whether you have experienced some relief).  I love it because it points out that jealousy, hatred and revenge, etc., are actually of higher vibration than are powerlessness, depression and despair.  This scale offers a map, of sorts, to help you identify where you are and find your way to higher emotional vibrations.  It helps you identify not just negative thoughts, but thoughts that give you feelings of relief.  “If you will make the improved feeling or emotion be your real destination,” they say, “then anything and everything that you want will quickly follow.”

Here is the scale.

  • Joy/Knowledge/Empowerment/Freedom/Love/Appreciation
  • Passion
  • Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
  • Positive Expectation/Belief
  • Optimism
  • Hopefulness
  • Contentment
  • Boredom
  • Pessimism
  • Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
  • “Overwhelment”
  • Disappointment
  • Doubt
  • Worry
  • Blame
  • Discouragement
  • Anger
  • Revenge
  • Hatred/Rage
  • Jealousy
  • Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
  • Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness

Included in this volume are accessible explanations and practical exercises that beg to be tested and applied.  If there is anything at all you want to change about your life, or if you have questions about why you struggle to get what you want, I encourage you to get your copy and begin these exercises immediately.  There is really no reason to wait.

Today I Walk

Thoughts in July

On the last leg of my walk this morning, my upper realms connected with my lower ones and I came to a glorious epiphany.  Let me explain.  In my spine lies a story that repeats itself at countless levels, the most visible and obvious of which is my living situation.

I realized today that my downstairs represents the places in my mind I don’t want to go.  The dark unconscious places that cause discomfort and pain.  Things like fear of being alone; fear of not being able to make it on my own; fear of not being enough; not having enough; not fitting in; not being able to connect, or have a whole, full, conscious, happy life if I don’t make particular sacrifices or tend particular safety nets.  Today, on my walk I let myself venture into those dark places.  What, I asked myself, does my grumpy roommate  represent to me?  She  spends her time in the lower realms.  She represents negativity, emotional immaturity, an unconscious need to protect one’s self from the unpleasant, the unsafe, the uncomfortable.  But this was the path of blaming, and projection, and I knew it was more complicated than that.

Her grumpiness had been on my mind of late.  But this morning I realized that what was at issue with me were my fears, not hers.  What I realized this morning is that my basement had begun to represent my fears to me, and that’s why I didn’t want to go down there.  Didn’t want to feel the ways I felt when I visited there.  Perhaps, because I am an empath, picking up on my roommate’s fears (that tend to resemble mine) was making the situation even worse.

A growing conscious aversion to the lower realms is what had guided me to discreetly move my bedroom upstairs in the past month.  This along with other conscious shifts in my behavior based on my relationship with my body, my higher power, my guides, my inner knowing have resulted in a subtle but noticeable improvement in my connectedness with myself.

This morning’s walk allowed me, for the first time, to go certain places in my mind to entertain the most frightening of thoughts, to explore how true they were, and to notice my feelings about them.  What if the natural consequence of my behavior is that my roommate can’t tolerate living with me if I don’t share the lower spaces of the house with her, or for some other reason she decides not to be a partner in the household?  What then?  Would it be a crisis?  For either of us?  Going through all the places in my mind: separation, splitting assets, furniture, all that we have built in the past three years, buying her out, determining real equity, etc.  What would it be like – a future without the stability she has represented for me?  In a way she has served as an emotional anchor.  Without that anchor, who and where would I be?  A rudderless ship afloat at sea?  I think about my traveling sister, Tracy, living out her dream but seeming at times so alone.

And somehow my thoughts, on the last third of my walk, came back around to what I know.  Being tethered to a particular person in a particular place is not the grounding I seek.  What grounds and centers is intimacy with the self.  And that, for me, today, is knowing at my core that regardless of the players at the physical level, there is enough, and I am enough, I have enough.  Connection, creative opportunity, guidance, love, purpose, affection, worth, credibility, strength, etc.  Whether I have the responsibilities of caring for small children or not, whether I have an incredible client base or not, whether I have a wonderful home or not, whether I have a partner or friends or savings or not, I am okay.  When I am connected to myself, I am not alone.  Those I know, those I have yet to know, and those I will never know; we are all connected.

Without a doubt, feeling some efficacy around money, probably for the first time, has helped me achieve this place.  Not having to worry about whether I’m going to bring in enough money to make the mortgage payment or meet the next financial obligation that comes with being a parent can consume so much psychic energy that it’s almost a luxury to tune in to the deeper inner realms.  Reaching this stage in my life has been a long time coming, but now that I’m here I can breathe a little more freely.  I can afford to entertain ideas one has a harder time entertaining when the biggest numbers are red.

So the great epiphany.  Maybe two-thirds of the way around my circuit, maybe a little more, I straightened a little taller, allowing my head to be suspended by the light nimble energy from the heavens.  I pushed my shoulders down, brought my jaw back and sent my shoulder blades down my back once more, and I felt it, if just for a moment, the connection with my core, my upper leg muscles, my psoas, my abdominal wall.  This was the feeling I had been wanting to avoid — and still do, if you want the honest truth — as these core muscles are so weak as if they are only now waking up from a very long slumber.  I’m not sure of the extent of the power that lives here; it’s so far been easier to let it sleep.  But now, as I watch my father (who is wrestling with the question of life and death) playing with the idea of waking up, and as the Universe pushes me to wake up, connecting upper with lower, I realize I’ve been slumping and restricting my movement and avoiding life experiences because I have been afraid.

Bringing consciousness to these dark fearful places, using the guidance I have learned to trust, feeling the resulting feelings, and building intimacy with myself is a sustainable path.  And it is a path of joy and deep fulfillment.  And to this path I say a heartfelt yes.  For you I am so grateful.