The Bliss Mistress Guide - Nothing But Angels

Last weekend, I attended a workshop called Zoetic Completion© which was facilitated by my friend and 'Goddess Sistah', Liora Hill. I trekked down 95 from my home in Bucks County, PA to suburban Baltimore to spend 3 days with the 9 other participants and several amazing assistants who saw to it that the needs of our group were met with love and total support for the adventure on which we were embarking. Each of us carried our respective 'baggage'; the issues in our lives that felt incomplete and calling out for healing. Some of mine were decades old and I had allowed them to get in the way of movement into the life I desire. I was cautioned by my friend, that as a professional caregiver (social worker, therapist, minister), I was to be 'off duty'. Challenge number one, since it had been my pattern to deflect facing my own stuff by taking care of others. I can honestly say that I was only slightly tempted to slip into that costume, especially when I told myself that my history was far tamer than those of some of the other folks there. When I mentioned it, I was reminded that my needs were no less important and no less worthy of time and attention. For years I have found it difficult to accept that having needs was not synonymous with being needy; which brings to mind clinging dependence. I have been fiercely independent for most of my life; feeling like a little kid who (lower lip stuck out in a pout) says “I can do it myself!” Doing things FOR ourselves is not the same as doing them BY ourselves. No man or woman is an island, as I am learning, although I do like the idea of lounging beneath swaying palm trees.

One of the components of Completion ©, is the idea of 'being wronged' by a person or event that keeps us mired in muck. I came into the workshop knowing who and what that was and when the time came to process it, I fought mightily to re-frame, minimize, take responsibility for my role in the dynamics. Who me, a victim? No way was I gonna cop to that! Fortunately, my partner in the exercise wouldn't let me off the hook and kept reciting a litany of the things this person had done that had 'wronged me'. When I finally broke through the wall, it was with a sense of triumph that had the situation lose its charge. As a bonus, I snagged some insights into the relationship that I had never considered. Another exercise was granting permission for certain things in our lives. One of my areas of restriction was around the emotion of anger. I had grown up with the instruction “If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.” Well intentioned, but part of the seeds of my budding co-dependence. As a result, my tendency is to stifle anger. My fear had been that left unshackled, the anger would turn into a wolf that would bite someone's head off...hasn't happened yet, but you get the picture. In the course of what is called a “Permission conversation”, I was able to move through it and come out on the other side with permission to fully experience my feelings, including anger and also the polarity of being (as I have been referred to by another dear friend) 'nice-y nice'.

I have learned that what I resist persists, what I shun, I strengthen and what I deny, dominates. In the process of poring through my baggage, I discovered treasures I had not known existed; one among them, an ability to enjoy silence. For so long, I have entertained the chattering monkey who swings from the vines of judgment jungle and fear forest. In the stillness, I found a sense of emotional and mental spaciousness that allow for breathing room. No longer filled to capacity; my mind has the expanded capacity to ease into choices, rather than make them by default. I had found myself recently saying that I buzz about at work in particular at a rapid pace since “You can't hit a moving target.” At the workshop, I became profoundly aware that if I am moving so quickly, I also miss the treasures.

Processing these things doesn't alter what happened, but it does change the woman in the mirror as I acknowledge the players in the events themselves.

At the previous training, called Expansion ©, Liora had read us the The Little Soul and the Sun by Neale Donald Walsch; a parable and what I think of as a 'kids' story for adults.' In it, a not yet born soul has a remarkable conversation with God about special gifts, forgiveness and enlightenment, among other things. One line that is repeated is “Always remember, I have sent you nothing but angels.” When I recall that sentiment, I am able to move through any struggle and can view each person and every situation as a heavenly messenger.

Edie Weinstein is a Renaissance Woman and Bliss Mistress who encourage people to live rich, full, juicy lives. She has a daily blog on Beliefnet, called The Bliss Blog http://blog.beliefnet.com/blissblog