Karen Monroy

Conditioning. We all have it. (BTW: you can ‘plug and play’ other terms like habit, belief, thought for conditioning) Most of us don’t experience the limits our conditioning imposes. We miss the experience of our experience and pass the conditioning (or memes if your prefer) from person to person, generation to generation, like a virus of the mind.

The tentacles of conditioning are in every part of our life.

In a relationship, you know if you say X, she’ll say, Y and off you go with the square dance to hell.

In creativity, we struggle for flow paddling against the current instead of allowing and going with the current.

In work, we ‘should’ each other. Each perceiver thinks they are the alpha and omega of ‘what is’. Someone is right and someone is wrong.

These Giant Octopi of Conditioning seem to have endless tentacles, and the more we see the tentacles’ suction cups upon us, the more discouraged we become, focusing on what is wrong, why ‘it’ won’t work and why ‘it’ can’t happen.

I was reminded by @TyBennett during our rockn’ call  (you can listen here: http://tobtr.com/s/976471) we can get clarity by experimenting with the unthinkable. Calling into question what we can and can’t do.

You think things need to be perfect? Take two days and let them just be. Be on the floor, on the desk; let it all go to pot.

It isn’t possible to intellectualize this. You must actually ‘do it’ to reap the rewards of the teaching: the change in perception that can pull you back from the hamster wheel of hell.

In my book /workbook/journal I have the reader burn a $20.00 dollar bill in conjunction with key observations about objects in their familiar surroundings. Just sit, watch it burn and take notes as the observer. You think you can intellectually grasp this—but then you ‘do it’ and the switch is flipped –you ‘get it’ in a way you can’t intellectually.

We loosen the suction cups and get rid of the tentacles of conditioning, by being present with Life. By having an experience of life. By re-framing our story to see the deeper truth.

To be human is to be conditioned. It’s your purpose to learn, release the tentacles of conditioning, and be free of the conditioning, to be a little bit better each day, every day.

PSSST! See those buttons below? Share the Love-I’d be very grateful!

This is the truth, so it’s bound to piss you off, before it sets you free.

This isn’t my truth.

It is The Truth.

I was told this Truth many years ago. I’ll bet you’ve been given this Truth at some point too. Only if you’re like me, your monkey mind eviscerates your memory so you must dig, time and again, for the truth and keep bringing it up to the surface to the light of day.  We must do this digging as if our life depended on it, because it does.

Another lifetime ago when I first began to seek, seek for the answers to the awakening questions, I had an agenda. We all have the same agenda, deep down; we can’t help it-it’s part of our collective creation of the ego mind.

I wanted to know what I could study, change and do, so that I didn’t experience any discomfort. Ever. Getting answers to my questions was the guarantee of a smooth life. Every seeker does this. I know now, but didn’t all those lifetimes ago.

I wanted the Secret.  Wanting the secret is the marketer’s dream. Now you can be sold the secret. Sold I was. Workshops, books, intensive schooling, you name it-I was a voracious, insatiable informationivore.

If I am honest, I knew intuitively that it didn’t work like that. There is no secret. It’s all been said, we just don’t like what It said, so we seek for a secret.

A few years into seeking I had to admit you can be all cleaned up, and shit will still happen. I also knew in my heart of hearts there wasn’t a secret. A secret outside of me that is. Inside me was a mystery. And the answers to my questions were wrapped in the mystery.

I quit. I had had it. Who wants some stinkn’ mystery when you have a life to put back together? Reward. Where was the reward for all my willingness to practice? As fine as a spiritual temper-tantrum one could throw-I had. The full on, come unglued don’t give a f**k about anyone or anything except where do I get mine! I bitched, I moaned, I whined and then I bitched some more.

Coming back from the precipice wasn’t easy. My realization the toxic venom in me didn’t feel good was the first step. The second step was recognizing a few years back I would have happily fed on the Spiritual Temper tantrum, for a week if not two. In the past, just when I would begin to calm down, I’d start the remembering of what happened and who did what to whom, and start the drama all over again.

My saving Grace?  Practice had changed me, as it does anyone. The parts of life that didn’t work for me in the past weren’t problems for me anymore and I was happier, despite the turmoil of the present circumstances. The voice in my head said, “You are bigger than this” and for the first time I knew it to be the Truth.

If you are seeking any kind of Spiritual Path for a reward of a painless life-you’ll be pissed off. If however, you commit to a Practice so that you can be changed to handle whatever it is that comes your way-perhaps with a Spiritual Temper-tantrum here or there-you’ll be happy.

I promise.

HEY THERE! SEE THOSE BUTTONS ON THE BOTTOM OF THE POST? I’D BE HONORED IF YOU PICKED ONE AND SHARED!

Sex, Money and Relationships: Intuitively we understand relationships are like the pea pod and sex and money are the peas-they go together.

The mindset we use to think about them however, is usually disconnected. Our proclivity to see sex, money and relationship as separate entities prevents the holistic vision we need to harvest their value.

Consider for a moment that sex and money can bless a relationship or curse it. Consider each can become such an obsession it can cloud a relationship’s natural balance. Consider the opportunities for sharing or intimacy and opportunities to manipulate or control that sex and money can bring.

While we individually choose the structure of sex and money in our relationships, most of these choices are influenced by our past, and occur by default settings of our cultural milieu.

One of the greatest sources of awakening in our life is sex, money and relationships. They are mirrors, to reflect what lies deep within us.

How does a couple, not receiving mutual satisfaction from sexual relations navigate the difficulty? Blame? Guilt? Avoidance? Openness? Compassion? Hopeful?

When one person is a spender and the other a saver, and neither are agreeable with the tenability of the finances, how to cope? Finding ‘facts’ to prove you are right? Nagging? Retaliation spending? Compromise? Impartial? Honoring?

Everyone has a shadow

Spirit will see each one of these circumstances as the opportunity to discover who we really are. Spirit will observe how we are showing up in the world and if the way we show up gives us sustainable peace.

Have you ever met someone who is desperate for Sex, Money or Relationship—in fact they are dis-spirited? A dis-spirited person is a wanting, craving machine. You can’t be hooked by this wanting of the shadow, if, Spirit is engaged. (Notice I didn’t say you wouldn’t have wants). Spirit doesn’t need a body, but bodies can’t exist without Spirit. Everything in this world is about Spirit or Energy or the Formless. Even the forms of sex, money and relationships.

The dance of the form and formless is called duality.  The body and the apparent needs of the body juxtaposed to the already complete whole of Spirit. With sex and money we habitually bring the needs of the body to bear on the Spirit.  We could train our minds to bring Spirit to bear on the needs of the body. Ego’s rational against doing the latter, is based upon the concept of sacrifice. Ego believes it looses if another gains-even if the other is the formless. This is one of the vicious lies of the ego.

While in duality we can never ignore or abandon the body. To honor our life is to experience the pleasures and sorrows, with the goal of meeting the form of the pleasure and sorrow to further our awareness of consciousness itself.

We have so many justifications as to why we will attend to sex and money later. It is as if we think of them as “topics.”  Can you imagine saying: (and by all means fill in your circumstance)

“Honey I wonder if you fake orgasms?”

Or “sex seems like a subject we both have many taboos in discussing, maybe we should get some help?”

Or “I’ve noticed significant spending on extra’s and yet when I spend some money I get the feeling you are upset with me”

Or “I can see when it time to pay the bills your mood changes, can we talk about it?”

Ego will think intimacy means things like:

You are comfortable masturbating

You know all your lover’s erogenous zones

I practice self-care, I treat myself to perks here and there

Spiritual people do not think about sex or money

Spirit will have you looking for the oneness in all situations: and the place to start is to remove the blocks to your awareness of oneness. You move out of the ‘me’ and ‘you’–past the ‘we,’ into the awareness that this moment is all there is, and your authentic self is honest about whatever is happening in this moment.

Spirit requires no sacrifice, and it also honors what is. It means what it says and it says what it means:

“I am more relaxed and I enjoy our sex, when you have taken care of the personal hygiene.” (or I am not tired–fill in the blank!)

“We seem to have a pattern with the same positions, same choreography, I’d like to try something different, how about you?”

“I am nervous when I hear you say the words, ‘I am going shopping,” I like to share with you how I feel, is that okay?”

“I am uncomfortable that I don’t know much about how you spend money, what your priorities are with money, but you complain about (brag about) money frequently, I’d like to understand better…”

Working with Spirit is preventive, proactive. It maintains the balance of your relationship to the form of sex or money.

Knowing there are hundreds of nerve endings in the clitoris is useful if you intend to bless yourself or your partner with enjoyment. It’s ugly if you intend to abuse a child.

Earning a living that allows for enjoyment of various forms here in earth school can bless by education or travel or it can be wielded to inflict guilt and the yolk of obligation.

Your answer to the question, “What is this for?” In every circumstance with every form, will signal which side of duality you currently inhabit. Part of the human experience is to frequently inhabit the ego side. I want to leave you with pointers–think of moving from one end of a continuum to another—to bring Spirit to bear on your sex, money and relationships:

From                                    To

Exploitive                           Valuing

Impulsive                           Spontaneous

Indebted                             Grateful

Promoting                          Encouraging

Picturing                            Vision

Resenting                           Forgiving

Demanding                        Requesting

Prizing                               Cherishing

Reckless                             Courageous

Controlling                        Allowing

Excessive                           Abundant

Somber                              Humorous

Restricting                         Liberating

Artificial                             Natural

Belligerent                         Peaceful

May your relationships, including the one to your self, be a blessing and be blessed.

Karen

I had noticed a member of my technical support team was not her usual self. Amy was curt, and ill tempered. After a short period of time I inquired if everything was okay.

Amy’s answer concerned banks, and I knew instantly from key words Amy used, she was  in the throws of trying to get a modification of her mortgage.

It gave me pause, as I am a wizard when it comes to knowing about financial systems and their intricate workings. These workings are the details of ‘money skills’ I teach after one has learned the emotional and spiritual skills about the energy of money. Amy’s circumstance is exactly why I teach, the way I do: unlearning first, then relearning emotional and Spiritual skills.  More over, Amy reads what I write-she’s commented on what I write and has not asked for help.

I asked Amy if she wanted help, she said, “That would be great!” Then I asked her to carefully consider why she had not asked for help long before what looked like to her the 11^th hour. This was the ‘homework’ I assigned her.

As Amy pondered her homework question and gathered up the documentation necessary for me to assist her she became increasingly astonished at two things: help was in front of her all along, and it never occurred to her to ask for the help.

“I have a degree from MIT for Christ sake!” she exclaimed when we spoke the following day. “How is this possible?”

Amy is an excellent example of the self-inflicted suffering with-in the human condition: overly programmed to see the linear aspect of life. From birth, through your education (with rare exceptions) to your job-it is a progression of linear thought. In Amy’s case she was so busy complying with providing the requested paper: spread sheet on expense? No problem she is an excel wizard. Copy of bank statements? No problem she has them.

Amy and her partner Sam, thought their problem was a lay off, and they lacked enough money to pay the mortgage. Then when the mortgage was hard to pay on one salary, and they fell behind, they relied on the Bank to give them quality information about modifications and followed the banks directions on how to apply.

In their minds, cause was the layoff and effect was the hard to pay mortgage and resulting frustrations.

In reality, the cause was the limitations of their thinking. Sam had been getting ‘clues’ about his companies instability for a while. They even discussed Sam beginning to consult ‘on the side’-just in case. So here it was, the blessing from the Universe (and it never fails to bless) in the form of an idea, and because of the linear thinking (I don’t have time, I have a job, lets wait and see) it was dismissed. The Universe is so kind, it put more hints in front of Sam:  “you should start a consulting company,” said friend at a gathering. Sam’s response? Yes, you guessed it-back to the linear thinking-all the reasons why he couldn’t.

The truth does set you free-but it usually pisses you off first. Sam and Amy were no exceptions. Having done their homework, Amy and Sam were now willing students to see themselves and the situation differently.

In their case these were their action steps:

*Well-worded letter to the president of the bank listing the banks infractions against the new legislation. Sent to his private email address.

*A copy of their profile run in the software the law requires every lending institution that received TARP money to use in assessing modifications (banks keep this software a secret!) clearly demonstrating they qualify.

*Complaints to the three appropriate State and Government entities who over see the banks detailing the violations.

The result is a response from the Executive Resolution team of the bank, apologizing for the problem, overseeing the proper implementation of the modification, and termination of the foreclosure proceedings.

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