Caroline Myss - Arriving at the Crossroads in Life

you know when i teach now i've been at it this is not my first rodeo right now at this stage in my life teaching has become um you know when you fir when i first started out which was not exactly yesterday uh it was you know i i have to i have to make sure i do this and do this to this i am so past that now you know now i tell you with all my heart and soul i'm a really well-seasoned teacher now so now when i come here i look at you and think you could be anywhere else but you're choosing to spend your day with me so for the for my primary is that i know that and i consider that a a big huge blessing i am not unaware that you have chosen to spend this day of your life with me two i live in the prayer that this day of our lives will never come again so this is precious precious stuff to me i don't take i am not unaware of every single minute we are together believe you me i'm not okay because i live in the prayer this moment this day will never come again number three i i come from the position now um that every single thing i teach has to matter has to matter more to you it has to make a difference to your life it has to it has to it has to i have a huge reservoir now but that's not what is important is what can matter to you i know what matters to me what can matter to you i am also at that place where i i pay a huge amount of attention to what's going on in our world today and how that matters to us and how that is shaping us and when when i when i talk about like what's going on in the world today i don't necessarily mean it from the point of we have to pay attention to every single one of the world events like look at what's happening with isis and look at what's happening oh but but how i mean that is that what is happening in the world and of the world is filtering into you psychically and you are filtering into it so more than just actual events we are being reshaped by the patterns in the world that are falling down falling away and when we get to crossroads for example in our lives and we stand and think what's what's going on here what do i do next we're living in a world where um the everything that is familiar to us is actually disintegrating actually evaporating right in front of our eyes and the world that we are entering into is equally unfamiliar i mean in a sense it's a privilege to be alive now and in another it is unbelievably holy mackerel what's going on here because all the ingredients that make up our world have never existed before we've never ever ever ever been globally connected to everybody in an internet we've never ever ever been able to communicate with millions of people by pushing a button we've never had global terrorism who ever even heard of such a thing never before has the power to change so much been in your hands anonymously where you could write an email because you're angry at somebody and destroy them with the push of send to take a photograph from your high school days that was a bit risque put it on the internet and wipe out their political career that's what we do now that's who we are that's who we are we are as transparent as we are invisible we are in a crossroads in terms of how we use a power we have never even imagined in a society of people whose moral code has been thrown by the wayside we don't even believe in teaching moral codes to people anymore when we need it most so when we talk about being at a crossroads which one should we talk about do you which one where do we begin do we talk about what are we going to do about who we are as as a species much less how do you even make a decision about do i have the backbone to even keep my integrity in the world in which i live now have i passed on integrity to my kids do i model it or do i am i weak need so i'm actually this is a big question it's not a small question because in the old world in the old world this gets a little more interesting along the way when you look at yourself and you evaluate the model that you come from which is when you think of change in your life when you think of dynamics however it is you define being at a crossroads the majority of people define that as a physical life change a physical a divorce a job a career move that's what a crossroads is for most people a major decision something like that and the second thing is they think that when they're at a crossroads somebody should make the decision for them somebody but that they're standing at some major crossroads and isn't someone going to come here and make the decision for me please somebody somebody rest so they're looking at a rescues hey you they're looking at a rescue and i see someone go like this i don't know what she's talking about i don't know do you i mean okay so that's that kind of there's got to be someone from the outside and it's got to be like so you define being at the crossroads as something big obvious and major like that so i want to read something to you i'm going to read you a fable because i love this and it's going to perhaps set the stage for how subtle a crossroads actually is and besides we love good stories and this is a great story a devotee of an of an enlightened guru announced to the guru that he was ready to become enlightened he had traveled a long way to deliver this message in person to the guru ah said the guru is that so well then come and stay by my side and see the world as i do but you must not question a thing that i do or say the young devotee agreed thinking that this task would be easy as he was convinced he was so enlightened that he understood how the laws of the universe kept the multiple ecosystems of life in place and why god allowed events to occur as they do to all people now the guru met with all his followers every day to give blessings and to hear their prayers as they requested help he often selected people for healings during this time and the devotee began anticipating whom the guru would heal thinking certainly he would choose that person who seems so weak and that person who's been here day after day looking and waiting for a healing the devotee was absolutely convinced the guru would heal the crippled child brought to the ashram by his mother day after day this is true by the way day after day passed but the guru never seemed to notice this mother and child finally the devotee bursting with frustration said i don't understand how you can look into the face of that mother and not heal her child can you not see how they are both suffering you're questioning me i see them do not question what i do again this is our agreement replied the guru while out walking a few days later the guru in his devotee came upon a young man crossing a field who fell into a deep hole filled with snakes the devotee and the guru could hear him screaming with fear he shouted for help but the guru who could have easily saved him stood on the road staring across the field completely motionless the young devotee disregarding his agreement to say nothing pleaded help him why don't you save this man he's in pain he's screaming he's frightened why are you questioning my actions i hear him shouting you're breaking your word to me do not do that again they both remained on the side of the road until the screams of the man fell silent and he died then the guru walked away a few days later a beggar came up to the guru asking for food and the guru refused to feed him again the devotees seeing this suffering on the face of this hungry beggar challenged the decision of the guru why did you not feed this hungry man we've got plenty of food that we can share with him and it's not right it is just not right we have so much and again you are challenging me the guru paused for a moment and said go away from me get away you are not a light enlightened you walk through this world only seeing yourself only your own pain only fearing your own hunger when you did what you did what did you see when you looked at that mother and child you saw only your own pity and heartache and that is what you wanted me to stop you did not really see who those two souls were or why they had to endure that pain in this lifetime they abused crippled children in a previous life they sold them into slavery without mercy that mother needs her heart open she needs to feel love for a child and that crippled child was once a human being who made his wealth off the broken bones of children they are they are being healed but it is through this life that they have been given take this life away from them and they will learn nothing not even you will learn anything all three of you will feel better but what good is that you wanted me to save the man in the snake pit so that your fear and panic would stop yours you did not even consider whether that man should be helped or whether helping him was the wise act for his soul's journey it was you that you were thinking about and only you save me you were begging not save him you only thought about how you felt in that moment and what you were feeling while you were watching him and that is the truth the devotee was stunned by the guru's response he wanted to defend himself to apologize because he did not realize these things but the guru would not let him instead the guru said you think help should always be offered to someone should it why do you believe that you should always receive help when you scream help it is just as likely that god is telling people to walk right by you and not help you as it is that god directs one person to stop and help you you are not ready to bear witness to the wisdom of god that man whom you would have pulled out of the snake pit was coming to that village to only do harm to those people he was a vengeful person filled with darkness now all those good people in that village will go on to live blessed and wonderful lives because he did not make it across that field he had only evil in him you would have been responsible for their deaths by saving that evil man by saving yourself and that beggar that you felt so much pity for let his whole family starve to death while he ate all their food now it is time for him to know the suffering he put them through the guru continued you are still too weak to witness the wisdom of god you still want your own justice to prevail in the world you think this world should be ordered according to your personal feelings feelings feelings emotions should order the world because you're feeling bad the world should do something feelings not wisdom but feelings should dictate the world emotions they're not even worth anything they change second to second if you're upset then events should be righted so that you feel better regardless of what is unfolding in all the many lives woven into the journey that's your life you're still guided by whether you're happy or sad calm or upset warm or cold why are your feelings so important why should they determine the destinies of so many people were they born to ensure were people and born to born to ensure your happiness would you like it if they had the power to change your life because they are unhappy would you like that would you like it if because someone else was unhappy or angry they could change your future but i'm unhappy so i want you to have a different life because i'm unhappy i get to change your life because it makes me feel better would you like that isn't that what you want half the time about other people and further are you suggesting that god is a fool and is unaware of what is just unjust fair and unfair there are no accidents in this world there are no catastrophes there are no mistakes all choices have consequences and all consequences are eventually balanced so the guru finally says go away from me until you develop the strength of spirit to detach from your own sense of right and wrong justice and injustice and your own desire to make things right for you and you alone then you'll be able to see how life is truly ordered around the wisdom of god working things out for all people one of the great keys of that story is how often at a place in life that first of all one of the great great great things i love about this story when i read it and i and it's it's a piecing together of several different stories about a guru but one um the one story in which the devotee said why aren't you healing these people that actually happened with sai baba's ashram so these stories are actually true and they actually really happened and and one and one of the the teachings that i love so much is that they're not about huge things like well are you going to take this huge job or are you going to do this not they're all about the power of what you think is true versus what is not so the greatest crossroads you will ever stand at are the ones in your mind are the ones in your mind they are not outside yourself they're inside yourself the greatest crossroads the greatest blockages you will ever have are in the world behind your eye not in front of it doesn't matter what job you take if you take it with the same fear that you had the last one the same thing will happen the same thing will happen it doesn't matter what kind of marriage you have if you marry another person with the same fears or the same demands or the same wounds you will have an equally awful marriage it doesn't matter the crossroads in you have got to be your capacity to recognize i'm standing at a crossroads of attitude i'm standing at a crossroads of emotion i'm standing at a crossroads of illusion am i strong enough to give up this this way that i'm thinking it's the thinking thing that every in it everything is either either i'm at a path of the there is no such thing as a right path what's true is you either have a path of the heart or not one serves your heart one destroys your heart that's all you've got to know at every crossroads you're in every conversation everything one choice will destroy you one will serve you it's as simple as that and a crossroads is even down to the way you answer a question think of every question every conversation as a crossroads how i handle my dynamic with this person one will serve us one will destroy us that's all you've got to keep in mind what serves what destroys what serves what destroys one will serve one will destroy one will serve you if you sell your soul you've destroyed it if you serve with with your integrity no matter what it is better to take a job would you say this uh what do you call this sweeping the corridors with integrity with integrity then to take a job that costs you your integrity where you can't look someone else in the eye because you're so filled with shame even though you come home with bags of money how you earn them that is what this this this story to me is so so rich because the this so-called enlightened student of the guru had it in his mind that he knew how the world how the world operated how the world was and the way our lives unfold it's always the case that the problems we have in our life come about because we are convinced we know the way something should be and a crossroads is always that moment that says i've got to i've got to think something through here i've got to think something through here so for example one of the most common challenges like if we start with like the basic challenges that cause us to stop and put us at a crossroads i call these the fractures we all have everything goes along smoothly and these are the fractures wait i have i had to write them down because it's not a short list okay okay so and what to do when you get to these to to how many of you first of all i think that you're at a major life crossroads and how are you absolutely not everything is smooth sailing nothing no decisions you're all at crossroads stop it you know one of the things i love about teaching in ireland is you the irish are the most superstitious people i ever teach and i'm i'm with you're very superstitious if i ask any question in which you think the gods or the jews or the little people are looking you will not answer the question i don't know if you think there's something underneath your chairs or whatever i do not know i do not know but if i said something that even remotely remotely seems to invoke a non-physical anything you won't answer and even though i can have a conversation with you and you think no of course i don't think so but you do that the most superstitious it's in your bones it's like in your spiritual dna you can't shake it out of you it's just everywhere it's just so it's it's astounding it's astounding astounding astounding i just don't you know this is probably not a nice story to tell by ms tell it [Laughter] i did a bad thing well i don't know but years and years ago when i was in my early 20s i had this job and uh it was just a part-time thing and i shouldn't have taken it but i was in graduates who cares anyway i was working in this uh office and and uh one of the secretary was this uh uh girl from the south side of chicago you know she she she had we had very different lives very different lives and she uh so um she was just like four foot 11 and kind of you know rubenesque and she um she was a baptist and you know i'm one of those you know kind of like reborn christian and we were so different anyway she's very superstitious and she she would she'd take off to new orleans every now and then to get curses cast on people with voodoo and scared the jesus out of me anyway but here the other side of her was she was so remarkable because she had like a photographic mind and i don't think she even realized that we were throwing a conference and she uh we didn't have computers then we didn't have anything we didn't have anything we still had notebook with you know those little white cards in it and i would say evelyn do we is this the right address for that person [Music] and i'd say do we have this address in there she just knew she knew about a glance she'd know if the right number was on there she knew all this the other thing she could do is i would take something and i'd say how much is this going to cost to mail two dollar okay like that okay the other thing so my habits all annoyed her to no end every one of them i just i just annoyed her and one of the things is i always have a pen in my hand it's like my i don't know it's you know you took the pacifier out when i was a kid you put a pen in and i was off okay so and i don't mean it but because i'm always have a pen in my hand i sometimes will signs on i walk away because i don't even feel it anymore you know i don't even feel of course it was a mont blanc but oh is it your mom how did that happen all right you know but anyway i was at i said to her one day i said evelyn did you see my pen [Music] i said are you sure i didn't leave it on you and i said it must have been the little people what you talking about i said i don't know sometimes little people take your pens what you talking about and i said well there's one of them now under the desk i should not have said that she jumped out she got on the desk off four foot ten of her and she's and we worked for a man named ed marciniak at the top of her voice mr marciniak mr masamir he comes running in and he's like what are you doing up there no he says what is she doing up there and i said i don't know [Laughter] she screams i ain't working nowhere with his little people says what is she talking about oh my god i said i don't know get her off that desk and he goes in his office and he slaps the door and she looks at me he was the meanest white woman in shoe leather i ever saw okay get back to work oh my god to this day okay we needed that you got to start out with humor sometimes to this day when i think of little people in ireland i see her i do i do i see her on the desk you is the weirdest white woman she scared me so much she didn't know that i always thought you're gonna get me i know you are okay what causes what what i want to proportion crossroads i want to proportion it so that you get a whole different idea of what that dynamic is about it is an archetype i want you to think of it as an archetype i want you to think of standing at a crossroads in your life as a archetypal pattern that's designed for a reason that we get to this place because it means it's a choice time the way we make a choice it's the way it's a it's a positioning of and that and that this archetype think of it like a cross that not the cross but a v a v in the road that that little v like a dna code is present in every single thing in a conversation in what we choose for lunch it is never not present in every single thing the way we listen to a lecture the way we speak to someone next to us the v is there the crossroad is there and and as difficult as this may be to imagine every one of them has the potential to change the whole of your life every one of them there's no such thing as a small v no such thing no do not buy into like the illusion of the the guru this is why i love the story so much because here's this devotee and he's looking at just a beggar asking for food that's not a beggar asking for food that's the illusion the truth is this is a whole history of a soul who has committed many egregious things to other souls but he can't see that he can't see that all he's looking at in the moment is this man looking for food he hasn't the capacity to see the whole thing at all so he has a so everybody has a choice to make in any moment do i look at just this conversation or do i stand back and look at open up my lens to include many more details about this moment this person this situation how big do i want this lens to be which changes everything in every single second whether or not you are if for example eating something if you're in the v is so there's no such thing because just think of it as eternal roads even if you're in lot you're going to lunch and you think here's a piece of lunch meat i could have this little sandwich or i'm going to open up the v and say where was this made it came out of this crappy little plastic thing it was in a factory and it was made from all these animals and by the way i'm not a vegetarian but if you're going to eat meat eat healthy get it in a healthy way not out of these horrible plastic things have been hanging in tesco and hanging in these stores and just for hours and days and months and who knows how long and it's greasy when you open it or slimy in that water and right okay this kind of thing if you're going to eat it it's something that at least you think there's a chance it's not horrible okay i mean if you if you you know what i mean if you actually are going to there's probably someone who owns tesco in the audience but if you get you understand what i'm saying if you're going to do anything if you're going to eat if you're going to eat vegetables get the most healthy ones you're going to get don't don't get ones that have been sitting and molding in a piece of plastic no matter what you do but if you do it open up your lens and say where did this come from where am i buying this is there gmo in there because if i decide that i'm going to be a vegetarian it doesn't do me any good if i'm eating gmo processed vegetables i'm just mainlining chemicals so i could stand on the crossroads and decide you know what i think i'm going to get healthier with my diet but in fact this decision is not doing me any good if i open the lens it's not doing me any good i have to open the lens and say where is this coming from just the decision to eat a vegetable is not going to help me because i haven't looked where it's coming from or et cetera et cetera et cetera so the crossroads isn't helping me because i haven't really looked at it am i are you following okay it's really important to get that there's no such thing as a small decision and if you really decide this is this could be a game changer for me how deep am i going to look at this there's no such thing as a small crossroads if you decide you know what this is this i'm going to just pause here and take a look at the potential of the crossroads i'm standing on maybe i don't want to really make a big deal out of it today but if you live with the idea that there is no such thing as a small crossroads like even in a conversation you have a conversation with someone and you think i'm going to listen with an open mind today i may not speak to that person about this today but today i'm going to try an open mind and just i'll be i'll stand here and decide i think i'll listen a little bit more deeply to what they say and not always fight back i think i i won't fight today today i think i'll listen i may not let them know i'm listening i don't have to do that but i think i might listen to their perspective a little bit more i may not like it because i know what listening does it opens up the crossroads it means i have to absorb their point of view and include it in my response which means i don't want to do that i want it all to be my way but today i'm going to listen a little bit this is a crossroads just the decision to listen every single thing is and that's the point about it being an archetype it's the most powerful archetype in the world it's that powerful it changes and it exists in everything in the way you speak i wonder what tone of voice i should use here i could use a loud one a small one every tone of voice you use is a crossroads if you decide i think i won't scream screaming usually doesn't work well i think i won't have a chippy attitude chippy well i guess i guess it's okay is there something wrong no okay i think you're communicating something's wrong i think you are no no no and when someone does that with me i'm like you know because that doesn't work drama doesn't work it's like as soon as you get off the stage sarah bernhardt and you want to talk like an adult let me know i don't do drama i'm not a drama school teacher if you want drama i'll reel it up and we'll go at it but you won't win cause i've been at it longer than you so when you want to drop your nonsense we'll talk but when you decide i think i won't do drama what would happen okay so this i'm gonna i'm gonna weave something into this workshop that i didn't expect to weave in and i hope that's gonna be okay with you but i thought it would add to the texture of this workshop and that's it i've been teaching a course on spiritual direction and some of the it has turned out to be the most beautiful course i've ever taught in my life that's number one number two it's the only course i've ever taught in my life where nobody wanted the course to end so i've added the next course are any of you on the spiritual direction course okay are you enjoying it yeah okay so i it's caused me it's caused me to wonder what in the world is that course i i don't i mean i've been teaching 30 years and so both this subject of crossroads and spiritual directions has come from the courses on reflections that i have been teaching and it's made me ponder on something that i want to just share with you because that's the direction i'd like to take the rest of the day if it's okay because i'm i'm very deeply fascinated with what we are experiencing as people in our world today and what it is we need because of what's going on in our world today and so this is my hunch if i combined crossroads and spiritual direction because in a sense they have a lot in common of course one is direction and one is crossroads and you need direction at a crossroads but i think that is absolutely the key from for the last 40 50 years people have been fleeing out of everything that's traditional everything that's part of why when you get to crossroads you're not sure what to do because all the roadsides signs that you would have normally looked for and another generation generations ago are not up now this way to perish this way to the bank this way to school this way to the next profession we've taken them all down they're all down okay these days when you lose your job it's because the entire occupation's evaporated i mean this is a crisis that is never i don't want to call it a crisis i don't want to use that this is a phenomenon that has never existed before ever and it's global it's global you know when to give you the tenor of how things are so different at the end of world war ii and these were our parents and our grandparents so we in our society the society that we that raised us was a society that was built with a spirit and an attitude that was very proud of rebuilding and building very proud of that so its policies and its and its soul was all about bringing life and power to its people into its everything and building again it was very much about that even though it was that you felt the flavor of it everywhere you felt it everywhere you felt it it was just surrounding europe and it you just felt it and you said you just felt it it was everywhere and then the tides began to change so this is what you're feeling now in in the tides began to change as 9 11 had a lot to do with that but even as we came there was kind of a sense that um it created in people these this abundance this mad abundance created in people this attitude of what i don't i don't want anything to do with tradition we'll just break away and go our own way we just nobody's going to tell us what to do this was an attitude that was born in the 60s and then the 70s and the that we would all go and become our own person and the idea that we would all take care of our inner self can you relate to this so that you know the idea of the inner self was born and the inner self was that you would take care of you would be motivated by this sense that your personal needs became a priority and that whole idea put your mask on first and then take care of the people around you and that that modeled the spiritual movement that spirituality was all about taking care of your personal needs that psychology your well-being that all of this was about taking care of your personal needs that that became the focus of personal growth and well-being which was all fine and good except this that we are heard we we are people that need other people to help us figure out what our personal needs are we don't do well without other people and what has happened is that without weaving our lives with other people we need other people we need community we need some kind of spiritual center to belong to what we have created is a world in which we are very hostile toward any kind of spiritual community and as a result we are a world of spiritual nomads looking for some kind of spiritual base but finding nothing so we've got that we have very little to figure out how do i make decisions in a world where so many relationships are not working jobs are not stable what is the community system that we look to for constant support that when it used to be tradition family and it sounds like i'm directing us back to that but i'm not what i'm pointing out is that we have not replaced stability anything stable yet and our own capacity to feel safe in ourselves is not something we've achieved do you see what i'm saying now i'm going to add one other layer at the same time we've opened up psychically so we've become very intuitive and we have become multi-sensory so this is this is a kind of a this may sound a little confusing to add to this so if i lose you put your hand up but we are were not the same types of people that our elders were they were basically five senses you know what i see and what i touch we are multi-sensory we have intuitive psychic emotional spiritual senses so i have to show you that that's one of the reasons why you being at a crossroads in your life is much more challenging than your elders because you are a porous human being where the pressures of the outside world impact you in a way that they did not impact your elders so i don't want you to leave here thinking oh my god i'm so no no no i want you to leave here thinking i finally understand why the world exhausts me in a way that you could have said to yourself something's wrong with me there's nothing wrong with me you just have not understood perhaps the way you are now functioning okay and it's important you really understand this you know it's so simple but it's not people function with this idea that their history is behind them if you think about your history where is it when you think history what do you think you passed where is your past do you think it's like located located is it back there is it up here where's your past all right there where's your future which direction and you really do think of it as that way don't you okay so here's what's important you actually think you're living a timeline you actually think in some like just like the little people you this is actually even though intellectual you'll say no yes you do it's in your bones you actually think my history is back there and my future's there this makes being on a crossroads you calculate this way okay so you think time is real aging's real but don't confuse aging with time because they're not the same thing i'm four years old no don't confuse don't confuse aging with time now in terms of here this how do i draw this i'm very bad at drawing but this is the only drawing you need this looks remember latitude and longitude yeah okay this is the only drawing you're going to need that that's going to this is you right here this is actually more akin to the energy field you're living in it's like the earth with latitude and longitude this is actually the field you're more living in you're living in more of a present time field okay like and instead of thinking of future and past you are actually living in an orbit where all things are happening simultaneously i know that sounds overwhelming and i ca nobody can prove that but then again you can't prove your past or future either so let's just say that you are connected on an internet as well as an internet okay that you're connected to everybody through this orbit you live in that this orbit connects you that you're wired in now in a way to a global internet and internet which is which changes a whole lot of what you want how you want to be how you think how you feel what affects your health what you can imagine doing and what you can imagine never not doing again okay you are being connected to a whole different sense of who you are and who you want to be who you need to be okay this is a very different wiring now this wiring awakens in you a very different psychic field this f in this field it is is filled with different data so that over the course of the last let's say five ten years you may find yourself being drawn to different types of techno ideas technology ideas especially you know like creating techno ideas that you think should i do that why am i doing that why would i want to do that i think you i don't know why i look and i think you're doing that or you're going to do something like that the gentleman that i'm looking by the door are you going into technology or something did you want to because i see it i see this orbit around you but your choice but i'm telling you that sounds like a funny sentence doesn't it i'm telling you what i see and it's just very strong in you whether you have the push to do that but it's inst it's in your intuitive instincts and these kinds of instincts what you feel what this does is it will talk to you at your soul instincts and here is how i hear this in so many people and this is a crossroads so this is where your how do i say the uh spiritual direction and crossroads blend is that a lot of people find that they get inspiration to do something that in the previous world they start getting creative instincts that they didn't have before the creative instincts perhaps to start writing a lot of maybe writing uh children's books or maybe creating at a very deep profound soul level and and they and the and the thing is they feel like they can relate in story books about animals or they or a lot of people feel like they're skills to heal animals or to work within the multiple communities spirit communities nature animals people are waking up because they are waking up and when they say things to me and this is a crossroads should i follow this well again there you go should i follow this well of course if you're going to get me saying and i'm going to say well duh but but i understand why someone would be terrified to follow it i get that of course you would be but you have to decide you have to realize that in following the skills of the soul you have to pioneer that for yourself there was nobody who was a medical intuitive when my skill of the soul emerged in fact there weren't any medical intuitives now there's over a million of them no kidding but there wasn't any i mean it was a skill i had to pioneer and i didn't even know i was pioneering anything you know that god keeps fools in the dark you know you don't even know so you you're at a crossroads you have to decide am i going to do this so you just kind of follow it blindly but this is how this the skill of the soul emerges and it's some it will always be multi-sensory it will always be multi-sensory this other part of you at the crossroads will always be in addition to something five sensory so you may have an education for example like i did to be a writer or a teacher no writer or history person but the other skills will come from the other part of you the multi-sensory they'll be the next five skills they'll be your intuitive your spiritual intuition your your uh gut intuition your you know intellectual intuition and they will build on the educational or the carpentry that you learned how to do or the electrician that that you are they'll build on the earth skills and then it's your decision at the crossroads to put the two of them together you're totally influenced by what buddha would call illusions by what this guru and his disciple by how you interpret the events from your past by who you think you are by what you think you should what you think you're owed by what you think your future should entail do you know how many crossroads there are by by it's i what i by for example one of the reasons people can't function at a crossroads they're at a crossroads and i this is something i i encounter actually weekly weekly with people they cannot progress in their with the next stage of their professional or their just their life at all because the first part of their life has fallen apart for whatever reason for whatever reason but they're at that stage of consciousness in which which in order for them to function they still need to blame they got to blame somebody they have to blame someone for why their life has fallen apart they cannot just say my life felt my life this part's over because it needs to be over they can't look at their life and say in fact i was withdrawing my energy from all of this anyway they can't accept that they can't do that they can't do that the reason people will hold on to blaming someone for why things happen is because here they are here's the so-called timeline it slows down the speed at which the next event can happen right it's very interesting it's actually the way you control time and space okay okay it's an anchor it actually controls your the speed as long as i can blame somebody it allows me psychically psychically to stay in a certain reality it allows me to constantly go for therapy i'm still profiting it allows me to still be angry tell the same story again and again and again on a hamster wheel are you still angry yeah i i need to be angry another two years how about you okay cause like i'm not ready to sell the house get divorced i'm not ready to do any of that for at least two years i got kids in school i need the money what about you okay so i'm planning on this anger for two more years how much you got okay so i get to postpone everything i'm not really angry but it works it works it keeps my house in place it keeps my mortgage getting paid it works so i am going to keep everything going for two years because it works i think that we are com we are realizing things faster because we just by the manufacturing of the tools we have we access information faster we have google we do things faster we do everything faster we communicate betrayals faster we communicate the law faster we communicate everything faster we just do everything faster and if you do that faster you act faster so you move faster so everything is done faster so that's how everything feels like oh my god things are happening faster because they are because they are and if you are accessing more information faster then that means you have to process your decisions faster if you process your decisions faster then relationships change faster because you have to you you just everything is won which is one of the reasons why people are breaking down faster they they're they're dizzy but it but it's also that people are not wired to lie as much as they are now lying and not clean themselves out there's no confession there's no place to go and heal the way a person needs to heal when they have been living and drinking lies constantly and when they have been betraying and doing dark arts of the soul and saying that i don't need any of that kind of stuff to heal when in fact you do what in fact you do and that's a crossroads to decide am i living in league with darkness or am i not am i living an honest life or a sacred life or am i not and deciding i don't need any of that or i do which side are you on the side of light or the side of dark and i'm not saying go back to a priest i don't live that way but you have got to make a decision whether or not your soul needs care or it doesn't and if it does what type that is not a hobby it's a lifestyle and you decide you know am i occasionally honest or do i live an honorable life in my mind it just is what it is and and you know a small lie big lie you're a liar i mean where do you live on the scale of of of integrity because this kind of world will take it out of you it will take it out and i have to tell you one of the things i'm learning in the spiritual direction is that we need each other to stay strong we need each other we need each other to go to and say you want to know something i i really it is very hard to live a life telling the truth it's very hard and it is really good to be able to to to be with people that say you know just i need to let's just say a prayer together today and it's not you don't have to pray catholic you don't have to pray anything but a prayer that says hover over me god because sometimes it is dark territory out there just stay with me because when i'm with this person i am scared and i could be at a crossroads and do the wrong thing the wrong thing and reeling myself in and that's a crossroads and the kind of crossroads that brings out the weak need part of me and i was with john o'donoghue who was the late great great great great john o'donoghue one of your irish and i had the privilege of knowing him very well and and he taught me what i'm going to teach you right now he and i credit him i credit him with so much he liked whiskey and john liked whiskey a lot and so we were out in we were in florida at a conference and we were laughing and laughing and laughing and i had to go home and face this guy who i was renovating my home and this man had taken a lot of money and didn't do part of his renovation and blah blah blah blah okay but every time i got near this guy oh it was awful i would get all twisted up inside and terrible and i would lose it i would lose it and i i thought i could beat this guy at his own game because i was so smart and i thought he was not as smart and he was real big he was like six foot five and big you know so that he had it over me physically you know by a long shot he also had a gun all right now i wasn't i wasn't afraid this jackass was going to shoot me you know although these days in the states you know but what i couldn't stand was his snicker and that like what was i going to do about it and you know in civil court you sue somebody it costs you twice as much money to sue them for the money you're not going to get back anyway because you know what he did he spent it on a boat that was my fault so i was so angry i just and this is what happens you want them to admit that yes i took all the money you gave me to build your cabinets and i bought that boat you want a ride you know were you that stupid to give me that money you know because i was and of course his look on his face was what are you going to do about it nothing i don't have any money to give you back if i sold the boat you'd get nothing so i'm going to enjoy the boat get out of here i was so angry and i said to john o'donoghue you got to help me i've got to go face him and every time as soon as i'm there i think i'm going to be okay and then all i want to do is rip his eyes out right because because i had this attitude that how could it happen to me i've always been so honest how could it happen to me right okay because it did shut up you know really it was my first good dose of because it did shut up who do you think you are i mean it was perfect right so john said to me it was wild because you know when he's he's drinking we're laughing and is the moment i said john i have something i really i'm in a spiritual crisis he goes and that priest that presence that beautiful drop dead handsome man how did he stay a priest 19 years without women jumping that man really serious i mean serious serious and he just came and i and then he said to me you're not strong enough to be around that kind of darkness he said you're not strong enough the darkness will get into you so i'm going to hit a pause button here because this is a big thing first he didn't say that man was dark and that i need to point out but rather that there is darkness which is something that is an absolute truth and that darkness can get into us it can get into your thoughts can get into your attitude it can get into your thoughts about yourself it can get into your thoughts about your own life my life will never be any good nothing will ever be any different i'll never get through this i'll never be happy i'll never be all right that's how darkness talks darkness is not a gargoyle at the foot of your bed or a girl spitting pea soup like the exorcist this is how darkness works darkness tells you you deserve to take this because you've worked so hard and by god you're not getting paid for your efforts so just take a little extra who the hell cares anyway and everyone does it that's how darkness talks chips away just a little bit at your integrity in bite-sized particles so it doesn't tell you for example to go take a million dollars one day because that would be overwhelming for your little bitty hands and your mind because you really can't imagine taking a million but you could take a pound or a euro and then the next day five euros it builds it builds it's like working out you can't imagine running a mile a day but you start out small you could do it that's how it works that's how it works so he said to me you are too weak to be around that and i and from and and he said you need to pray you need to pray because you cannot manage that it will eclipse you it will eat you alive and he was right it was the first time ever in my life and i couldn't believe that because for as much as i know about darkness it never occurred to me to pray before i confronted it or ever was anywhere near it never occurred to me never ever occurred to me that was the first time and not the last it was the beginning of me praying before i went anywhere near darkness now we'll talk about we'll talk about praying before you make stand on a crossroads where you know you're facing darkness because you cannot you cannot make a decision where you know you are dealing with something dark you can't you can't you you know that you're dealing with something dark that you have to make a decision whether or not i'm i'm i'm staying here i'm this or something dark has a part of you and you've got to get it back you got to get it back you can't just do that you just you need to an allied ship with light and you don't get that without prayer and the thing is that i realize we've grown so arrogant and this is what i started to say earlier in our idea that we can do everything on our own we can't we cannot we absolutely cannot because grace is not a mental you can read all the books you want your mind will never get you to deal with evil it is a task of the soul prayer and humbleness so when i went to the crossroads at that point i decided i either pray my way through this but i could never intellectually my way through i would standing at the crossroads it was a choice of prayer and humility or arrogance and the mind and i knew that would defeat me so i went this way i went this way is that our shadow the darkness you know what the darkness is i'm going to say it this way we all have a shadow okay we all have a shadow and the darkness takes advantage of our shadow comes in through our shadow i mean like the shadow side is i can i can get a snippy anger thing but that i credit my own personality to that however if i indulged it then i'd find a dance partner and if i started to take advantage where where darkness becomes an open door to to a partner darkness to dark partnerships is when you start making choices where you know the people who are going to that other people are going to pay the price for this and you don't care you don't care you don't care in fact sometimes you set it up so that they'll pay the choice for things that you do because that's the way you want it that's when you know you are absolutely in league with darkness you are absolutely in league with darkness because it's because other people's lives are now paying the price for yours and when that starts you are absolutely in league with darkness let's have a break you

Channel: Caroline Myss

Views: 93,114

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Id: jAzXAr4S8V8

Length: 75min 1sec (4501 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 16 2021