Create the Life You Imagine ~ December 2019

The Three Triangle Model: On Earth As It Is In Heaven

“If you do not transform your pain, you will transmit it.”

~ Fr. Richard Rohr, OSF

The power of this model is its ability to help us remember who we are. If we let our small “Me” self convince us that we are only our personality living inside our physical body with its human emotions and thoughts, we are forever imprisoned inside the vulnerability of the human condition and trapped inside our history of struggle and trauma. It is not possible for the small self to experience life as anything but difficult, disappointing, and dangerous, because our physical bodies are subject to illness, aging and death, our emotional bodies are caught inside the endless cycles of pleasure and pain that are part of the ever-changing conditions of life, and our mental body is feverishly trying to control all of those conditions and to make sense of life in a world of perceived threat, scarcity and limitation.

When Buddha declared as one of his four noble truths that life is suffering, he was talking about life from the perspective of the small self. Inside the prison of our small self thinking, we are tied up and entangled inside the experiences of our history. Every struggle, injury, wound or trauma that we have experienced is recorded by our small self and our personality reacts to these experiences of suffering with frustration, fear, resentment, anger, shame, guilt and grief. These emotional responses create reactive life stories that get deeply planted inside our small self consciousness, and we replay those stories over and over again through our actions and choices. Consequently, at the level of our small self, our past and our pain become the drivers of our personality and the creator of our next life experience. As James Baldwin put it, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” For example, if through your life experiences you develop a life story that “life isn’t fair,” or “men are abusive,” or “women can’t be trusted” or “everyone I love leaves me,” or “my needs don’t matter,” or “there is never enough,” or worse still, “I am not enough,” then every day that story drives your perceptions and choices and provides you with the opportunity to develop further evidence of the story and to plant it even more deeply in your small self consciousness.

People who are suffering will act out their pain histories in ways that are harmful to themselves and to others. This is how we transmit our pain. At the level of our physical body, the imbalances created by our pain-filled life stories create a chemistry of toxic stress that over time may manifest as physical illness and disease. As our pain moves through our emotional body, our frustration, fear, resentment, anger, shame, guilt or grief create emotional imbalances that result in depression, anxiety and panic disorders. And at the level of our thinking, our pain produces toxic life stories about ourselves and others that drive our reactions to our daily experiences as we engage with others from the beliefs that are at the center of our suffering. For example, if my life experiences lead me to believe that “life isn’t fair,” then I may experience chronic physical stress as a consequence of this belief that over time impacts my digestive tract because “I can’t stomach” the uncertainty of living inside that belief. I might also react to others who seem to have better options than me with jealousy or resentment and those negative emotions manifest as drama and disruption in my relationships. Next, I may be suspicious about other people’s motivations or my own ability to handle life inside this story, so I may forego new opportunities for positive growth and development because I don’t trust the process of life. Finally, if I am a parent and I don't transform this story, I am likely to pass it forward to my children, transmitting it to the next generation.

As these disorders and imbalances manifest in our bodies, emotions, thoughts and actions, we are forced to attend to the symptoms of our small self thinking. But if we try to address the symptoms of our suffering from the level of our small self, we will only find temporary relief because we are not addressing the root cause of the imbalances. The imbalances are caused by the delusion that we are only this small, limited, fragile, “Me” self with its history of trial and trauma. The imbalances are caused because we forget that we are bigger than our bodies and our emotions and our thoughts. The imbalances are caused because when we get seduced by the delusion of our small self, we cut ourselves off from our real source of power, our “True Self,” our Soul.

The opportunity for healing from the wounds of the small self lies only in our ability to remember who we really are. This is where transformation happens. When we make that connection with our heart and soul we have the power to hold our wounded small self and the wounded selves of others with compassion and to connect with some bigger stories that flow from the level of our Soul. Our Soul will remind us that despite the impermanent nature of the physical world, we are all eternal beings flowing out of a stream of light and love from the Source of All That Is and we can never be separated from that reality. Our Soul will remind us that we flow into being from the field of unlimited possibilities and from that place there are no limits to what we can create. Our Soul will remind us that there is no death and that life is an opportunity to give and receive love because love is our true nature. Our Soul will remind us that we are here in this lifetime to experience the joy and beauty of Life and to grow more fully into the truth of who we really are—a unique and beautiful expression of the energy of God. When we practice living inside the awareness that comes from the level of our Soul, it transforms the physical, emotional and mental imbalances of our lower triangle and creates the conditions for all things to be healed.

In my faith tradition, one of the most important prayers is the Our Father. If you translate this prayer from the original Aramaic language of Jesus, it takes on some deeper meaning to help you think about the truth of who you are. I want to share with you the translation of just two lines of this sacred prayer as we think about the healing possibilities of the Soul. Neal Douglas Klotz provides these translations in his book, Prayers of the Cosmos.The first line of the prayer, “Our Father which art in heaven,” might be translated from the Aramaic words Abwoon d’bashmaya, like this:

Oh Birther!Father-Mother of the Cosmos

You Create All That Moves in Light

Oh, Breathing Life of All

From this first line of the prayer we are reminded that we are born out of the Father-Mother energy of the Cosmos and that everything in the created world is breathed into life from the source of All that Is, the Third Triangle.

The second line of the prayer that will support us in our healing work is “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” This line can be translated from the Aramaic like this:

Create in Me a Divine Cooperation.

From Many Selves, One Voice, One Action.

Let Your Heart’s Fervent Desire,

Unite Heaven and Earth Through Our Harmony.

Your One Desire Then Acts with Ours.

As in All Light, So in All Forms.

This line of the prayer reminds us that our healing requires us to create an alignment or harmony between all the levels of our being. We can quiet all the unbalancing stories of the lower triangle by aligning our thoughts, emotions and actions with the stream of Light and Love that moves from the Source of All That Is, and by moving that Source energy through our Souls and into the earth through the power of each of our lives. This prayer calls us to our do own healing and to be a source of light, love and healing on earth. If we each attend to our own healing and alignment, we will create the harmony and balance we need to heal our own stories and to be a force of healing in the world.

Wishing you the blessings and light of the Soul, as you create the life you imagine.

Tracy

Stepping Stones:

As you prepare for your meditation practice this week, spend a few minutes looking at the image below. Notice that the roots of the tree appear to be in the heavens and the tree is growing down into the earth. Imagine that you are rooted in the Mother-Father energy of the Cosmos and from that energy you are growing and moving into your fullest expression on the earth, forever rooted in that Divine Source. Now, take three deep breaths and as you breathe in and as you breathe out, let your mind grow still, remembering that its only job for the next few moments is to follow your breath with awareness and attention. As other thoughts move in, simply return your attention to your breath, and with each breath in, and each breath out, let every part of your body relax just a little more deeply.

After a few minutes, as your mind and your breathing steadies and slows, use your inner vision to feel the light and love of the Universe drawing into your body and penetrating every cell, tissue, tendon, muscle, organ and system of your body, restoring your physical body into perfect balance and radiant health, in alignment and harmony with the energy of your Soul. Now imagine that energy of light and love holding every difficult emotion you are experiencing, whether it is fear, frustration, resentment, anger, sadness, shame, guilt or grief, allow the light and love of your Soul to wrap around those emotions as you continue to breathe in and breathe out, until you feel your emotional body shift into a more peaceful place. Now bring that light and love to your thoughts, noticing any negative stories that might be operating in your life, and imagine those limiting or negative thoughts dissolving gently inside the compassionate energy of your soul, and losing any power over your life.

After ten or fifteen minutes, slowly return your awareness to your body and to the room in which you are sitting, and bless the universe for providing all the connection, support and power you need for your life experience. Place your hands over your heart and let yourself smile as you receive this powerful stream of energy into your body. Do this meditation exercise several times this week to open this channel and notice what you feel in your body, mind and spirit. See the images above and below to open your imagination for the meditation.