Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: elisabeth kubler ross

  • As-if Frame: Green Stick Bug

    The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, films and video, audio recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. According to the Library of Congress, “In the 5th century B.C., Empedocles and Anaxagoras offered arguments for the spherical nature of the Earth. During a lunar eclipse, when the Earth is between the sun and the moon, they identified the shadow of the Earth on the moon. As the shadow moves across the moon it is clearly round.”

    This information was not welcome.

    While at the University of Padua Galileo learned of Nicolaus Copernicus’ theory (published in 1543) that the Earth and all the other planets revolved around the Sun. Soon Galileo’s observations with the newly invented telescope convinced him of the truth of Copernicus’ sun-centered, or heliocentric theory.

    This information was not welcome either.

    All new ideas are met with three distinct phases: First they are ridiculed. Next they are resisted. Then they are accepted as the norm.

    Pondering all of this, I am reminded of the “As-if Frame” in NLP. From NLP World: “The intent of this frame is to make it easier for a person to explore possibilities and ideas internally, which would usually not be as available to them due to their limiting beliefs about themselves or others. The specific effect sought is to allow a person’s limiting beliefs to be temporarily set aside for the purpose of exploring alternate possibilities, without having to threaten or challenge their existing conceptual world-view in the process.”

    Obviously there is huge benefit to suspending beliefs that are not generating wholesome outcomes — perhaps most especially our own beliefs! And, using the “As-if Frame” is an easy way to see for yourself where beliefs you are holding are holding you back.

    Gary Zukav says the Universe is intimate. It is inside you, not outside.

    In 1981, James W. Fowler published Stages of Faith. Here is an excerpt from a pdf I found on line:

      Stage 1: This is the stage of preschool children in which fantasy and reality often get mixed together. However, during this stage, our most basic ideas about God are usually picked up from my parents and/or society.

      Stage 2: When children become school-age, they start understanding the world in more logical ways. They generally accept the stories told them by their faith community but tend to understand them in very literal ways. [A few people remain in this stage through adulthood.]

      Stage 3: Most people move into this stage as teenagers. At this point, their life has grown to include several different social circles and there is a need to pull it all together. When this happens, a person usually adopts some sort of all-encompassing belief system. However, at this stage, people tend to have a hard time seeing outside their box and don’t recognize that they are “inside” a believe system. At this stage, authority is usually placed in individuals or groups that represent one’s beliefs. [This is the stage in which many people remain.]

      Stage 4: This is the tough stage, often begun in young adulthood, when people start seeing outside the box and realize that there are other “boxes”. They begin to critically examine their beliefs on their own and often become disillusioned with their former faith. Ironically, the Stage 3 people usually think that Stage 4 people have become “backsliders” when in reality they have actually moved forward.

      Stage 5: It is rare for people to reach this stage before mid-life. This is the point when people begin to realize the limits of logic and start to except the paradoxes in life. They begin to see life as a mystery and often return to sacred stories and symbols but this time without being stuck in a theological box.

      Stage 6: Few people reach the stage. Those who do live their lives to the full in service of others without any real worries or doubts.

    We have come to see that many things thought about as “stages” are not linear in the way they were initially considered to be. A good example is the work around grief done by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. You might want to look at Fowler’s stages of faith through an “As-if frame” allowing us to see even closely-held beliefs simply as having been developed.

    Following a recent day of meditation on line with others around the world, I saw a green stick bug in our yard. It literally emerged from a plant and looked directly at me. It felt significant enough that I looked up the spiritual meaning, and read it’s amazing message.

    Stick Bug symbolism is a reminder that life is full of illusions. Things that look like something but in reality are something entirely different. In other words, we have to see through what we perceive as fact to find the real truth hidden beneath it. Thus, it is now time to examine each of your beliefs one at a time so that you can discard anything that blinds you to reality. This process takes time. However, the Stick Bug meaning is a reminder that what you see is not necessarily what you get. This spirit animal insists that you open your eyes, ears, and mind today to discover a new truth.

    Especially at this time in human history, there is a need for a willingness to recognize the limits of logic and to see life as a mystery.

  • Woman Doctor in a Floral Dress

    Her mother was elderly, in a care facility, and not enjoying quality of life. She knew her mother was experiencing a lot of fear of dying.

    One morning when she went to visit her mother, her mother told her a woman doctor in a floral dress had come the previous evening and sat with her and answered all of her questions about dying and she was not afraid anymore.

    One week later, her mother passed in perfect peace.

    She told a friend, “I went to the office that morning to ask what doctor had visited with my mom and helped her through such a difficult time. I was told that no one had visited my mom the previous evening. I know that the woman doctor in a floral dress was an angel….”

    Forget not to show love unto strangers:
    for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
    Hebrews 3:2

  • Questions Enlighten

    It is not the answer that enlightens
    but the question.

    ~ Eugene Ionesco

    Tuesday evening as our group met on Zoom, physically located all over the globe, we were fully present with one anothers’ questions. “How do you know if you are awake?”

    “I can feel that still center. I can tell when I am not there as well.”

    “How do you know you are receiving guidance or listening to your higher self?”

    “I am less impatient. I am more able to sit in the unknowing.”

    I mentioned an experience I had a few years ago when Writing Down Your Soul: How to Activate and Listen to the Extraordinary Voice Within, a book written by Janet Conner, appeared on my co-author’s Kindle.

    My co-author did not purchase the book, and although I share access to his Kindle, nor did I. That this book just ‘appeared’ caught my attention. When I synced his Kindle, my attention was held as I read Conner’s words: “After all, it is no accident that this book has come to you. In the big scheme of things there are no accidents, only divine appointments.”

    Conner’s outer life had fallen apart. Her husband abused alcohol, threatened suicide, and put their son in harm’s way. Her dog dragged a copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way down the hallway from her bedroom to where she was seated in a stupor of sadness and despair. Picking up a pen and paper and opening to the power of writing in a journal changed her life. Along the way, she wrote out her covenant:

      Janet’s Covenant
       
      7. Pray always
      6. Seek Truth
      5. Surrender, there is no path but God’s
      4. Come from Love
      3. Honor Myself
      2. Live in Partnership
      1. Unite to create Good

    A few minutes ago when my son-in-law came home to take an important phone call. My daughter said, “Do we need to pray about it?”

    Without even thinking, I replied, “Are we not already praying?”

    My soul seems to have integrated these high hopes written so succinctly in Janet’s Covenant because I do not use prayer as something I “do.” Prayer is truly a wonderful sense of being continually in the Presence of the Divine.

    When others ask me for prayer, and I say, “Praying,” my experience is that I am moving my attention into a stream of well-being that is already flowing toward that person or situation. My prayer is not a request for an intervention so much as it is an acknowledgment of an omnipresence of grace and love available to all at all times.

    “And it shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)

    Buddhist “prayer” activities, such as the recitation of sutras or mantras, are about connecting with our own inner capacity to develop constructive emotions such as compassion, enthusiasm, patience.

    The motivation to prayer is to engage in constructive actions of helping … for the benefit of all.

    May your heart soar as you read the Great Spirit Prayer translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887:

      Great Spirit Prayer

      Oh, Great Spirit,
      Whose voice I hear in the winds
      and whose breath gives life to all the world.
      Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
      Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
      ever hold the red and purple sunset.
      Make my hands respect the things you have made
      and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
      Make me wise so that I may understand
      the things you have taught my people.
      Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
      in every leaf and rock.

      Help me remain calm and strong in the
      face of all that comes towards me.
      Help me find compassion without
      empathy overwhelming me.
      I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
      but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
      Make me always ready to come to you
      with clean hands and straight eyes.
      So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
      my spirit may come to you without shame.

    Whatever your questions, be willing to ask them. The very asking is an expression of your soul’s willingness to be one who knows.

    Questions enlighten….


  • Safe Trip Home

    Every day I hear about somebody having surgery. Some of those surgeries are major, some are minor. I understand the definition of “minor” surgery as something someone else is having….

    Almost every day I hear about the death of someone I know, someone I love, someone I’ll miss. So much dying.

    This too shall pass. Living with impermanence is at once both gratifying and terrifying.

    Imagine standing on the seashore. As you watch the waves roll in and break, what has rolled in? What have you seen break? Are not the waves continually a part of the ocean?

    My friend, Rabbi Rami Shapiro asks what happens to an ice cube when it melts in a glass of water—he says dying is like that.

    Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (the famous “Death and Dying” lady). Elisabeth had suffered 19 or more strokes and was completely paralyzed on one side, yet she continued to live alone.

    Author Melody Beattie came to her home and did an interview at bedside. Melody asked Elisabeth if she really believed in life after death. Wasn’t she the least little bit afraid?

    Elisabeth laughed. “Didn’t you read my book, dear?” she said. “It’s not about believing. I know there’s life after death. Dying is the easy part. It’s life that’s hard.”

    Melody leaned over and whispered in Elisabeth’s ear, “Thank you. And have a safe trip home.”

    Rabbi Rami says that life is like a giant rope, and we are all connected to one another before birth, during life, and in our life-after-death. Rami says birth is like the tying of a knot in the rope. Dying is like the untying of that knot.

    This is my farewell writing for this winter’s season. Thursday morning I’ll be heading north with many other snowbirds.

    May we each have a safe trip home….

    Debra Basham 3/21/2017
    WC 301