Dear Forgetful One,

I have a dear friend who’s struggling with a painful experience from the past. Ive been there, haven’t you? There can be a lot of anguish and suffering when those old stories grab us by the scruff of our necks and shake us.

It’s tough work, that – working with old stories of pain and sorrow, dealing with the effect those experiences had on us. Spiritually speaking, we know they are just stories, but just because they are stories doesn’t meant they weren’t real.

I was thinking about that this morning when I talked with my friend.

I know from my own experience that the key is in being willing to let the story go. But it’s hard to explain how difficult that is, isn’t it? My guides used to say to me, Dare to Forget. They weren’t suggesting denial. They meant it was time to forget.

I think that’s a profound thought, and such an apt one. When contemplating it, I was shocked to notice how very threatening that idea felt to me at a visceral level.

Even the thought of just forgetting it aroused many uncomfortable and conflicting feelings in me, some of which came from a deep survival level. I could feel that forgetting the story, letting it go, actually threatened me.

Obviously at some level I believed that holding onto and remembering the story kept me safe in some way. So much so that the idea of just forgetting it made me feel almost a little panicky, if I was honest.

It was obvious to me that the pain, the anguish and resentments tied up in the story came back into me through the story as disturbing frequencies each time I remembered it. I didn’t want that anymore. But I could feel the visceral difficulty of not engaging in the story anymore. It held parts of my identity and it kept me alert and on the lookout for trouble. And other such benefits.

Such feelings were strongly held by a part of me that is less subject to reason. It’s a very challenging spiritual bit of work to reprogram that. But I’ve learned that the intense impulse to keep the story does eventually give way to my stronger consistent intent to let it go.

The story begins to come back less and less often until it becomes quite infrequent. Even so, such a story can occasionally return suddenly and mysteriously. But because I’ve done the work of Daring to Forget, I find it fairly easy to affirm that I am forgiveness itself and that old stories truly have no more relevance to now than any other past lives.

To those of you now doing the hard spiritual work of Daring to Forget an old story from your life, my heart is with you. You not only have my compassion but also my admiration. Transformation of painfully held experiences is brave work that helps us all.

We’ve all faced this and will yet again. It’s an important part of the spiritual curriculum of these times. The phrase Dare to Forget gives me permission as well as serves as a reminder that this is the higher task. It helps me unclutch, loosen my grip and let go of stuff. Perhaps you’ll like using it too.

Here’s to the relief of being able to forget and the gift of still remembering what I learned in it.

♥️ Mayet

Y’all,

Recently a friend on the east coast said to me, You’re starting to talk Southern, you’re getting an accent! I guess I’ve been in Oklahoma long enough for my ear to begin picking up the more relaxed southern syntax here. The Oklahoma accent is less drawling than the Texas one and not as extended perhaps as in Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. But it’s there.

Each of the southern states has it’s own inflection. I don’t mind a bit of Oklahoma southern style creeping into my speech. There’s a softness in it that’s not a bad thing.

There’s even one Southern-ism that I’m very glad to have an authentic opportunity to adopt. It’s the word ya’ll. I know it’s sometimes made fun of, but I’ve always thought it a very handy word and since I’ve been here I’ve come to appreciate it even more.

It’s very inclusive. I like inclusive words and Y’all is one of the best. It solves some gender pronoun dilemmas as well. For instance, in the northern and western states when addressing a group of mixed gender we often resort to saying you guys somewhat awkwardly. Y’all takes care of that. It’s a simplifier. Saying you all when you want to include every one in a group is just clunky. It’s not half as friendly and inclusive as using y’all.

I’ve learned something else about it too. It carries respect. Yes, respect. It’s an acknowledgement of those included. A tip of the hat. And there’s one more thing I’ve learned about using y’all: you can use it even when addressing only one person – it’s not necessarily plural. For instance, you might say Y’aaaaaall – in an even softer, more drawn out way – when a person has done you a kindness. In this context it not only carries appreciation but expresses a feeling of humility in the face of that kindness.

As if that’s not good enough, someone explained to me that ya’ll also implies something more: you and your ancestors. Isn’t that wonderful? A form of speech that includes one’s ancestors by implication. Honoring the whole clan. Beautiful. I think that is a terrific adaptation of language.

I’m glad to be here, learning my Y’alls. And even if I were to unexpectedly leave here, I’d be keeping the word y’all. I think I’m a better person for it.

I love language that’s inclusive and I love y’all.

🤠 Mayet

Article Highlights:

• problem solving made easy
• the ultimate problem solver
• how I used it for dental work

Dear Problem Solver,

We all face many problems and dilemmas in our lives. In fact, problem solving is one of the things we must do most often. Our lives are full of questions about whether to do this or that, how to respond regarding difficulties with others, why we got sick or felt like we did about something, etc.

So we are often wondering why something happened to us and what we did to create it. It’s been part of learning to take responsibility for our lives so we could believe we could have better ones. Which is important to anyone’s spiritual journey.

But I think we might have overdone that a little, made it into something it wasn’t meant to be. Could it be we’re a little compulsive now about blaming ourselves for everything? Not everything needs a blame-ee. Or a reason why. How or why we caused something is not always the most important thing to understand about a situation. It doesn’t always lead to the best solution.

That’s why I decided do some writing about self-inquiry. Last week I wrote about using self-inquiry as therapy, the psychological application. I also pointed out that it’s not the same as spiritual inquiry, and I discussed the difference.

This week I want to mention one incredible thing about spiritual self-inquiry. It’s the ultimate problem solver! It really is. It’s a shortcut like no other. And because of that, I want to give a little example of how it works and then I’ll tell you how I used it for my dental work.

Your partner is behaving badly or you’ve just learned you have a serious health problem, or you’re losing your job. You wonder why that’s happening to you. This is where people like ourselves usually begin inquiring.

We start here because we’ve become so programmed to feel it’s our fault. We think we have to know what we did wrong in order to fix it. So we start with questions about what we did wrong or how we made it happen.

We fixate there as if it’s the Holy Grail that will solve the problem. Occasionally it does. But have you noticed how it so often doesn’t? It’s often not enough. That’s where Spiritual Inquiry comes in and saves the day.

Whatever you start with… the boring old What did we do wrong, Why is this happening to me?… whatever it is, don’t stop there. Maybe you get the answer that it happened because of a pattern you have or a childhood wound. Ok. Make a note of of that, but don’t stop there.

Ask what else you need to know, find a deeper root in this matter. And maybe here you get another psychological answer that’s perhaps useful, or not – lets say you reflect that you have a pattern of worry. Ok good. You probably know that already but make note of it and don’t stop there. Go further, asking for what else is there.

At this point you’ll probably start sorting for things such as how to stop worrying – knowing that you haven’t managed this in all your life. You’ll probably stay focused on the psychology of why and how. And you’ll worry about worrying too much.

To depart a bit from that, ask something a little different. Ask, What would it be like if I didn’t worry so much… let yourself feel that, really feel it. There will be relief, right? So much relief.

That’s very good, that feeling. That’s more along the line of spiritual inquiry. You get a feeling, an actually energy, that helps reprogram your system which is currently accustomed to the worried feeling. Great. But don’t stop their either.

Remember you are in a process of spiritual inquiry. So go deeper. And this can all happen fairly quickly, by the way. At first you may need to take 5-10 minutes for the process, but it will soon become instinctual. Just like asking yourself how you brought it all on yourself was harder at first but became nearly automatic.

So you’ve felt what it would be like not to worry so much. Go deeper. You’ve gone from psychology and words to a more feeling state, right? From here, words become less frequent if you let them go. So instead of asking another question like how to stop worrying, just remind yourself to go deeper. And let the words go.

Let them go, this is where surrender comes in. Surrender words and questions and answers. And let that moment of surrender extend – don’t fill it in with words and thoughts. Stay in the surrender and let it deepen. Don’t fill it in. That is where you find the Silence, the Stillness, the Spaciousness. The Peace. (more…)