“Get Real And Get Going.”
—Andrew Harvey, 71 on this day
Welcome to another Friday, to our Earth Send and to our meditation for the well-being of all life.
We are bathing each other in reiki and in warm blessings for our projects, our heart’s desires and our manifestations.
We are sending reiki to everyone on our own reiki recipient list and to everyone on the group’s reiki recipient list.
We are sending our good thoughts to all who have asked for spiritual assistance, prayers and lightwork and to the regions that call to us with their specific community of people, animals, plants, water bodies, minerals and soil organisms. Let us acknowledge the home soils of our ancestors and the soil that we grow our food on today and the deep connection the First Nations, the people who harvested here before us, have with this soil. They loved, nurtured and managed this soil, and it sustained them for many generations. May all our home soils be revitalized and become havens of perennial delight.
As you bring your focus to the regions that would benefit from your loving attention, let me suggest North America, too. Recent wildfires in several provinces in Canada have filled the air with smog. For days, the sky was a dark yellow. Until yesterday, breathing was not easy. The smog spread to the USA, too. Air is the element that travels fast and that connects us in our interdependence and in our shared destiny.
I notice — again and again — that environmental education by dedicated, knowledgeable groups falls on deaf ears. Quite like addiction education, and that is no coincidence. You can present the facts and hear them correctly. People will spin an interpretive tale out of what they heard to self-soothe and to not have to feel the dread about what they just took in. At times, they pretend that they did not hear it at all and convince themselves that the messengers were too intense. So I will say it:
alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex and porn addiction and behavioural addictions like debting and overspending are harmful to your health and to your mental health. The ecocide is happening. The pollution of the water bodies is harmful to living beings that drink.
You can spin it any way you like. What would be better is to face the facts and look deeper into how we are harming ourselves and future generations and the animals and their future generations. Accept it, and let it sink in. Accepting and letting information sink in are the first conditions from which we can develop solutions and commit and recommit to healing.
Many years ago, when my husband was alive, he returned from rehab and told me about an incident at the facility that made me angry. (It was so crazymaking that I will spare you the details.) Of course, he noticed that the story affected me and offered: “Don’t get too worked up about it. It is an addict talking to another addict. Nothing more.” What he communicated to me was that he was cognizant of the content being caused by withdrawal and cravings, that it was a tactic to sway a peer in recovery to a different perception, and that it suggested that sincere efforts to recover were a breeze, pretty much a joke, and not the consuming, pain-driven priority that led both of them to sign up for it. Noone goes to rehab because they feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, his clarity at the time was not enough for him to recover and to become sober in the long run. Let me keep it brief: people die prematurely from harmful habits. Irresponsible thinking that rises from harmful habits leads to early death. It can be distorted, made to appear inconsequential and even used to taunt others, it doesn’t change the fact that it is noxious and lethal. (And before it becomes lethal, it is an indescribable stress.)
I also recall enough detachment, self-pacifying, glazed-over looks, compartmentalizing and plain denial in workshops where one could expect a basic level of awareness when the topic of alcoholism came up. Once I scratched the surface, I learned that a family member or that fitness-obsessed yogi were drinking so heavily that it worried their kin. So how could I expect that these people would be receptive to reality?
You may have heard the story about Gandhi and how he gave up sugar before advising the child to give it up, too. I am the unencumbered, sober and serene person who can tell people to stop drugging, drinking and consuming content that is not healthy for them and who has to accept that my example and my words may not be followed. I am grateful when my example and words are being followed. Everyone who takes my advice gets tip-top results. That is what I can do. At the same time, I accept that my influence has limits.
I have other issues than addictions and lack of boundaries. I have discovered that as I carry down self-sabotage and bring order to my finances and organizational style, people around me gather the gumption to transform their own suffering, too. (I used to live with an immensely high tolerance for chaos. I had a good excuse for it. I have let go of the excuse. I had to give myself a new chapter.)
Ask the question “What is this observation teaching me about me and about how I want to show up?”
Perhaps you do not have the afflictions that you notice in others, or you have a lot less of what perplexes you in others, but I am certain that you have a few unresolved issues, too. That is life. We are never finished. After every climb, there is another mountain; after every breath-taking view, there is a new horizon. Dissolving your topics will free and rejuvenate you and make you feel alive again. While stalling the process and procrastinating, you have no clue about the flavour, the depth, the width, the colour, the music that your life will offer and the gratitude that will fill your heart, once you take care of the life that you were given.
Begin today.
Attitude tells me everything about how far an individual has come into her own creativity and how regular his psycho-spiritual hygiene is. Most people are stronger in one of these aspects. We need to master both.
The disarming truth is: it feels good to clean up your act.
If you are worried that it may take a long time or that it demands effort and resources you don’t seem to have, act like you have what it takes and like time is on your side. We may understand that every one of our skills is the sum of many tiny skills mastered. This applies to the topics that challenge us, too! Break them up in units. Check off the units. Learn the process. Repeat the process, until it feels like play.
Easier said than done. That is why it is about doing!
Here, I want to express my thanks to all my knowledgeable supporters who teach me to integrate information with action and action with mindset. I also say thanks to the teachable. Being teachable is an advantage and a boon.
On 25 June, we — this circle of practitioners — are observing 18 years of Friday Circles. That makes 939 circles. (2010, 2016 and 2021 had 53 Fridays, the other years had 52.) I am excited about this anniversary and will honour the occasion. In many countries, turning 18 makes you an adult. So it is an achievement that we want to observe. For people who have been here from the beginning, thank you so much. It has been a journey that I would not want to miss.
In loving kindness, I bow down, I humbly receive.
May your Friday be smooth and inspired and filled with love.
9 June 2023
Nanda Jurela 