Exhibit A: A wringer
On a very small sample of one (me), I think we may have moved from the wash cycle into the wringer.
What? We don’t use wringers these days?
OK, OK. Neither did I.
I call it that because the last week has been a week from hell for me … and I’ve greatly benefited from it.
My memory is so bad these days that I can’t even remember all the disasters that happened.
It started off with unauthorized charges showing up on my Visa. We had to shut that card down. This about a month after I was defrauded on Paypal and received that money back.
Then I lost the computer. That was huge. And you have made it possible for me to get through that crisis.
That same day I went to add value to my bus pass and made a mistake. After that, the machine refused to honor that card (debit) and asked me to use another (Visa, credit).
But I had no other card because I’d just replaced my Visa card and hadn’t received the new one yet.
So here I was without a computer, Visa, or bus pass….
But wait! It continues.
I had to deposit $1,000 to repay the person who had loaned me that amount to buy my new computer. I needed to be online right away.
Brace yourself for this one. I know I had $1,000 because I bundle the bills.
I submitted the bills in small bunches. Some were rejected and then resubmitted and accepted. Etc., etc. And all was done.
The ATM then gave me a receipt that showed I had deposited, not $1,000, but $340.
What????
After recovering from my shock, I immediately asked for an investigation at the bank. I said it should be an easy matter: a simple count should show you with an excess in that machine of $660.
This was one just more thing!
I felt absolutely pummeled. And then it hit me.
I’m going to be the CEO of a very large enterprise after the Reval. I can’t afford to take my patterns with me.
My co-creative partners, I believe, are putting me through the wringer of crises until I get off huffing and puffing and feeling entitled over wanting no interruptions and distractions. I’m OCD about it.
I think they want me to flow and my judging this and that and my insistence that others change for my convenience is an obstacle to flowing.
It wasn’t so important when I was a hermit writer off in an ivory tower. But I’m about to re-enter (with the Reval) the world in which the walk (i.e., demonstrating, illustrating, showing) rather than the talk (describing, commenting, analyzing) is what’s valued.
Entirely different set of skills.
Interestingly there are other areas of my life which are saying the same thing: Walk the walk rather than talk the talk Hmmm…..
I’m being kneaded before being baked as sacred bread for God’s holy feast. Maybe you are too.
Never has Kahlil’s Gibran’s observation been more applicable than now.
***
I don’t want to overlook a second aspect of what just happened. Usually I talk about clearing the vasana (core issue). In my opinion, vasanas are our major barrier to enlightenment. They’re the major knot in our consciousness. (1)
But there’s a second process, which usually comes at the end of experiencing the vasana completely. That second stage or process is changing my vote. (2)
That happens at a very deep level. Until we change our vote on a matter, nothing else about it really changes. It may change superficially. It may change with the rider that the resentment remains (so: begrudging acceptance).
How to get to that deep level? Often it’s by a tragic accident or other near-death experience. It can be through meditation. It can be through completing something so major that we’re left at a point of rechoosing.
I changed my vote from negative (the Troll under the bridge) to positive (in line with who we all are, children of God). And, the first time I did it “consciously,” it took a really deep change of mind.
This time I changed my mind on “distractions being distractions” to “distractions are just another thing that happens and the next thing to be handled. No big deal.”
So a week of disasters? Not at all. A week of very valuable learning, that will pay dividends when, as a CEO, my patience is tested and my every gesture is watched and interpreted by someone.
Footnotes
(1) On vasanas, see Vasanas: Preparing For Ascension by Clearing Old Issues at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Vasanas-Preparing-for-Ascension-R16.pdf
(2) On changing one’s vote, see:
Changing one’s vote is one example of what Werner Erhard called “presencing the Self.”
There are many other ways, which I listed in “Why Transformative Awareness? (Download),”
Ways to Presence the Self
The short form
1. Love
To Emerge, Unfold
1. Share yourself; tell the truth; say what’s so.
2. Share a withhold; expose yourself.
3. Wake up; be with someone; get present.
4. Take a stand; declare and commit yourself; recommit to your commitment.
5. Serve; make a difference; do something that really matters.
To Return to Wholeness, Integrity
1. Be with it; sit with it like a brick in your lap; fully experience it; complete a barrier or an experience.
2. Be responsible for something you’re disowning.
3. Clean up a perpetration; apologize; come clean; make amends
4. Stop avoiding something you’re avoiding.
5. Get it, get off it, and get on with it; recreate it and get past it.
6. Forgive a perpetration.
7. Come from love.
I talk about taking a stand on oneself, “calling up the Commander,” allowing Big Steve to take the driver’s seat, adult, maturity, etc. I also talk about “emergence.” These are all related to the same phenomenon: being here now, being present, being responsible, etc.