What do I know? * I now know one answer to a Zen koan, like the sound of one hand clapping. * Most things make more and more sense to me now. * I am finding more inner peace and perspective for myself.
What can I do for YOU? * I can teach YOU how to find more peace of mind. * I can teach YOU how to forgive in ways that can resolve your guilt(s). * I can teach YOU how to find your own personal Inner Comforter. * I can teach you how to work with your Inner Convictor. * I can teach YOU how to resolve YOUR issues by teaching how to relate your Inner Child. * I can teach YOU to release any of your Inner Demons you may have, back into God. * I can also teach any of YOUR organizations, how to become more enlightened, for more productivity, profits, and progress.
What about YOU? YOU could temporarily use me to find YOUR own inner resources to live YOUR life of YOUR own dreams, when that is YOUR intention. The catch is that YOU need to learn and do the necessary spiritual work for yourself. The work that you do is what makes your transformations so valuable, because YOU earn it.
How did I learn about this spiritual teaching, coaching, or therapy?
About 3 – My mother told me that the doctor told her I was not going to survive my pneumonia. I even remember being hot and standing in a crib looking up the stairs to my grandparents room. I later had sun stroke on our farm and in the Reserves. I was to go through pneumonia again in Marine Boot Camp San Diego. These were clues to the rest of my story.
About 5 – I walked off a barbecue chimney and ended up being flipped and turned to hit the top of my head on the corner of a decorative brick. Stitches. A clue. I now see this as my missing runner’s high, second wind, intelligent plus and minus invisible gravity, the Holy Spirit.
About 7 – I went on a week vacation with my cousin Jerry with my Aunt Nita and Uncle Doc. Every morning I woke with a crust covering my eyes that took most of the day to remove. I did not get to fish. That eye wound is still is here to a small degree. A clue.
About 10 – I was riding on the seat above a plow. The plow hit a stump and I was thrown in the air, flipped, turned and ended up head first down the end of plow blade. I yelled “STOP” on the way down. I had a shallow cut down my back and a bleeding cut on the top of my head. My dad carried me up to our farm home and drove me to the Naval Hospital for stitches again in the same place. Gravity trick again. A clue.
About 13 – I chose to follow Jesus, when my parents suggested I choose my own spiritual path, while they were choosing theirs. Jesus’ concepts of Infinite love and forgiveness were what won my heart. I was to find that in a few teachers, but not many other followers.
About 16 – Asked God why I was deaf in my left ear, extremely shy, and short winded. It turns out I would have made myself furious, about the one cause, if I found my answers then. Part of my prayer for answers was to take action by scouring the city library, but I found nothing useful. I also had symptoms of low grade terror around hospitals, and I was skeptical of doctors, back when they were Gods. I did not ask God about these two additional symptoms. These are some clues.
About 17 – The blessings that began showing up in my life were all better choices leading to my answers to my questions to God. My first answer was in my 2 unit college course on our Constitution, while I was in High School.
About 18 – The United States Marine Reserves in the form of the 15th Rifle Company at Seal Beach California showed up to surprise me by accepting me with my deaf ear and short wind. I knew what defending our Constitution meant when I swore to preserve and protect it. I am still speaking out about domestic enemies. These political enemies that say they are supporters of our Constitution, and obviously do not have a clue what is in it.
About 18 – The Long Beach Naval Shipyard accepted me in their Work Study Engineering Co-Op Program that showed up, subject to being accepted at UCLA.
About 18 - I passed the college boards in the top 10% required for acceptance by UCLA. But, I decided to go to Long Beach City College, to save money. I needed a B average in pre engineering from LBCC, to transfer to UCLA. One challenge was that as a Marine Reservist I had to attend weekend drills once a month, so I would not be able to work or study, one weekend a month throughout my college career.
Then there was my six months of active duty for training, starting at the USMC San Diego Recruit Depot, their west coast boot camp. The only reason I was not sent home because of my deaf ear, was that their Navy doctor, just did not believe me. It was just another doctor in my life that was a blessing. I needed to learn for later, the Marines’ discipline and spirit in that six months [plus 3 days erased] of active duty. That makes me a stealth veteran.
Then there was the unique engineering program at UCLA that started to get me thinking in terms of SYSTEMS. They were right in that you do not know where you will end up, so you need to know that the basis of most systems is the same equations. Each system is a metaphor for other systems. Metaphors are everywhere in engineering and life. That was, and is mind blowing for engineering work and spiritual therapy. Graduated 1963.
I went to the World’s 1964 Fair in New York on leave after my Navy training course. I paid extra to return via Washington DC. As a Marine that knew our Constitution, I was shocked to find the hotels were still segregated. My civil rights demonstration was to stay at a black hotel. PS, I was the only one.
I was having a better and better time as a new engineer at Long Beach Naval Shipyard. I solved some problems in unique ways. When I was promoted to one grade below my leader, he began to become a worse boss.
That gave me an incentive to go for my next promotion up the coast at the Naval Ship Weapon Systems Engineering Station at Port Hueneme. I was promoted into a liaison to ships & shipyards position.
Later NSWSES needed a liaison person for east coast Tartar ships, shipyards, along with our headquarters sponsors at Naval Ordnance Systems Command. That is where I met my future wife, which was across the hall. Believe it or not, these events were all part of God’s process of answering my three questions plus two, which had just one answer, when I was ready to be at peace.
I had a world class leader in the Tartar Project, Mr. John Blazer, which gave me a project to run in my spare time while mediating between shipyards, headquarters, and ships. My project started to teach me how miracles show up, to support what you are doing.
There was a promotion to headquarters, my marriage & child. Then a Reduction in Force [RIF], where I recovered by finding two field positions to choose from. Then another headquarters promotion with two positions to choose from. Life was good.
I began to go deeper and deeper in my spiritual search. I asked the Holy Spirit who my teacher of God was and the answer showed up in a week. My teacher talked about a shortcut to enlightenment called Kundalini, and warned of its dangers.
About 1982 our Tartar Project office got our boss from hell, which covered up his insecurity, with over confidence. For me he was the one boss, who could not be satisfied. The rest of my life was sort of like that at that time.
That gave me an incentive to go on my spiritual retreat summer camp, for two weeks. My process this time was to keep asking the Holy Spirit what to do.
That led to my ending up in a class called “Energy and the Body”. I was interested because I had no second wind. Before the class was over, I found my second wind in the form of a whirlwind of energy that spun me around so that my glasses and expansion band watch flew off to different edges of the large tent. Trick gravity again, I believe so.
That began my introduction to my Christian Kundalini rebirth process. I had been prepared for this possibility, by reading the book by Dr. Lee Sannella called: “The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence?” http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0941255298/recoverybydiscovA/
I knew there was a doctor Sannella that I could go to, which would understand the terror I was feeling, or I could go home. My spirit and I chose home, where my family, doctors, church, work and such could not understand. Doctors even told me I would not recover.
The blessing in disguise is that now I can have more empathy for all of those that did not understand people like me, which experience even part of what I experienced. It was a blessing that I had a year of sick leave saved up, but I only needed about half.
Since I had processed my few weeks of terror, my few months of fear, and my few years of anxiety, I discovered that I was no longer shy, my second wind was always with me, and I was still deaf in my outer ear, but now, it was quiet within. You might think I am still shy, because I still have some of the habits, I learned in the forty nine years, before my reasons for shyness were gone.
When I told my boss from hell I could not find any way to serve him, he found another position for me in the radar group. I guess now, that it helped that I had chosen the position I chose between two positions. My choice ended up making my bosses’ boss ,Tom, and he would be there for me. Three years of, rare to receive awards, for my level of civilians, followed.
I asked God again, who was my new teacher of God, now that my first one was back in spirit. Again my teacher shortly showed up in my life. I was at a retreat where I met three Psychiatric doctors, which told me they did not know how to help others, until they went to a Master’s program, after they were doctors.
I learned at work about the quality movement of W. Edward Deming. He suggested we all learn psychology, but I had never taken psychology or sociology. I decided to learn more because I was always interested in the subject.
A conference of therapist came to the high rise building next to ours. I met David Grove and his inner child metaphor therapy. I learned the language of the inner child David discovered. For those that are ready, they can release their mental and physical challenges, or even their inner demons.
I found Dr. McKenzie on his earlier version of drmckenzie.com, now http://www.alternativeapa.com/. I was interested in him because he had helped cure schizophrenia. We met and compared notes and found we were on the same pages. He had found that early trauma could show up as PTSD symptoms of schizophrenia. He later wrote his book Babies Need Mothers that explained experiencing birth again, because my trauma was at birth.
I found a two week summer camp in New York State that included a course in spiritual psychology given by the leaders of the University of Santa Monica [USM}. Their methods were 80% experiential. I found I enjoyed the experiences of playing therapist, neutral observer and client. I was convinced I needed to go to their two year master’s program in spiritual psychology.
I went to USM’s two year program of one weekend a month and their two week summer camp. Does this remind you of my Marine Reserves too? I flew out each month. Once, even on travel orders. One blessing was that I could swing by my parent’s home in Long Beach each month. I was learning how to love and understand more, so I could leave nothing unsaid with them.
My mother passed into spirit in my first year. Before she left, she told me how I was wounded with forceps by a Navy Captain doctor that told my father he had lost a few kids, but none of the Marine wives. The one answer to my three questions plus two to God was right here, because I was now ready to forgive everyone, no matter what.
The one answer was I could not hear in my left ear because of my wound. The left side of my nose is still almost closed. The second wind part of my spirit had disassociated, at the time of my wound and patiently waited until I was ready to finish my birth by spirit. I found my unconscious had stored up the terrors, fears and anxieties from the false teachings of any religions that taught about any wrathful god. I came to know that there is no devil; there are just wrathful egos, which need to return to the real God, for love and comfort to recover.
I walked a lot with my dad in his 90’s once a month. I finally heard how he had learned to believe in fate and acceptance, on Guadalcanal with the Air Marines. They cannot get you IF it is not your time and you cannot run from your fate.
I retired from federal civil service on leap day in 1996 after 39 years of service. The Federal government had decided to not let two states tax your retirement, I had found my military record papers, and they offered me a bonus to retire, to keep from letting more people go. I decided I could learn more outside of the federal civil service, than continuing in service.
Our daughter kept sending us house plans so we could be near to her and our grandchildren in Maryland. We found our home we loved within a block of her, and have enjoyed our move since.
I volunteered to run a weekly spiritual support group on the mental health ward of the Memorial Hospital for their Pastor Bob. The first year I ended up with a list of generic spiritual answers for all the questions that usually came up. The second year I ended up with a diagram of the levels of spirit versus levels of anger. I was in the process of also starting to volunteer at the Way Station’s Wellness group.
Then some doctor accused me of telling patients to not take medicines, so Pastor Bob asked me to quit volunteering. No doctor asked me anything. Gee, doctors again. My standard saying was “I no longer take medications, but I take aspirin, when I am hurting.” What I did tell patients is that I had symptoms like they were experiencing and was given medications, and I recovered after some years, and I no longer took any medications. It was my intention to be there, as an example of hope. Some showed up later, to learn how to recover.
Remember how I had two additional symptoms back when I asked God why I had my three symptoms? Did you guess that these symptoms had the same source of the one trauma? I am now grateful for my original trauma. I would not have learned so much without it. It amuses me that the Navy Captain that wounded me led to a great career I loved for most of the 39 years of working for Navy Captains, and earned a good retirement. It brought me most of my blessings. I now feel comfortable, where ever I am. I now understand that doctors are doing the best they can with what they know and what they do not know that they do not know, like all of us.
I now understand that my extreme shyness that I started with is like being on the Asperger’s symptom spectrum. That must be why I always had an interest in autism. The book “Son Rise” made sense to me as one who also was told he would not recover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son-Rise Recently, I read about a study that found that there was a greater incidence of autism with parents that were college graduates and had other genius children. They tended to have babies further along with their forebrain development at birth. That made sense to me because schizophrenia comes from trauma in the first two years. I had trauma at birth and within months. My recovery consisted of going through everything that was in that my unconscious, which was disassociated by my birth trauma. I have learned that there is no need for any stigma about mental and physical illnesses, since they are mainly PTS from trauma in some form. When we are born, we usually do not have the forebrain to be conscious of any of that unconscious stuff. I can understand avoiding all that unconscious stuff by disassociation, when we have some forebrain to be aware of what to avoid. More and more makes sense to me.
I took a short course in essentially “the spirits call to evolve” in our local Institute of Learning in Retirement [ILR]. I discovered the Reverend Paul R. Smith and his book “Integral Christianity: The Spirit's Call to Evolve”. This book puts spirituality, Christianity, and Jesus in perspective for me. Reading this book was like reading everything about a brother that had discovered the same things by a different path.
I was led to learn about “dark energy” and “dark matter”. Better names would be “intelligent invisible gravity and anti gravity”. I could now see how these are like the invisible forces that changed and are changing my life. I learned how about every about 30 million years we pass though the highest concentration of these forces along with a high speed hydrogen cloud. They could be the major factors in faster recreation that has happened in our long term past.
File: life_lessons.html, docx, pdf © 2016 Mike Foster, MA