Posts Tagged 'beliefs'

266. Just reading

Craving roots

There are many ways to read art. This is one of them: Just start writing and see where it takes you.

You can also say: Start to describe what you see. From there you start to be guided by your interests, associations, and yes, the universe supports you, based on your inclination at the time. We are always supported.

The painting is from June 5th and I wrote this on June 6th. Other things came in the way and I did them, but now I want to share this.

The first thing that came to my mind was that it came out alive. It means that the power that was used in order to create it is still in it. And what is the power? It is a thought, expressed in space and time.

When you look at it, your energy field responds to the experience by arranging itself into an energy structure. To you it feels like a feeling that you may have a name for. Then your thought processes become engaged and a new adventure starts in your story of your life. It may be big or small. Maybe you immediately turn away, smile, have a cup of tea and look at birds in the sky?

Here is what I wrote:

It feels like this: a number of shapes in different colors bump into each other in the middle (These are the colored shapes). The feeling is of an argument or at least a disagreement (Purple, orange, brown and blue). But it does not come to fighting.

There are three shapes who are out of the group. They haven’t come into touching relations, like the four others. So maybe they hesitate to join? Maybe the yellow on the left and the pink on upper left were kicked out of this society or could not join in as there was not even the slightest invitation extended to them. Or, maybe they stopped before they came too close, so that they can take a good look at what is happening.  Maybe they want to check it out before they join? And the cloud, the third of the outsiders, is the one who cares the least. He seems to have more power than all the rest. He has his own behavior and his own field of reference, which is the weather system in the area and the world. As such he is much less a participant in the meeting. But because of him, the perspective of other, bigger systems, is added to every part of this picture.

Then there is the earth with an orange border. But this element is cut abruptly on the left, without too much drama.

This tear-off breaks the impression of a stable earth. This earth can shrink to nothing. Don’t rely on me, it says. Look somewhere else for your stability.

Now the purple and the brown seem to connect with the earth, in spite of it being ephemeral. The orange and the blue seem to be okay with just floating in the air. Or maybe they are not so okay with it, and this is why they come to mix with the earthlings.

So here is a kind of a summary. There is a little drama here. Like in a country, or any society. People collaborate without agreeing with each other. There are some small areas of overlapping and you can say, some form of compromise and collaboration. The others are in differing degrees of separation, deciding not to get involved. But they are close anyway. They are human too and they don’t want to give up on their belonging to this group.

These are the energy bodies, operating by the hidden assumptions that bring about what seems to appear in reality, which is the drawing in green lines.

The green lines describe little separate forms that together create the pattern of what appear in this world of time and space.

So when you wander in this world and see all these forms around you, know that they come from a deeper, usually unseen, layer of energy bodies, coming into being from thoughts and ideas.

All comes from thoughts.

As in a known Zen story, in which some students, looking at a flag that moved in the wind, argued about what truly moved. Is it the flag? Is it the wind? And the master said: Nothing moves, except for your thoughts.

And how could I forget the red part of the lines, in a little area in the right? There was some drama in the reality of the picture.

This red part is indeed a part of the reality that I created with my thoughts. But I gave it the red color to say that according to my beliefs this is a violation of some sort.

Now imagine that you are an art therapist and this is the first artwork that your new client made. Do you see how much can be learned from just the first painting?

And if every one of us has a such a collection of thoughts with him at every moment, can you see what the fabric of our humanity is made of? If we want to have any measure of freedom, we must come out of this state, in which we are controlled by our assumptions, and look at it from a deeper perspective.

238. A story about idealism and reality

I was born in Israel and my parents were idealistic pioneers. They built Israel from nothing, with all the others there of course. They wanted social justice, a place to live and grow their food, a place where they could have a country and a piece of land and they wanted their children to be born in a country with a house and a field. I drank idealism with my mother’s milk. (This was long ago. Now it is a bit more complicated there.)

I was an artist from young age. I went to study graphic design. In Graphic Design you make art that is used immediately. Then I was an illustrator. As an illustrator you illustrate children’s books, for children to grow up with good stories, with knowledge and love of the world about them, with a good taste in art, as it makes for a better life. And you illustrate for adults so that they will think in a different way and they will laugh…

Then I got involved with Buddhist meditation, and the idea was to know what I am, so that I’ll live my true life.

And indeed, once you start to know something you start teaching. What can be more important than helping others know what they are, so that their lives will be good, and truthful? And that they will be good people, help each other and create a wonderful world for all of us, and our offspring…

Then I went to study art therapy, so I would be able to help people get rid of what held them back from being what they were. To show them how to become free of inhibiting ideas and thrive, so that they can live happily and lovingly etc.

And I did all these. I was idealistic and practical.

Then I started to know that every one of us has his own world, created by his own consciousness. We do not live in the same world. Our worlds meet with each other and it looks as if it is one world, but it is not so.

You can’t create a meaningful change in any part of the reality that is around you in your world. If you want this reality to change, you have to change yourself. The new thoughts and beliefs that you will have will bring to you everything that fits this new state of mind. So I cannot change or help change the people who come to do therapy with me. In one view, they are part of my outside world. I have to change myself, and as a result another version of that person will appear in my world, which will be a match to the way I have become. From another view, the patient is in another world, where he is the only one who can make changes in his world, by changing himself.

I always thought that we all lived in the same world. That there was one person in front of me, who suffered, and I helped him release the suffering and live a better life. But no.

And I thought that making art was a good thing for other people, to widen and deepen their experience, to give them the experience of beauty that will help them live a more beautiful life, with love, with collaboration, with understanding…

Now I felt there was no sense in doing anything. I always had a purpose for doing things and I missed it.

It felt like depression.

P1000273

Then I decided to ask August Moon about it.

August Moon is my inner guide. I have been connected with him for a while. He always answers. He is always there.

I asked and made a drawing, as I like to get the answers through the art. Sometimes I know through words, but if it is a big thing, I make art and read the answer in it. I just like it this way.

P1000277

And as soon as I started making the art, I knew the answer. The lines in the drawing spoke to me with the energy that is in them:

The reason to do anything, to do all that you want to do, is not that there is a need for it. You are not doing it for any idealistic purpose. You do it because it is your nature to be interested in doing things. It is your nature to love. It is your nature to be curious, playful, peaceful, capable and creative. This nature is what you are and it is expressed by what you do. So you do, just because you are a natural expresser of yourself.

So, you see? There is no outside reason for me to be happy. I am happiness.

And how can this be depressed?

 

236.The energy is left with no job

All the colors stand around me, in bottles, tubes and pencils. They are looking quietly at what I do. What will I say? They are my audience now.

I love them. They can do infinite things. They do not really look. I know. It is the whole who looks. The infinite listening-with-the-heart. The heart-of-listening. His name is I.

When the light of seeing is bright and strong, everything that is non-transparent burns into non-existence. Its energy is left with no job. It gives itself back to be used for creation.

The name of the creator is I too.

P1000269

It seems the light in the middle of the painting (the yellow and orange) is marred. It has been hit on the head.

Darkness (on the left) makes a threat. But the little child-who-flies is not afraid. He flies into the darkness to repair his past. He will find his love that he rejected in those old times. It is like the soul-retrieval that shamans do.

The goodness and the freedom-filled-joy, which is the lost part of him, will be found where it went to hide when it was not permitted to act in the world. It will be invited back and respected, loved, accepted, joined.

Again the lines tell the stories. The color shapes tell the emotions. The composition says that all is blessed, with all its tiniest details.

The white always looks with endless love and curiosity, with awe, with pride and marvel.

There is confusion there too, on the right, projecting a yes-no feeling.

Everything is okay.

 

The big yellow mother would like to say: Be careful!

But she knows that daring requires love and trust, and not carefulness. So she does not say a word. She admires her child.

#####

Yesterday in the morning I sat on the window seat and meditated. With all the lack of sleep that I collected, because of the pain, I fell asleep. I lost my balance and fell. I opened my eyes in the middle of the fall and saw the world turning around. But I was still asleep when my forehead hit the floor.

Then I woke up.

I felt fear and this conjured up memories from an event in my childhood, that now I saw more fully than before. Doors that were closed before, opened.

Fear cannot come if there is no story behind it. Falling cannot happen without a belief or a few beliefs that invite it. I know this is strange for some.

 

After some time I did this painting.

 

233. How the “I” moves to a wider view

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Being tired and in pain I became sad. Pain is a simple thing but living with it creates additional problems. Now all of them weighed on me. I thought: I can’t go on like this any more. I did not even paint yesterday and today.

My friend from Germany called. We started to talk and the phone line went dead.

I pulled a new piece of paper onto the table, dipped the brush into the water and into the first paint that my eyes saw in the watercolor box. It was olive green. This is how I choose the first color.

And then there was the drawing. No time. No pain. Brush, water, paint and the composition, the story with no words. The energy of the truth. Everything is good.

The olive green lines and the white of the paper are the best of friends. It is a holy connection. The lines, strikingly, appearing out of the white. The white does not have inside and outside. It is everywhere. It is all-there-is-everywhere. Even the word everywhere does not fit here. Is the green line real? And my eyes that see it: are they real? And my heart that has just become so full and so delighted, what about it?

(The other colors came later.)

 

Now in a different way:

Pain is part of the illusion of life, together with the body, with time, with good and bad.

The true self cannot have pain. Its essence is joy. Its essence is love and playing and being curious. The true self cannot be affected by the illusion.

For the “I” in the illusion pain is real and hard.

The good thing is that everything is connected. All I need to do is to change the way I focus and switch my identity to the true I.

Instead of focusing on the pain and automatically trying to escape it, to fight it, to prevent it, to change it, Instead of these, I find my curiosity and make the olive green lines. I find my playfulness and play with everything that shows itself. I look for the beauty in everything and find it easily. I look for my joy and it is right there. I am joyful. I look for my love and indeed what else do I have? This is how I start to identify with the true self.

And as I do this, I find that I have forgotten the pain. I don’t even feel it. Or if I do, it is not significant. I am in peace. The vibrations of the pain, the waves that streamed through the legs calm down. My hands that clutched one foot fall down, relaxed. The body rests. The energy of creation flows flawlessly everywhere it has to go. The body heals. The specific thinking processes that hold on to the body and its suffering become weaker. I am not so dependent on the body and the world around it. I witness them and I am free. In my mind I am already walking down to town, where the galleries are. I am going to see an exhibition. Right foot, left foot and I dance.

 

206. So close to the truth

Everything that I used to see as concrete is turning into states of moving energy.

More and more subtle

More and more subtle

I haven’t written for the blog for quite a long time.

The reason is that I am changing and for a while I lost the clear feeling of direction. I would wake up every morning and ask: Where am I? What am I doing here? Where am I going? I’m still doing it.

When I started this blog I was interested in reading my subconscious. I wanted to find everything that stood in the way of the free flow of joy and I wanted to release its hold on the subconscious.

More specifically I wanted to find the thought patterns that created the damage to the nerves of my feet, as you could read in the “about” page.

I thought I had found everything. But the pain is still with me and I know that I am still missing something. Actually I know what I am missing. I need to be in such a sate in which agreeing to suffer is impossible. A state in which word stories are seen through and known to be the illusion that creates illusions.

Some things worked wonderfully. I found some programs in the subconscious that were surprising to me. Again and again I had confirmations to the validity and value of this method that I came up with. I learned to trust it more and more. I explained how the method works a number of times in the blog, and I have written about it more in my book Opening Intuitive Flow Through Artwork. And I wrote about it in different discussion forums. Working so intensely on myself, by using this method, has made me a better therapist. I had a supervision group of art therapists and they learned to use this method too. I did workshops and taught others how to use it. I presented it in conferences and in lectures.

When I decided to stop the public demonstration of the work on the pain, I continued to do the work. I knew that there would be many repetitions as this always happens, and I did not want to describe these in the blog.

But writing the entries to this blog became something that I liked a lot, and I decided to change the purpose of the process that I showed in the blog to seeing how far such work can take me.

I had many glimpses of peace and joy and you could read about them as they happened. After a while my whole perspective has changed. I lost interest in my subconscious blocks. They lost their charm for me. When they come I just release them. The ropes that I saw on my path, and thought that they were snakes, as the Buddhist story tells, turned back into ropes. I still find it interesting to help my clients read their subconscious and release whatever stops them from being free and joyful. But for myself, I am not attracted to these any more.

In time I came to live with another kind of energy. I found myself in awe as I came to be in the presence of infinite peaceful space. It became easier and easier to get there, and my main focus started to be the investigation of this space. Just being there makes you happy without any perceivable reason. I realize that this is what I have to do. I have to be in this presence again and again, as it fixes everything that needs fixing. My clients changed too and nowadays most of them go through experiences that are like mine. They discover their inner voice and inner guidance. They find joy and playfulness when the fears and worries leave them.

Doing this blog, as it follows my adventure of going into myself is still one of the most exciting things for me to do, and you are moving with me to wherever my front line is. I appreciate you very much for being with me on this trip, like old friends.

Some changes have already taken place naturally and I am going on. Please feel comfortable to communicate, if you are moved to do so. Good to have you. Thank you.

198. The difference that awareness makes

Programs in the subconscious

Programs in the subconscious

I prepared many colors that were to go into many shapes. But when the painting got to this point, I knew it was finished.

There is an area where most of the colors are concentrated. From there, spreading to all directions, this pattern of things-added-to-things, where there are no filled-in colors, goes on beyond the area that we see.

It passed through my mind, before I started writing, that the most important thing for me in making the art is to look very precisely at the experience of the moment. This is what intuition does automatically but it does it in different degrees of precision, based on preparedness, openness, concentration and other conditions. This idea came to me some time before, when I saw, in other cases, that when the art was true to what was experienced in the moment to a greater degree, the art looked very beautiful to me. This makes “beautiful” equal to “what is true now.” I have found this to be true not only in regard to my own art but in regard to the art of clients too. When their art looks very beautiful to me, I know that it is a very good description of what is happening with them now. Interesting, isn’t it? But this time I am thinking about other characteristics of this state.

When the description is precise, the looking itself releases the perceived state completely. The state leaves and a new state rises in the field of experience. The new state that will arise is a response to my vibratory state. If I am confused, a confusing state will arise. If I am happier than before, the new state that will appear for me, will be happier.

If you look at the artwork again, and consider the empty shapes as a structure, ready to be filled out, but not yet filled, then it is like looking at the blueprint of my subconscious. Every empty cell is a belief that can be activated. For the time being, I have focused only on those cells in the middle and they have gotten activated.

Now two things can happen.

If I am not aware, then the entity that sees and experiences the thing that appeared in my experience is my blueprint. My blueprint can also be called my autopilot (or the subconscious). It has habitual responses. Most of the autopilot’s responses have to do with a not-so-good feeling. It is not an empowered state. The responses are not inspired or passionate. They are just automatic. Then another response will arise to the new state and it will go on like this automatically, one response after another, strengthening existing tendencies and leaving me a bit more entrenched in my beliefs, or less flexible.

If I am aware, everything becomes different. First, the awareness makes the experience beautiful. Then, if the state that is experienced is less good feeling than the state of awareness with the beauty that it perceives, the not so good state will dissolve into the better feeling state. This new state will be the state that invites the next experience, so the next experience will be better than the one before. It is a big difference, isn’t it?

So we see that being aware changes the course of events toward better feeling states.

Now imagine that the area in the middle of the artwork that has colors in it is experienced by awareness, as it does in this case, through the artwork. In my mind now, the state that awareness looks at is changing into a better feeling state. And now, everything in its environment has to change too, to match the better state in its midst. This area around the middle is the whole blueprint of expectations, all the potential “work orders” for the autopilot to operate from. So, based on the small change in part of it, the whole blueprint becomes different and we have a different person. I am becoming a different being. Only my habitual thoughts believe that I am still the same.

190. What is the belief behind the pain?

Sometime during the night and early in the morning I painted the pain. Here it is.

Pain

Pain

Then, in the morning, I heard a program on the radio in which a social psychologist (Ellen Langer) talked about her finding that it is our beliefs that determine the outcome that we experience. For example, if I do some physical work and believe that my work is actually exercise, and of course if I believe that exercise helps me loose weight, then just by doing my work I’ll loose weight. The weight is lost not by the work but by my belief. This indeed is also what I believe and this is the basis for all my work on the pain. (Remember the “About” page?)

I was not satisfied, leaving things as they turned out in the pain drawing, because every time I looked at it I remembered the experience of the pain.

I decided to do another drawing and the idea came to me to ask intuition directly: What is the belief that stands behind and drives the creation of the pain?

I have done this kind of asking many times before. You ask your question and just do an intuitive-flow drawing, in which the thinking process does not participate, and the answer comes through the art.

Here is the painted answer.

The teeth that never bite

The teeth that never bite

The zigzag lines in light and dark blue and in reddish purple look like wild animal teeth that come to bite the little pencil scribble in the upper middle. They look angry and threatening. In the beginning there was no pencil scribble there at all. It was just a small, empty space. I added the scribble in the very end of this drawing. I call it the dust ball. I think the drawing could work without it too, but it is there now.

Every set of teeth has some cloud or layered clouds behind it. The clouds are where the anger is stored and from where it comes to the teeth. And of course the anger is against this little dust ball. Or maybe it is against nothing at all?

Such a big anger against such a small and insignificant thing does not make sense. And why don’t the teeth come all the way in and eliminate this little dust ball? They can. But the fact that they do not do it shows that they consider the dust ball to be much stronger than the way it looks. If it provokes such a big anger, it must have a lot of power. Does it make sense to you?

The clouds and the teeth believe that this little dust ball has done something that is enraging and it deserves to be punished. But they stop short and don’t even touch it. The little dot feels all that anger turned directly at him and he turns into a dust ball, ashamed and guilty. That’s why I called him a dust ball. He agrees with them.

And this is how things are for years and years, for ages and ages. How come?

To help us there are a few more details in the artwork. There is some open space where there is no anger. The dust ball cannot go there because there are a few zigzag lines in the way. But this area is quiet. There is no struggle there. And there is a figure there. This figure was the one before the last element that I placed in the drawing. I felt there was someone there, watching and being unaffected. It feels like someone with a childlike curiosity and playfulness. This figure is a result of having developed identification with awareness. There is always, in all situations, a knowing that all that happens is being witnessed with clarity. This clarity is the real me.

So what does the witness see and understand?

The conflicted situation in which there is a dust ball that provokes so much anger, that he feels afraid and ashamed, while the endangering teeth never bite, this is the formula of the game that I am playing this life, or at least a part of my game. It has to stay like this, if I want the game to continue. If the teeth bite, the game will end. If the dust ball blows up the teeth and the clouds, the game will end too. So to keep the game going, they keep this dance. Of course, the dust ball is me. The angry teeth and clouds are me too. It is all an invention of a conflict. It is a choice that creates experiences. The figure in the open space knows this.

But there is another way. I can change the rules. I can smile at the teeth, for example. What will happen then? See how you feel when you read this, and you will know what will happen. It will be a different game, won’t it?

145. I

This is what we can do and this is what we are here for as therapists or healers or whatever.

We only have to assist everything that comes from inside of us in going its way out. It will go if we let it go.

It is all so simple.

So here is what I am letting go of today, this morning, after a night and after a day and after a night and a day and a week and a month and two month and seven years of pain that crawls on you at night and crawls on you in the day and makes you tremble, and makes your nervous system shake day and night, and who makes your body tense, even as you sleep. There is not much that I can do directly with the pain, I have learned this already. I can work at it as we work on changing the direction of a rowboat in the water. We stop rowing in the way we did. We start rowing in the direction we want to go. The boat will still go some more in the direction it was going before, because of the momentum. But eventually, at some point, and it is hard to know exactly where this point is, the boat will be going in the new direction. Not exactly as we planned, but still, in the direction that you want to go. Maybe it will turn out to be even better than you thought?

And how do we let go of things? How do we let go of the old direction?

We just see them from a deeper state. That’s all we have to do. A deeper state means that it is the energy of the truth of who we are. The endless love, the endless joy.

And how do we start rowing in the direction we want to go?

We just stay more in the energy of who we are.

All is a play.

And what a wonderful playing it is.

Go ask Gaugin

Go ask Gaugin 

I

With the beliefs that I have made

With the trees in me

With the beauty and craziness of it all

In me

I

Take the trees for example

Growing from the hard earth

Like habits

Drinking the blood of the fields

I

Look at the grimace on my face

It is coming out now

From memories

Of colors in the past

I.

110. Bad thoughts

There are three ways that I know of, to change reality for the better for you. All of them depend on changing yourself. All of them depend on becoming more and more happy, regardless of circumstances.

One way is to clear subconscious material. Every subconscious hindering or blocking belief that you clear out opens your energy system to a flow of intuition, which is a happier way to live. So the happier you become, the even happier you become. And this can happen, regardless of the circumstances of your life. All three ways are an equal opportunity for all. As you become happier, even in a small measure, you reality starts changing to fit your new inner condition.

The second way is to just decide what is the change that you want to create and imagine living it. This also has to be a change into a better state. You can change to a worse state, but why would anyone choose that. The more vivid and continuous your imagination is, the closer you get to change your subconscious beliefs. There comes a point when the power of the imagination is stronger than the power of the subconscious beliefs, and at that moment the subconscious beliefs change to what you imagined. Now the world around you changes to fit the new belief. But the truth is that at that state you feel so good already that it is all right with you whichever way reality turns out to be.

In both ways you will encounter resistance to change. Some of the beliefs we have in the subconscious are very strong in resisting change. Some give way easier. If you use the first way, you are already exercised in releasing everything that shows up, and you do this with the resistance. But if you use the second way, you may not be ready for the resistance, and especially if it is very strong. So you have to learn how to release blockages, and then you have the tools that you need. When you imagine a better state for your life and a resistance comes up, you use a releasing method to clear the way, and when the way is open, you go back to imagining.

And there is a third way.

It is to always interfere with your thoughts when you catch yourself becoming less happy, and think other thoughts that create a better feeling. This way also generates resistance sometimes, especially when your change of thoughts involves resisting the thoughts that you do not want to have. This can happen pretty easily and everything that you resist in your thought-world, becomes stronger and will fight back, so you have to learn how to release resistances, instead of resisting them.

And here is an example of what had happened to me.

I have been employing the second and third method for about two months.

Changing my thinking to always think thoughts that create better feelings, I caused the negative thoughts to rebel. I remembered the effectiveness of releasing everything that comes up, which is what I did before, and got upset, because this third and second way raised a lot of resistance. Last night I drew and this morning I read my drawing and found that the beliefs in bad luck were fighting back. Here are the drawing and the words.

Falling

Falling

Trying to go right or left

You can’t escape the mud blobs

Jumping at you

Whether you sit or walk

The earth breaks under you

You get in the sled to go uphill

You find it broken

And you are too heavily clothed.

Reading this I knew that I fell.

I always journal, writing without any restriction whatever comes to my mind, and in all cases this has always helped me see what I was feeling, and, seeing it, the feeling would dissolve. This is a good way for me to release. But I tried lately to not have any negative thoughts. The negative thoughts, instead of being nice to me and getting weaker, got stronger.  So this morning I went back to my usual way and wrote about all that is bad and hard and difficult, and very easily my mood changed for the better.

When I was in the bad state I thought:  I have suffered enough. I don’t know if mu body can take it much longer. If you, the All, have anything to say, please do it now.

But now, after writing in my journal I was in a better mood. I had to move my car for parking regulations and went, as always, to the Hungarian Pastry Shop, where I can leave my car nearby unattended for that period of time. Sitting there I asked Intuition: Do you have any answer? And I drew. (As you know, I always have drawing materials with me.)

Bigger systems at work

Bigger systems at work

Then I read, and the words just came to me as follows:

There are bigger patterns at work. Continue and it will clear up.

Well, that’s settled, I thought. And there was nothing else to do about it.

Then the question came:

So who am I?

I drew:

You are al

You are all

And went in with words:

You are many

Intermixed.

You are stable, real-like things

Flowing.

You are thinking landscapes

clear river waters

And mountains in meditation.

You are ancient and intricate

Having all emotions

Riding on peace.


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The healing process

Entries 1-58 show how I use the method of Intuition Through Art to heal myself from Peripheral Neuropathy.

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