What’s Under A Hat with Mari Hall

We wear many hats in our lives. Some we like, some challenge us, yet none define the truth of who we are. Joining Janet is Mari Hall, Reiki master, teacher, and founder of the International Assoc. of Reiki. Feel with us as we ask, “Who am I in the greater scheme of things?” Explore what we each have under the many hats we wear. What would it be like to get rid of our old worn hats and wear something new?

Check out this episode!

JIE Episode 41/ Metaphor Realities Of A Hat

Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet 
Podcast Release July 28, 2020 

Episode 41 Blog/ Metaphor Realities Of A Hat 

In this latest episode 41 with Mari Hall, she and I speak in metaphor reality.

I watched a theater production once where the actor performed on a simple set highlighted by the hats and accessories he changed into as the story went along. The hat and the actor wearing it held our attention as the actor morphed a bit differently into each hat. It was a clever way to covey simply the changing dynamics of personality present under the brim of the hat.

Mari and I talk of some of the many hats we wear and roles we play. Our self-identities include many different facets of interactions and relationships. Most of the time we are not in awareness of all of them each of us encompass. But every role we have in our human repertoire, be it child, parent, lover, loner, significant other, friend, enemy, victim, hunter, citizen, teacher, etc, etc, etc. comes with a hat and most are worn all at once and interchangeably.

At times some of them fit really well and some of the time they don’t. We may have been given them and we like them or not. We all have probably had the experience of a parent or someone in authority telling us we had to wear something we did not like or feel comfortable in. But we can hold on to them as empowered objects reminding us for better or worse. We might not recognize or even see through the illusions they cast and can feel burdened under the weight. For any one hat or role may be heavier than another.

Ever buy something on sale that was only okay, but it caught your attention enough that you bought it anyway? Maybe you were only in the mood for something new. And you have never worn it. It still sits in your closet taking up valuable closet space and every time you move it goes with you to the new closet.

Our illusions of what we look like in our hats, in our roles may be off. They may dazzle but be distracting like the outfit that dazzles and that is all you see, not the person. When what we are really looking for is the outfit or hat that highlight, accentuate and bring out the best in the person under it all. That is the secret that the great designers focus on. Bring out the best in their clients.

Sometimes we wear something to hide in, cover up something present, or something missing. Sometimes when we really closely look at the hat, we can see the wear and tear and the now shabby surface, different from the new when we got it, received it, bought it.

Some may only be worn once in a while, when some are worn every day.

At times hats are part of a uniform and when we put it on our head, we feel a part of something bigger.

Some are to create illusions of ourselves to keep safe from others or from things out there. Like a white beekeeper’s head covering and outfit. Keeps one from getting stung.

Some, like crowns, tiaras or mitres show others the entitlements of position one holds.

Some, like baseball caps show our team spirit at times and a way to show our support about something. And to cover up dirty or messy or missing hair.

What ever the hat, whatever the role, we can assume that it never hurts now and then to take a fresh look at how we are showing up in this world and see how current we are holding onto our pasts. And checking in with an open-minded friend and seeing what they might be noticing about you, the angle of your hat and life.

I tip my hat to you.

Janet Barrett

Podcast host Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet

www.janetandbeyond.com

janetandbeyondpodcast@outlook.com 

The Mask It's All About You by Bill Protzmann

Image by Alexandra_Koch from Pixabay 

A friend and past guest on my podcast, Bill Protzmann. of Music Care Inc. sent this out last week. I so enjoyed it I thought I would pass it on to you.

 Whenever I hear people feeling challenged to wear a mask I am noticing how they hold the reality of Oneness. I am claustrophobic myself so wearing one is not my favorite thing to do but I do it anyway. As I get ready for my upcoming surgery I will appreciate the masks worn by the medical staff around me. They do this to help keep their stuff clean of mine. IT is all about mindset. For me it is not about control. It is about politeness, courtesy and respect towards each other. All which are forms of Love. 

"This article originally appeared at PracticalHeartSkills.com and is used here with kind permission of the author."

“Americans can always be trusted to do the right thing…once all other possibilities have been exhausted.” – famously misattributed to Sir Winston Churchill

My Dear Friend:

When you see me wearing a mask these days, think of me as you would think of a slightly eccentric but kindly uncle who only wants the best for you until you can inherit some of my considerable wealth.

When you wonder why I mask up like this or suspect I might be towing someone else’s line out of sheer dogged compliance, just know that when I wear a mask, it’s really all about you.

I could really care less what some high government official or healthcare expert says about wearing a mask. I don’t have much regard for either of them these days.

I could really care less for what you think of me, too. Please don’t take that the wrong way: this isn’t about me. It’s about you.

You see, I’m not the first one to wear my mask for you, and I won’t be the last.

The thing is, you matter to me. What you think. What you do. How you live in your corner of our crazy world.

It matters to me that you enjoy your culture, your home, your friends, your family, probably as much as anyone else does.

It matters to me that you think, feel, act, sing, pray, meditate, stream videos, vote, work at some occupation that matters to you, hold to your convictions, act as if…and it matters to me that you do all those things to help you belong in our world in the way that works best for you.

It matters that you do many of those things differently than I do. Yes: differently.

If we were all the same, what a boring place this world would be.

Yes, I know: underneath it all, we are all basically the same, but that’s not the point.

The point, my friend, is that I’ve run out of ways to honor you.

I’ve been locked down, quarantined, circumscribed, mandated, and browbeaten into compliance with arbitrary rules no one could have imagined last year. And so have you. We are, in this pandemic-infused moment of history, together in so many more ways than we are apart.

Except when we aren’t apart.

In those limited moments when I pass you on the sidewalk, or in the pharmacy or the grocery store, or on the subway, train station, bus, café, or empty shopping mall, most of my safe ways to honor you have been masked. You can’t always see me smile from my eyes. You can’t always see the compassion there, too.

And sometimes, my dear friend, you don’t want to. I can’t say I blame you. Things are fraught, and you might just find me offensive for any number of reasons that I don’t know and can’t guess.

But here’s the thing: I love you.

Doesn’t that just sound trite, pithy, and useless?

Honestly, sometimes it’s all I’ve got to give you. I can’t say it to you, can’t offer you my hand in greeting, can’t hug you like a long-lost parent or prodigal child.

Not because I don’t want to, but because I love you, and you deserve love, honor, and respect, and the usual ways I had for offering that to you aren’t options for me now.

I’ve had to invent a new way to show you that I care for you and for who you are. I’ve had to open what’s left of my much-battered heart and offer something to you from that vulnerable place. We are, after all, united in our pain right now more than in any other way.

Oh yes, I know you put on your brave face and walk it into the world every day as if pain isn’t a factor in your life, but that’s not why I love you. I love you, you see, because I used to be that person, too, and I have learned to live in this world “with its harsh need to change you” as the poet David Whyte writes.

The world has changed me, my friend, into that possibly-wealthy, slightly-eccentric, kind, (mostly) tolerant and accepting uncle you wish you had.

Well, you’ve got me. And you’ll know me when you see me. I’m the one wearing a mask.

Sincerely –

Bill

Janet Barrett
Life in the Beyond/Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet
www.janetandbeyond.com 
janetb@janetandbeyond.com

The Art and Discipline of the Let. Let Be, Let Go, Let See, Let Flow with John J. Murphy

We must deal with the slings and arrows of Life. We are told to get over it, but we do not. There is no peace, only the ache. We hold on, we resist, we plot and plan. We can embrace the grudge and nurture the hurt, sometimes for generations. John J. Murphy is the author of Beyond Doubt: Four Steps to Inner Peace. Feel your shifts as John and Janet explore the four steps to inner peace now, where you embrace the wisdom within your creation.

Check out this episode!

JIE Episode 40 Let Go. Really, Why?

Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet 

Podcast releasing Tuesday July 14, 2020

Episode 40 Blog/ Let Go. Really, Why?

Probably the hardest challenge for any of us is embracing any perceived pain as useful.  We tend to hold on to things and feelings and if it doesn’t feel good, we don’t want to feel it. So, we decide to never feel that way again and then we create often elaborate patterns of avoidance and rules. We build huge powerful rule sets that we think will protect us from the hurt again when in reality, the rules trap the energy dynamics into place and keep us chasing our tails. We never are dealing with our part of our own set up, our joint creation in honest ways and there is a failure to appreciate what our lives are about.

 We miss valuing our lessons about relating to our Selves and others and our own creations. 

 We get stuck in continuous looping holding patterns of pain. It can be challenging to be grateful for one’s pain. John J. Murphy my guest this week mentions that Egos don’t understand appreciation. We are in our wounds and can stay there. Unless something happens to bring awareness. It takes honesty and intention to look at what we are creating and making our reality. It takes us getting out of our blindness in perspective and role playing. This is an act of love towards Self. To look. 

Stuff happens in our lives, all the times. Acceptance is useful here. It will bring us face to face with what we value about life, as contrast, in gentle or most often, traumatic ways. We might never have seen it coming but on reflection we can often see our setups. Those times and spaces where we weren’t paying attention, where we failed to stop and where we listened to what sounded convenient and took the easy way out. Which is different than appreciating one’s own flow.

Most of us are not in strong enough daily congruent states to build in a flood plane and then not be surprised when the rain comes and the house floods. We might wonder sometimes why a neighborhood can be decimated and one house is not. Perhaps there is something different about the energy of the owners that keeps them safe in a sense of higher ground. Why is it that some get a disease that can kill many and it just dissipates in another?

Only when we realize what our feelings are letting us explore, from within our non attached sense of Consciousness, can we own our feelings and then shift gears, intentionally if wanted. There is nothing wrong with being unhappy. It can be a useful state at times. But who wants to be unhappy for more than a moment?

There is nothing wrong with feeling like a warrior vanquishing the bullies and protecting the weak. And felt, with righteousness and belligerence can wear a soul down. When it is coming from within a rule set of victim/abuse/user etc. it may be a sense of power/loss of power that is active. And it keeps creating realities of happening again and again and the highs and lows of joy/misery.  The pattern is set in place and the people and circumstances may change over the years, but the same dynamic is playing out for the lifetime.

Employing our ability to manifest our love of Self and others takes maybe many different moments of wanting to and choosing to BE Love. Is it Love betrayed you are feeling or is it your ideas of what Love means to you, your illusions of what Love is, that you are in resistance with? How is your pain helpful in supporting your wounded beliefs of Love and what you think you deserve to experience? We can say we want Love but if is with attachment it is not Love, only our illusion of Love.

Letting go means one can experience something else without the poison of the past. It is how we transcend our wounds into the gifts that they are if we are willing to unwrap them.

Janet Barrett

Podcast host Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet

www.janetandbeyond.com

janetandbeyondpodcast@outlook.com

A Quick Note of Hello

Hi.
I am not at my best today to write. So let me just say hello.

I do look forward to being with you in our Zoom playgroups this week.

Please RSVP byTuesday afternoon so i can send you the invitation for the preferred group. They are Tuesday night 7-9pm pacific and Wednesday 10am pacific or Thursday evening 6-7pm pacific.

Join us as we explore the trials and tribulations showing up in our lives and around us to transcend into appreciation and gratitude for Life. All it takes is intent and openness as a shift in focus.

See you here.

Janet