On Hiatus until March

 Hello All,

I am into week 4 of a projected 8 week recovery from surgery. I look to be back the beginning of March. 

Take care of yourselves. Breathe in Wonder. 

With a shared heart, 

Janet 

Janet Barrett

Life in the Beyond/ Journeys Into Enlightenment

www.janetandbeyond.com

janetb@janetandbeyond.com 

JIE Episode 43/ The Realm of The Medium

Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet Podcast Release Tuesday August 25, 2020  

Episode 43 Blog The Realm Of The Medium

My guest for Episodes 43 and 44 is Hollister Rand. She is a well-known and respected medium. Since early childhood she has had the ability, the openness, to communicate with the spirit realm. Her new book Everything You Wanted to Know about the Afterlife*But Were Afraid to Ask is a great manual into the world of the medium.

She offers clear information and language for the novice, the curious or the natural to navigate this realm. She answers questions that might surprise you.

Here is a comment from her book introduction. It rather sums up to me what mediumship opens us up to, curiosity and the value we give to Life.  

“As a medium, passionate curiosity is to know the truth about life and death has fueled my connection with spirits. I have always wanted to know the answers to big questions like “Why are we here/” and practical concerns like “Will I be able to eat what I want in the afterlife?”

In Hollister’s terms she refers to loved ones who have passed over as spirits and ghosts are those energies that have agenda still with the physical realm. Spirits express through the vibration of love and ghosts out of the vibration of fear. I like this clarity and distinction.

Choosing this time in history and virus to be alive is offering us opportunities to open and unfold into our senses and become comfortable in new ways. Being able to be open to wisdom from our passed on loved ones is enriching. The veil is thin between our physical and non physical realms. It takes only a matter of tuning to receive in our expanded sensory awareness. One of Hollister’s joy is to share with us how easy it can be for each of us to be in connection with our spirit guidance.  

Some of us speak and listen to the dead easily. It is no big deal when we use consciousness technologies as we appreciate that time and space are malleable, and the forms are only illusions of information and thoughts. Our attachment to the physical form and the rules we think we exist in our realities of BEing and beings are fluid.

Our spiritual realms are our core essence and our collective awareness as Consciousness and everything known and unknown, manifested and unmanifested, potential and energy. We can unify behind one being or in being One.  Both will embrace the information available in the realm of the medium in different ways. The truth is that if you are in the reality of Oneness, shared morphic resonance then is the bits of information and photons dancing around and in us, and all that ever was still is. Those that we have had relation to in this time of awareness are still present, just in changed form. It is nice to know we are not alone as one might think.

Spirits will help us realize that often what we think is important is not. Our illusions about what life is are mutable. Solace and comfort from our own thoughts are possible. The unexplained can be explained if it is important and known. Our emotions are important and yet can be limiting.

BE open to your curiosity. BE in a sense of gratitude that you had experience together and release and let. Release what you think is important. Let yourself feel different.

Janet Barrett

Podcast Host/Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet

janetandbeyondpodcast@outlook.com

www.janetandbeyond.com 

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

Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet

Ep 23 blog   New Rules in the Games People Play

How do you enjoy relating to the men or women in your life?

We would like to feel that we enjoy both men and women. And, for many there may be conditions. 

Are there patterns in the way we deal with the sexes that really are not enriching and keep the negative compounding daily? Are they filled with agendas, grudge match interactions, confusion, missed opportunities, much not said or acknowledged, frustration that you are not being heard? Perhaps fear of safety, lack of respect, impertinence.

You name it you can feel all kinds of things in your sense of connection with the other sex or another individual.

Whatever your dominant state of interaction is with others is, it reflects your inner sense of relation with your male/female directives inside.

We tend to maintain bias in our language. Here, we refer to each as the opposite sex and that might be part of the problem. What if they are not referred to as in distanced from each other but side by side? We need a different word. The abreast sex or the alongside sex doesn’t have the same ring does it? And, maybe we could use the term female/male instead of male/female? It registers energetically different.

Men and women are not the same, but they go together as part of the human design. They are complementary dynamics that can sometime seem contrary. One is not better than the other. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that are different and they fit together interlocking. 
They go together. Their differences work together to create and complete connection and unity. 

Our powers are equal and complementary though we think them not, when we think in terms of strong, weak, etc. Yes, one may be physically stronger with testosterone, but can you really say a woman in childbirth is not as strong with her estrogen pumping? There are just differences in demonstration of what is possible. We are talking apples and oranges. Both fruit. One not better than the other.  

We need some new rules in appreciating the differences between men and women that shifts our game of life and play. We need to appreciate strength and wisdom of all kinds that our sexual identities, ruled by our hormones provide us. 

We need to get out of the Blame Game and start playing the NO Blame Game. 

Compassion, Appreciation, Respect. These are the rules we want to align ourselves in.

We need to let go of the past and start, in this moment, to change how we relate. Maybe we need “Men are from Mars and Women love them” or “Women are from Venus and Men love them” as a better alignment of what is possible and the natural order. Unity, Oneness is the natural state of Being. There is only the One in Being for each of us and collectively.

How to get rid of the State of Victim/Abuser, which is the Blame Game?

One dominant rule in the Blame Game is the State of Forgiveness. 

Forgiveness is the quality that someone else has done us wrong, they have hurt us. There is an imbalance that creates a need for justice, fairness. It is a deliberate choice to release feeling of resentment or vengeance towards others regardless of whether they actually deserve your forgiveness. Forgiveness does not mean forgetting, nor does it mean condoning or excusing offenses.

There are many considerations that are mentioned in that definition. All from our sense of Self which is usually invested in right and wrong.

From within Consciousness and Oneness, our position about Forgiveness is different. Any reaction to stimuli is mine. I can feel physical hurt, mental hurt, emotional hurt. I can acknowledge pain and it can move me to the next place, the next moment. We are each responsible for creating the experience. We are each responsible for what comes next.

If we are in a pattern or patterns of being hurt without resolution the hurts pile up and we get into the game of blame /forgiveness. Someone else has done me wrong. Victim thinking manifests. And some will say they forgive but they don’t forget. And that keeps it all in play. Only with forgetting does one cease the need to forgive.

What would it be like to let go of the need and energy of Forgiveness?

Access heart Centered Awareness and let your awareness of how you deal with the men and women in your life reflect how you feel inside about your inner world. Then pick someone who comes to mind and use the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono prayer towards them.

I am sorry.

Please forgive me.

Thank you. (for being in my life to help me to know wholeness).

I love you.

Take it in as you recite the words. Let them sink in. Recite it as many times until you feel different.

Then notice what it would be like if the other says it to you! Allow yourself to feel different. Allow yourself to let go what felt stuck emotionally. And Breathe. Breathe through your heart. Feel the shared heart.

Janet Barrett
Podcast host
Journeys Into Enlightenment with Janet
www.janetandbeyond.com
janetandbeyondpodcast.com 

  

Consciousness and the Circles in a Life

"The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches, but to reveal to him his own."

Benjamin Disraeli

We attended a memorial service for an friend a few days ago. It was at a Friends meeting house and it was a lovely acknowledgement of a man's life.

We sat in concentric circles with Jeff's family in the inner circle surrounded by his and their neighbors, colleagues, friends and community. He was not present in body, but he was present everywhere among the hundred or so gathered to honor and mourn him.

Set amidst different musical pieces I am sure he enjoyed, we came together to sit and share in Jeff. The bulk of the service was about this. To sit in unity and recognize, reflect, share and grieve for what would be no more in a body. We were witness and served as a collective eulogy. It was powerful, it was wonderful, it was grace for him and us. 

Death has a way of focusing us and stripping away the clutter of life into its real center, connection. His was a big energy packed into a stocky powerful form that reflected his inner blacksmith. Boisterous, full of stories, knowledge, wisdom, booming laugh, alongside opinions and yet willing to change them if convinced. 

Jeff, in his lifetime demonstrated grace, respect, friendship and mentoring. He was a man of deep convictions and moral integrity. Both as a consciousness objector in his time of war and offering his hand to another. Honed with degrees, an encyclopedic mind, no one's fool, he was robust in expressing life, he was a puppy inside.

He was a living connection to our past less mechanized and industrial society and the history of creation then.You made what you needed. There was no Home Depot down the street.

His joy was in making things, getting his hands dirty, and diving in, whether it be a marriage, helping a child develop into an adult, creating a company, being an expert in his field, home and landowner and as a blacksmith. He had the eye and tolerance to help foster others into being the best they could be and not what he might have wanted. His was an artist's eye to see into the medium in front of him as raw potential and help to bring it out, while also humble about his helping.

In the reflected warmth of his friends sharing their Friends Meeting Room, we each sat in those concentric circles around his wife, 3 children and their families.

The space provided support and the opportunity for any to share as they were so moved and many were moved to share, to acknowledge for themselves and us a relationship of worth. We were allowed to feel what we each felt.

We reflected his passions and shared interests. Young blacksmiths sat next to a grieving longtime grateful business partner and friend, neighbors who shared fences with his ever changing artistic Victorian home, friends of his equally powerful partner in his wife, his talented children, and the young artist community of sculptors, metalworkers, painters and creative minds that he had been a father energy to. The good kind of father we each want.

As I listened and felt, I was aware of how all had gathered and given witness to what had been real beyond my own limited experience of Jeff. Sometimes it does not happen to share a lot of time with someone. The gift is in the moment of being together. I remember these moments.

We then shook hands with those around us to have the physical connection of life that Jeff created.

He was able to spend his last months with his family, friends and colleagues that brought that connection front and center. He had a chance to see what legacy of connection and warmth of spirit he had created in being himself. Every moment was an opportunity to express gratitude and he did.
In every picture he is glowing.

He appreciated the wholeness of life, the give and take, the joys and sorrow, the hand in hand of experience of being with others that all lives contain. It was a full life. It was the man we gave witness to in the circles of his life.

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