Rebekah Rising Again - re: Conscious Parenting

One of the reasons I feel conscious parenting--parenting that incorporates visualization, LOA, manifesting, whatever you feel safe calling it--is important in my "mindful practice" is because as the old scripture says, "without a vision, my people perish." Mindfulness truly did transform my family from the inside out and is still a daily habit (throughout the day).

That being said, it's still possible to fall into ir stay in a victim consciousness and meditate, and to Mindfulness, if my state of being is still "this is happening to me" and I am breathing thru it.

I have fallen silent in a number of groups and left FB for a few months because of a collective victim mindset that FB's business model is designed to feed (watch The Social Dillemma). What has been shown to me in my faith throughout my life but even more so recently is that we aren't victims, we don't have to just sit and accept whatever our surroundings say and that we can actually change the reality around us. You can call it faith, you can have your own beliefs, you can describe it with different terms that fit your framework, but even within those there are universal laws at work.

When I was in Bible college, I couldn't stand feeling restricted so I ran a lot (jogging). I preferred the woods and a forrest-like park. my roommate would worry and force me to run with bear spray. On one of my runs, something stopped me. Call it God, the Universe, my higher self, something told me to stop and asked me to look around. I remember thinking, "Okay, no rapist, nothing to worry about, just dead branches all around me, kinda sad actually because when these bloom they are so beautiful..." and I stared at the branches feeling a connection with them, sympathizing, as I too felt bare, waiting to bring forth dreams, etc.

Then that inner voice said to look up. So I did, and all above me were flowers. Beautiful blossoms. And then I looked down and around at the bare branches that hadn't bloomed yet. "It always starts above first." It wasn't long until they were in bloom after that.

That was the year I had long-awaited dreams miraculously happen (& beyond serendipity, it was crazy how things just aligned that were humanly impossible). That was over 20 years ago.

When I was in harder times even a few years ago, I had by then lived a lifetime of witnessing miracles. In nearly all of them, there was before them some type of imagining, or visualizing, or envisioning you might call it first. A looking out at my environment and not seeing what others see. Seeing beyond, seeing without limitation and dreaming what I wanted. One time it was at a RV park. We were homeless and in a very bad place. I looked out at all the RVs and imagined them gone and just the trees. My new yard. I imagined I was looking at a huge yard where my kids could run and play, and there were lots of trees. Somehow by miracle we made it all the way from Florida back to Washington and out of the 5th wheel (that we were in for 5 years), and into a lease to own home that sat on--you guessed it--a large yard without trees that looked identical to what I saw in that trashy Tampa RV park.

I had to fight for my right to work. Having autistic kids, even the well meaning public health nurse encouraged me to be on assistance. But that wasn't me. Something greater in me fought back hard because I knew one day I would have my old jobs back, I'd have my career back, I'd have my house back, I'd have "all the years the locusts have eaten" restored to me, my children were not going to be denied or deprived of things based on a label or neurodivergency, and things were going to get better. I had my Grandmother's stubbornness so that helped. So did all the community help we received that will always be remembered.

As things did get better, it was still a challenge. Life is. Everyone has problems. I still wanted my kids to learn early on how to rise above those challenges.

Imagination is so important. Catching visions and listening to that persistent voice within, regardless of what the world says or what doctors say or what schools say or what even well intentioned people say who don't want to see people suffer.

We create our outer reality with our inner reality. Our words carry power. Our beliefs and thoughts, our mental diet and our self-concept really shapes how we perceive the world and how others perceive us, and how open we are to receiving miracles, serendipity, divine Shakti energy flowing thru us or whatever your beliefs are, where we are not victim to circumstances but are creators and living and loving life.

So I still very much use meditation and Mindfulness. But I also teach my children and am learning more every day myself about these universal laws, about living creatively, about visualizing and manifesting. And I keep seeing some really truly miraculous things, things that I wasn't "supposed to"... and all of them I felt & saw first in my mind's eye.

Within the exceptional communities there is exhausting collective emotional overwhelm and victim consciousness. There are many who were or are still abused and can't break free from the mental prison they have barricaded themselves in. There is very real oppression. I am not denying that. I run a group that I cannot even stomach to visit regularly because we track abuse cases Abuse & Criminalization of Autistic Children Watch Group

I am not victim blaming. I am saying, as one who got out of an abusive relationship and one who was diagnosed with PTSD, that telling our stories on repeat, fighting for justice, screaming at this law or that organization or about this other person who is evil, will not change anything or make life happier if that is all that is ever playing on a continuous loop cycle. And breathing thru it as a coping mechanism only helps with breathing.

It has been hard to know what to say during this pandemic especially in these circles because I know by experience as a parent, as a neurodivergent, as a parent of autistic & what I believe are twice exceptional children, I know this is hard. It's been hard. I feel everyone's pain and suffering when I am online. I feel the stress, anxiety, frustration, the fatigue, etc.

Self-care, self-love, self-compassion are critical in these times. And so is VISION. So is hope, Imagination, visualization, whatever you want to call it or are ready to embrace.

This is our time to dream. This is our time to play pretend. This is our time to look up or inward and catch that heavenly vision--to see the flowers in bloom above that are about to bloom around you if you yield to it. But you have to look and see first, see beyond whatever is your "now" and look with an artist's eye how you want to paint your life.

And sometimes you have to literally paint it like I did a few years ago when Santa wasn't going to make it because I didn't have a fireplace. So I painted one on the wall and told my kids it was magical. That it was a portal that Santa would come in thru, so it was like The Chronicles of Narnia, and they tried to get into the fireplace like the wardrobe led to Narnia.

Shortly after that by miracle we got into a house (and the front "just happens" to look like my old house from my 1st marriage that I had been missing and kept seeing in my mind). Still no fireplace but was blessed to be able to get an electric heater that looks like one. I can tell you with certainty that my next house will have a "real" fireplace. It won't be painted on the wall. It won't be electric. It will be just as I imagine in my mind. It will manifest in my 3D reality in its own appointed time and in the meantime I am thankful and grateful not only for what I have but for what is to come because in my mind it is already here. I don't see an electric fireplace, I see a real one.

I'm not going to go into the different methods and techniques, lol, I'll wait to weird people out. But, I do hope to inspire you to realize that not only is these impermanence (things are always changing), but things don't have to get worse but can get better. No matter your situation. It can get better.

I believe things are always working out for us. I believe that nothing is impossible with [God, the Universe, God within you, Source, etc.] and my outer reality continues to reflect that reality. I continue to experience fruit from seeds planted yesterday or last month or last year. I continue to see impossible things I had imagined in my mind's eye come to pass. Even got free groceries when I was tight on food a few months ago.

I also hope to inspire others to walk more in a feeling of abundance instead of lack and victim consciousness.  We truly get what we expect. Good and bad. Where the focus goes the power or energy flows.

It is ok and very needed to let feelings wash over us, to be real and honest when we are feeling bad, down, defeated, etc. And Mindfulness really helps. But there is also a time to brush it off, to get up, to dare to assume a best case scenario. To dare to dream of something better. To dare to know one's worth and be receptive to infinite possibilities

You are worthy. You are loved. You are appreciated. And you have gifts and a purpose. And that purpose isn't to feel helpless or like the world is against you or that certain things always happen to you. Or me. Us.

I hope whoever reads this finds encouragement whatever you are going thru. I hope you dare to dream and visualize what might seem impossible. I hope we all never lose our sense of imagination.