EnlightenInk Blog

I’ve been immersing myself this week in news about Michael Jackson, planting myself like a vegetable in front of the television and the computer, reading about and relating to his anxiety and insomnia, and the drugs he used to relieve them. My 3-month checkup at the cancer center is due, and I’ve been feeling anxious, unable to sleep and have been “drugging” myself with television and the Michael Jackson drama. The immersion distracts and disconnects me from my fear, but it also disconnects me from my spirit. The voice of my higher self, growing ever fainter in the distance, is saying, “Move your body. Take a walk.” I move my body over to the couch, pick up the remote control and search for more MJ news.

I can see how being stuck in the contracted energy of fear has kept me from doing my daily disciplines of dancing and walking, actions which help me connect with my spirit. It’s like when we lose connection on our cell phone - in order to reestablish connection we need to keep moving to another position, asking, “Can you hear me now?” until the reception is clear. I have lost clear connection with my spirit, but my spirit hasn’t moved out of range of reception - I have, by numbing my fear with hours of escapist drama.

I’m aware that whenever I feel occasional twinges of pain, fear is activated and my worried mind asks, “What is that? Is it cancer?” Fear is like a barking dog, barking at the slightest noise. The barking is now waking me up, reminding me that I have moved out of range of my higher voice – reminding me that it’s time to take my inner barking dog for a walk in nature and get reconnected to my spirit - taking my God for a walk. When I change my position and move my body, I get unstuck and  can then hear the voice of my higher self, reminding me, “You are safe. You are so much more than a body, so much vaster than your fear.” That helps put the fear into perspective – it’s just a little bitty scared dog nipping at my heels.

Anticipating my checkup, I literally shake my body like a dog shakes water from its fur. Shaking helps release the grip of fear. As I nervously sat on the exam table waiting for the doctor to come in, I acknowledged to myself, “I feel scared.” That always invites a big spacious breath. Then I affirmed, “I am so much more than a body.” I imagined the vastness of my spirit inside and all around me, and I calmed down. When the doctor examined me and said, “You’re fine. I’ll see you in 3 months,” I was tail-waggin’ happy!

Deepak Chopra said that when his friend Michael Jackson danced on stage, “It was there that he was no longer a person in emotional distress, but instead someone dancing in the world of the spirits.” Dancing, shimmying, shaking, moving our bodies helps loosen the grip of fear and allows us to reconnect with our spirit.

Fear is a great motivator - it is designed to be compelling in order to get us to take survival action in the form of fight or flight or freeze…or take ‘thrival’ action by facing into the fear, feeling it fully, and therefore freeing ourselves from it. I have felt compelled this week to face my fear, feel it, and free my body to move into a place where the reception is strong and clear. My higher self asks, “Can you hear me now?” “Yes, I can hear you now.”

What is your current response to fear? How do you connect with your spirit? Is the reception clear? Is it time for some movin’ and groovin’ to the tune of your higher self?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: cancer, dance, Depak Chopra, fear, Michael Jackson, shake, spirit

Tom and I spent last weekend at a family reunion with my mother’s side of the family at the Grand Canyon. There were 31 of us, many I had never met before, converging from all parts of the world. We traveled together in our own private rail car on a 2-hour train ride from Williams, Arizona to the Grand Canyon. At first I felt nervous and shy and apart from everyone. Eventually as I looked at them and saw familiar features, the same mouths, similar eyes looking back at me, I remembered that we are all a part of each other, and I began to relax and enjoy the journey.

My mother died 3 years ago but I could imagine her traveling with us, reveling in this family gathering. I was also aware of her within me when a singing cowboy moseyed onto our train car, and I began to sing along with him. When I was a child, my mother would do something like that, and I’d be so embarrassed. I also experienced my mother in me when some personas that we had in common, Miss Bossy Pants and Nervous Nell, showed up the day before on the 9-hour car drive with Tom to Arizona – and The Incredible Sulk was about to make an appearance later in the day. On my refrigerator I have a magnet with a picture of a woman from the 1950’s and she’s wearing a little kerchief, a pretty pink sweater, and red lipstick and the caption reads, “Despite years of personal development, she still turned into her mother.”

Yup, it’s true. What I’ve discovered is that everything I ever judged about my mother and everyone else in my family (and in my life) is in me. That’s the interesting thing about self-awareness; it’s like turning on a light in the attic and seeing all the cobwebs and creepy crawlies very clearly and seeing that they are mine. Everything I’ve been judging and projecting onto others is in me. Life is a mirror -  becoming aware of that is what I call a mirror-cle.

Despite my many years of personal growth, I still get stuck - I get carried away on a run-away train of thought, hijacked by my defensive reactions. The big difference now is that mindfulness, my compassionate witness, observes it all and sees how my stuckness originates within me. Standing above the Grand Canyon and observing the twists and turns below, is similar to mindfulness, observing the twists and turns of thoughts and feelings within. It’s pretty much a given that defenses will be activated occasionally, especially in times of stress.

When we arrived at the Grand Canyon I asked Tom to hold my purse, with my jacket draped over it, while I was getting my picture taken with my cousins. My sister Carol saw this and thought, “Isn’t that nice. He’s holding her purse and jacket for her.” Tom has what he calls a Mr. Wonderful persona. When I went to get my purse back from him, my jacket was gone. “Where’s my jacket?” I asked him. “What jacket?” he asked, oblivious to it’s having been draped over the purse. He had lost my jacket! Tom also has a self-acknowledged Mr. Blunderful persona, who, to his dismay, often follows close on the heels of Mr. Wonderful.

I could feel my adrenaline hornets start to swarm as I descended into an emotional ravine, and began turning into the Incredible Sulk. “He lost my favorite jacket!” As I stood at the edge of the Grand Canyon, looking out over the panoramic view, I could clearly see the overview of my inner descent. My internal witness took it all in – the buzzing adrenaline hornets, the huffy wet hen thoughts, the Incredible Sulk, the powerful pull of this physical/emotional hijacking; and in that moment I felt compassion and understanding for myself, for my mother, for all of us who get stuck in our defensive reactions. Like gravity, they are an extremely compelling force. From atop the Grand Canyon I viewed this all unfolding within me…then I took a deep breath, smiled, and took Tom’s hand as we walked along the edge of this vast overview, consciously making the choice to shift from my snitness to my witness. Now that’s a miracle! (p.s. The jacket eventually was found!)

When I feel apart from others, I am learning to remember that I am a part of them and they are a part of me - we are all connected, we are all on a journey together, at a family re-union, here to witness the grand overview, seeing how it all fits together, seeing how we all fit together, and discovering that life is one big mirror-cle.

I’ve written a poem about this:

REFLECTIONS OF ONE

What I think are enemies

are really just the many me’s

projected out identities

for me to see and love.

Some will shout obscenities,

some without amenities,

all seem to be them, not me,

yet all are mine to love.

Mirrors, mirrors all around, 

reflections of myself abound.

What most wants to be loved is found

in what I judge in you.

Loving is the alchemy

that transforms you and me to we,

the mirror-cle that helps me see,

that we are really One.

What is your life reflecting back to you? What is showing up to be faced and embraced? Are you ready for a mirror-cle? 

 In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: family reunion, Grand Canyon, Incredible Sulk, miracle, mirror-cle, mother, One, Williams Arizona

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions – all life is an experiment.” That quote keeps coming to my mind lately as I am faced with changes in my life. I take a deep breath whenever I think of it: “All life is an experiment.” – “Therefore,” I tell myself, “relax, accept change, be willing to take risks and make mistakes for the sake of living your fullest life.”

When I was a young girl in grade school a teacher once wrote on my report card, “Janet will one day learn that it’s a waste of time to worry so much about making a mistake.” It was about the same time that I was taking sailing lessons at the Mystic seaport. The other kids would be sailing all around me on the Mystic River, tilting, capsizing, having great sailing adventures and playing with the wind, while I just sat there, stalled, afraid, playing it safe, unable and unwilling to catch the wind.

The winds of change have been huffing and puffing around me this past year; a ruptured appendix, cancer, and a wind-whipped voracious fire in our mountains have reminded me of the impermanence of this earth life. I feel my soul urging me to fully live my life while I am alive - to let go of the safety, security, and stagnancy of the known and to follow my dream and concentrate on writing. My mind says cynically, “Yeah, right, follow your dream to the poor house!” My mind is like an anchor, resisting the wind, trying to keep me moored in the familiar. But the winds of change are blowing my mind, rocking my boat, and exciting my soul, who is joyously singing “Anchors aweigh!”

Someone recently sent me the story of Phoebe Snetsinger, a 50-year-old woman who was diagnosed with cancer and given a year to live. She decided to forgo treatment and use some inheritance money that she’d received to travel around the world as a birder. She ended up living 18 more years (she died in a van accident) during which time she became legendary in the birder world for having seen and recorded more birds than anyone else in the world. She threw caution to the wind and followed her bliss and it led her to a rich, rewarding life.

Sometimes when our world is blown apart, we are freed from the safety and inertia of the familiar, and are challenged to make changes, take risks, and follow our hearts desire. However, we don’t need our world to be upended in order to do that. For the last two years my husband Tom has been committed to concentrating his time and resources on developing and marketing his ingenious right brain math system (he’s Mister Numbers on youtube with over 60,000 views). He’s excited and tail-wagging happy every day to be living his dream and making a difference in people’s lives. He inspires me to do the same, as does this excerpt from “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living

I want to know what you ache for

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dreams

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life’s betrayals

or have become shriveled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your

fingers and toes

without cautioning us to

be careful

be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

My soul is urging me to take a leap of faith - to open my heart like a parachute and jump into the unknown, trusting the direction the wind is blowing me. I know that many of you have taken great leaps of faith, risking it all for your aliveness. You have inspired me!

Maybe some of you are feeling the urge now to take a leap of faith and follow your heart’s desire? “Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions - All life is an experiment.” Have a wonderful adventure!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: leap of faith, Mister Numbers, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Phoebe Snetsinger, Ralph Waldo Emerson, sailing, winds of change

We are all on a hero’s journey of awakening. We have been entranced by the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, ourselves and each other. Convinced that our stories are true, we are spellbound to only see and experience our life from that limited perspective. It is a great triumph on our hero’s journey to awaken from our trances and discover that we are the authors of our life stories.

One of my prominent story lines used to be “Poor Janet”. I was a captive of and captivated by that story. It was a part of my identity. I received attention and validation for being “Poor Janet”. I remember once when I was about seven, I was at a birthday party and I wasn’t winning any of the games or prizes. I then played a game of my own; I sulked in my best “poor me” demeanor, and the mother hosting the party took the cue and gave me a prize! Though our stories confine us, they also define us and reward us in some way. That’s why we stick to our stories and they stick to us.

For many years, when it came to relationships, I felt the lingering imprint of my “Poor Janet” story, the main theme being, “Nobody wants me. I will always be alone.” There’s a Snoopy cartoon in which Lucy is lamenting, “Nobody loves me.” Snoopy is standing next to her, lips puckered and says, “I love you, sweety.” She doesn’t even see him. She says, “No one cares about me.” He says, “I do, I care about you.” She continues to be oblivious to his presence and says, “Probably no one will ever love me.” Snoopy finally gives up and says, “You’re probably right, sweety.” Like Lucy, I wasn’t able to see love even if it was there because it didn’t fit my story.

Eventually the pain and boredom of my story awakened me from my trance and I saw how I was perpetuating it. I was then ready to create a new story. I had a breakthrough moment during the first week I met Tom, almost exactly ten years ago. He was at my house and we were massaging each other’s feet and I was in oxytocin heaven, and thought, “I’d like to have this in my life long term.” A Bonnie Rait song began playing and I was singing along with it, “I can’t make you love me if you don’t.” That song activated the neural pathways of my sad old story – “I will always be alone. He won’t want me. I can’t have this.” I caught myself slipping into the sweet melancholy of that story, and I stopped and thought, “Wait a minute - why can’t I have this? It’s just habit programming. I’m just as lovable as the next person. I can have this!” In that moment I had a clear awareness that this was MY movie; I’m the star, director, casting agent, and writer of my movie – I can chose to do a conscious rewrite!

I decided to change my story. I once read that Barbara Streisand said early in her career, “I have decided to be beautiful.” I decided to be loved! I backed that decision up with actions that eventually helped to completely revise my story line. Now, ten years later, I’m continuing to share regular oxytocin moments with my husband Tom.

I find that old neural pathways and story lines can be re-stimulated in times of stress. This past year “Poor Janet” (and the fear and sadness that fuel her) has been tugging at me, saying, “First my appendix burst, then cancer, then a hysterectomy, then fires blazed through the Santa Barbara mountains, and now my beloved cat is dying! What a horrible year!” Or, as Queen Elizabeth once said, it’s been “an Annus Horribilis”.

This year has challenged my sense of safety. It has confronted me with the fact that anything can happen. Anything. I really don’t have control. A hot sundowner wind can suddenly appear and whip up a fire that burns scars into the beautiful mountains and peoples lives; cancer can scar and take away parts of my body, or even my life. Fear asks, “What if my story turns out to be a tragedy after all?”

Fortunately I have a larger part of me now that keeps me from being seduced into that old trance; I know that our stories are shaped by how we choose to interpret what happens. Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl said, “The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” My choice now is to bring compassion and loving presence to Whatever is happening. Compassion is a great awakener and unifier. Bringing compassion and loving presence to “Poor Janet” (or any other trance state) whenever she shows up comforts and calms her and integrates her into the whole of me.

From this vantage point I can see that the events of my life this year have created an ‘emerge and see’ situation; I am emerging to a higher perspective and seeing clearly what I want to do in my life: to align with my souls purpose, to be fully present here and now, and to reinforce the awareness that love is the answer - loving what is, loving all my feelings about what is, loving myself for not loving what is. It’s all about love. That’s my story. It’s a Love Story.

What’s your story? Is it a tragedy? A comedy? A love story? A story of despair? A story of triumph? Are you in an “emerge and see” situation? Once we awaken from our trances and see that we are the authors of our stories, we can create a new story. Here’s to living Happily Awake Ever After!

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: annus horribilus, awaken, emerge and see, hero's journey, Love story, poor me, stories, trances, Victor Frankl

Eckhart Tolle has said that he’s known three Zen masters in his life and all of them were cats.  My Zen master, Zeena, is teaching me valuable life lessons. One of the most important things I’m learning is to Be simple and to Simply be, to feel my feet on the ground and be fully present.  

Buddha said, “Be where you are, otherwise you will miss your life.” It’s easy to go unconscious and sleepwalk through our life, therefore, it’s important to have reminders that wake us up. In the novel “Island”, by Aldous Huxley, the mynah birds on the island are taught to say “Attention, Here and Now, Here and Now.” Zeena does this for me; sometimes I’ll be lost in watching some TV show and Zeena will jump on my lap and say, “Neow Neow Neow.”

She’s teaching me that Now is all there is. Whether you’re chasing a mouse or chasing a dream, be fully present with it. It doesn’t matter what your dream is and it doesn’t matter what you do; all that really matters is that you be fully where you are while you’re doing it. A cat isn’t concerned about yesterday or tomorrow. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, right now is a gift, that’s why they call it the present. I invite all of us to open our present like a cat does. A cat enjoys all that there is about the present; the present is something to fully savor with all our senses.

I’m also learning from my cat that we are purrfect just the way we are. I’m learning to fully allow, accept, and welcome All of who I am. Like Zeena, I can sometimes be persnickety, and have been known to throw the occasional hissy fit. But like Zeena, I’m learning to accept myself just as I am. Carl Jung said, “I’d rather be whole than good.” I bet Carl Jung had a cat. A cat doesn’t judge and criticize itself and try to be good. A cat doesn’t think, “I really need to be more loving.” Or, “I shouldn’t be napping now, I should be doing something, I should be accomplishing something.” Or, “I really shouldn’t use my human as a trampoline when she’s trying to sleep.” No, a cat allows ALL of its catness. A cat is a cat and that’s that.

I was getting ready to go to a party one day and I was feeling nervous about it. I feel uncomfortable at parties sometimes. I worry about what to do or say. I feel a bit like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. As I was worrying about this, I looked at Zeena, and these words came to me: “There’s nothing I have to do today, there’s nothing I have to do or say, just be in the Now all the way, that’s all I have to do today.  Breathe in. Breathe out. That’s all I have to do.” I love those words. They’re very soothing to me.

While driving to the party I shared those words with my husband Tom, and our friend Nicola Gordon, a singer and songwriter from Santa Barbara. She loved those words too and said, “Let’s turn them into a song!” And we did! We put the words to the tune of  “The Ants go Marching One by One”.  We call it the Now song. This song has become a great reminder to me and my friends to breathe and come into the Now whenever we feel stressed or pressured. It’s also a great reminder, just like Zeena is, that we are enough, we are purrfect just the way we are.

(This part was written a week ago)

I am laying on my back and Zeena is laying on my chest. We are looking into each other’s eyes. She is very sick; her liver is failing. She is so still. I pet her, and she softly purrs. “I’m so sorry sweetheart that this is happening. I’m so sorry you are hurting.” I realize I’m saying this to myself, as well as to her.

As we lay heart to heart, I imagine pink light radiating from my heart to hers, flooding her whole body in pink light, trying to change her yellow jaundiced skin to pink. Maybe I will suddenly be endowed with healing power and a miracle will happen and she will survive, proving the vet wrong.

We hold each other in our silent gaze. We lay together in the warmth of loving presence for a long time, heart to heart, eye to eye, soul to soul. As I look at her, my mind starts to wonder, “How will it be without her?” It is hard to imagine her not being here. I will miss so much her sweet meow, her bunny-soft fur, how she runs to me for safety when her brother Bo is chasing her, how she lets me hold her like a baby, how she nestles into Tom’s armpit when he’s laying next to me, how she licks us with sweet kitty kisses and we joke, “Zeena can’t hold her licker.” Tears slowly roll down my face.

As I wipe my tears, I look at her - she is still here. Right now, she is here. She is laying on my chest. She is looking into my eyes. She is breathing in and breathing out with me in this warm, intimate moment, in this sweet, timeless space. This moment is all that there is. She is here now, and, so am I.

Is there something that life is asking you to come into loving presence with? Breathe in. Breathe out. Now…Here…This. Right Now is all there is.

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Aldous Huxley, cats, Eckhart Tolle, present moment, The Power of Now

What if you thought that you might only have a short time to live? What would you be doing with your life? Where would your focus be?  Ever since my cancer diagnosis, I’ve been asking myself these questions. I saw my doctor a few weeks ago for a post hysterectomy check up and he told me that because there was a medium risk for my uterine cancer to recur somewhere else in my body, he recommended doing both chemo and radiation.

I am choosing to do neither of them. It doesn’t make sense to me at this time to do something so debilitating to my immune system when we don’t even know if there is any cancer left. What I am choosing to do instead is to continue with my strict diet, AND…to radiate myself on a daily basis with the healing energy of love! My soul lights up at the thought, saying, “Yes!” Cultivating the energy of love in my life is the work I have been doing for years. It is what laid the groundwork for a wonderful, incredibly loving man to show up who matched that vibration (that would be my husband, the wondrous Tom). It is a law: if you build the energy of love, love will come. Now I have the motivation to turn up the volume on that.

Love has healing power. I’m not referring to romantic love; it is more powerful and permanent than that. Love is a state of connectedness, wholeness, union, and harmony with all that is.  In the book “Healing with Love”, Dr. Leonard Laskow writes, “Love stimulates healing by relating us to the natural order and harmony inherent in our cells, in our selves, and in universal consciousness. Healing through love is a process of becoming whole.”

Even though I feel a strong intention to focus throughout my day on love, I know that inspiration wanes and, like weeds, fears can take over; I tend to be a worrier. Fortunately, I am also a warrior. My spiritual warrior is very practical and has prompted me to implement daily practices that help plant me securely in the energy field of love. I want to share with you some of these practices.

1. LOVING SELF-TALK. I come into union with myself by loving my feelings as if they are my children, treating them like a mother would treat a beloved child. I bring loving attention to them, call them “honey” and “sweetheart”, talk to them in an accepting way, and allow them to express themselves. Once our feelings are fully seen, allowed and experienced, we expand into our full flowing aliveness.

2. THE WORD ‘LOVE’.  I lace my day with the word ‘love’. Just saying or writing the word ‘love’ effects our cells. In Masaru Emoto’s book, The Hidden Messages in Water, he tells about how the effect of words on water molecules revealed that positive words like ‘love’ created harmonious patterns in water molecules, and negative words created disharmonious patterns. Since we are largely made up of water, it makes sense that the words we say to ourselves and each other have a powerful effect on us.

3. VISUAL REMINDERS OF LOVE.  I put a picture of myself as a child where I can see it everyday. I look into that child’s eyes, I see her beautiful soul, and say, “Hello sweet girl. I love you.” My teenage niece told me recently that she had been making some decisions that were emotionally hurtful to herself. Then she saw a picture of herself as a little girl and she realized, “I’m hurting that little girl.” That helped her to feel compassion for herself and make more loving decisions.

4. ACTIVATE YOUR HEART CHAKRA.  HeartMath Institute has created a simple 3-step formula that stimulates the energy of love in your body: First, focus on your heart. Next, breathe through your heart. Finally, generate the feeling of love in your heart by imagining someone or something you love; or imagine bathing your heart in warm pink light, the color of the heart chakra. I have an Emwave device from HeartMath that gives bio-feedback and helps me know when I am in that state (the light turns green when I’m in ‘love’, and red when I am not).

5. NATURE LOVER. I take daily love-generating walks communing and harmonizing with nature. On a recent walk I was inspired to write this poem, celebrating our ‘love affair’:

NATURE IS MY LOVER

The sun warmly kisses my face.

The ground holds me in earthy embrace.

The wind playfully tussles my hair.

The gift of flowers scents the air.

My lover gives me lots of space.

And let’s me move at my own pace.

Though some would say there’s no one there,

I deeply feel this love affair.

Abraham Lincoln said, “It’s not the years in our life that counts, it’s the life in our years.” Ultimately, it’s the love in our moments that truly counts. I think that is what we take with us when we die, how much we have opened our heart, our cells, and our being to love. Even if I were to die a year from now, if I am filled with love, I will have accomplished a huge thing, I would have done what my soul came to do. It’s all about love!

If you thought you might have a short time to live, what would you be focusing on? What generates the energy of love in you?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: alternative healing, chemo, Emwave, gardening, heart chakracancer, HeartMath, hysterectomy, love, nature lover, radiation, self-love

(Written Thursday, May 7)

I look out my window on this dark night and watch in frightened awe the wind-whipped Jesusita fire glowing in terrible beauty for 5 miles across the Santa Barbara mountains. My heart pounds as I see that a portion of it is racing towards us! There are urgent sounds of sirens, helicopters, planes, and a roaring wind; it sounds like war. During the day the winds had died down, and the fire slept (after destroying 75 homes the night before); it seemed we were safe. But the sundowner winds awakened the fire with startling speed into a house-devouring monster that is now spreading out of control. We are on the outside edge of the evacuation zone and are faced with the question, “What do we take with us? What is important? What can we do without?”

I am adrenalized and frantically packing essentials. Then Tom and I stop what we’re doing and look at each other; holding our gaze, he tells me, “Whatever happens, we will be fine.” I take a deep breath; I know what he means. We know how to come fully into the moment, into the here and now, and be in that state of grace where everything works out. That is our “Trust” fund, which we have access to at any time. Even if we were living in a newspaper tent under the freeway, if we are in the moment, in that state of trust, we are safe.

During the course of this fire, flashes of awareness have been coming to me that cancer is like a fire. My cancer is apparently “out”, but the doctor said there is a medium risk of recurrence; there are possible embers that could be whipped into a raging fire again, a body devouring monster, spreading out of my control – like my imagination! Sometimes I am aware of a frantic energy in me, trying to make myself relax; afraid that stress, like the wind, could whip the embers of cancer back to monstrous life. Then I am reminded of my “trust” fund, and I take a deep breath, knowing that I will be fine no matter what happens.

It is now Sunday. Over the last three days the marines landed and saved Santa Barbara! - the marine layer that is, blanketing us all in cool, moist protection. I am letting out a big sigh of relief. Tom and I went to a dance today where people gathered to commune, and share in our mutual experience of having been under siege and having survived. There were people at the dance whose homes had burnt to the ground; they had come to dance their pain of loss and their joy of community and survival. Dancing can be an act of healing ourselves. Animal’s bodies naturally tremble once danger has passed, releasing the energy of the trauma. Dancing is a way to do the same.

I danced my body in rocking, shaking, releasing movements; like a salt shaker, releasing salty sweat and tears as my heart welled with compassion for those who had lost their homes. This spilled over into compassion for all of us who have had great losses in our lives: homes, breasts, uteruses, relationships. Dancing, shaking, releasing stress and deep sadness, moving through the wreckage, rising from the ashes, as passion comes, igniting flames of rebirth and celebration - such is the dance of life.

Fires are a natural part of life. They serve a beneficial purpose. The fires in our personal lives can do the same, but that depends on how we choose to look at things. Perhaps it is no coincidence that last week there was a Buddhist sand painting exhibit here, which was exquisitely detailed and beautiful. On the last day of the exhibit they purposely destroyed it, demonstrating the transitory nature of material life and a letting go of attachment to how things are.

It is freeing to learn how much we can let go of; whether it’s a lost home, relationship, or uterus; we manage to rise from the ashes and recover our passion to recreate our lives. The human spirit has wings, like the phoenix, that carry us to new heights and new life.

Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.” Victor Hugo

What is really important to you? What is it you would take with you if you had to leave your house? What do you want to take with you when you leave this life? I’m taking my “trust” fund!

 In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Buddhist sand paintings, cancer, dancing, fire, impermanence, Jesusita Fire, rising phoenix, sundowner winds, trust

Last night I had a dream that I was at my grandmother Signe’s house with my husband Tom. She wasn’t home. Tom and I were in her bedroom, laying on her bed, talking. I was feeling scared that my grandmother would come home and find us on her bed; I was afraid she might think we had been “doing it”.

Suddenly, I heard her enter the house, walking quickly down the hall towards us. Startled, we guiltily jumped out of bed. I tried to smooth the covers but they got caught on me and instead I pulled them off. Busted! She stood at the doorway looking at us. She was not smiling. I told her, “We weren’t doing anything.” I knew she wouldn’t believe me. I felt a sense of shame, like I was bad and had done something wrong.

My grandmother Signe (long deceased) has been in my consciousness lately; I’ve been writing a story about her and her mother, my great-grandmother, Johanna. The story is focused mainly on Johanna. There is an intriguing family mystery involving her. She came to the United States in 1881 from Sweden, a pretty young girl in her mid twenties, and worked as head laundress at the Vanderbilt mansion in New York. She became pregnant out of wedlock and family rumor has it that the father was possibly one of the Vanderbilt sons. (This has never been confirmed.)

Johanna moved away and gave birth to the baby, my grandmother Signe. She lived in secrecy about who the father was. In those days there was a great stigma about having a child out of wedlock. I’ve been wondering lately, is there a legacy of shame in my family that got passed down either genetically or behaviorally or both? I know that my mother had a shame-based attitude. I have also felt the terrible weight of shame in my life; as a teenager I became deeply depressed and suicidal, feeling that I was bad, and that I would never be loved. Shame is more than the feeling that we’ve done something wrong; it is the feeling that we are something wrong.

As I’m exploring this, I’m wondering if an inherent imprint of shame around sexuality could have been one of the factors in my having uterine cancer? My mother also had uterine cancer. It is not unreasonable to think that blocked energy in a part of our body makes that part susceptible to disease.

Sometimes I imagine that I am helping to heal this ancestral legacy of shame. Maybe the work that my ancestors didn’t finish, I can help finish; as if I am in a relay race, carrying the baton forward. Carl Jung has written about this:  “I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors. It often seems as if there were an impersonal karma within a family which is passed on from parents to children. It has always seemed to me that I had to answer questions which fate had posed to my forefathers, and which had not yet been answered, or as if I had to complete, or perhaps continue, things which previous ages had left unfinished.”

I awoke from a dream 20 years ago with these words resounding in my mind, “All you have to do in your whole life is to love yourself. That is all you have to do.” The shame and deep depression that I’ve felt in my life have galvanized me over the years to focus on learning to love myself, every square inch of me, the inside and the outside, the upside and the downside. I feel like I have made great strides in that direction. In the past I often felt the impulse to hide myself, as if to conceal my imagined ugliness.  I now feel compelled to reveal myself, to be completely open, honest, transparent, and self-accepting.

My great-grandmother Johanna had tremendous strength and courage to sail to a foreign land, to have a child out of wedlock, and to keep and raise that child. I like to think that strength and courage are also part of our family heritage. Two psychics have told me that my grandfather Charles (Signe’s husband) is nearby and is sending me love.  It is comforting to think that I am being watched over. As I carry the baton forward, facing, revealing, and loving all of who I am, I imagine my ancestors cheering me on from the sidelines.

Do you have a family legacy?  How is your amazing relay race going?

 In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: Carl Jung, courage, family heritage, family legacy, shame, uterine cancer

I’m lying on my back and my cat Zeena is circling me; she wants to lay on my soft warm belly, as she usually does. “No.” I say. I am guarding my belly; it is still sore from the hysterectomy, and vulnerable. I protect it like a mama bear protecting her cub from a mountain lion.

This girding of my belly is a familiar thing. I am often aware of a clenching tension in my belly. It makes sense to me that this stress would impede the flow of blood, oxygen, and chi, leaving me susceptible to health problems in that area.

I tell this to Tom and he says, “You use the word stress a lot. What do you mean by it?” “Hmm, good question.” I tune into the feeling of stress. “It is really fear.” “What do you mean by fear?” he asked. I close my eyes and feel into it more deeply. What I experience is that I am breathing shallowly and my belly is tight, contracted, armored, as if resisting. I see that it’s all about protection. It is the opposite of trust.

I love to watch my cat Zeena and her brother Bo lying on their backs like rag dolls, legs outstretched, stomachs exposed, completely open and trusting. They have come a long way from being the fearful feral kittens that we discovered on our porch four years ago. Back then I would watch them through the screen door, but as soon as I opened the door they would bolt. I longed for them to trust me. I talked to them through the screen in a soft, reassuring voice, “You are safe little kitties. You can trust me.” I like to imagine that it’s much like my angels and guides, watching me from the other side of a screen, telling me, “You are safe, dear one. You are loved. Trust. Trust.”

My cats are my gurus, showing me how to bare my belly, surrendering, trusting, fully open to life. Stephen Levine talks about softening the belly as a way of healing ourselves. “We store fear and disappointment, anger and guilt in our gut. Our belly has become fossilized with a long resistance to life and to loss. Each withdrawal, each attempt to numb our grief, turns the belly to stone. Have mercy on this pain you have carried for so long, the pain that sometimes makes you want to jump out of your body.”

He advocates softening our belly by bringing loving attention to it. He says, “As we soften around the sensations and gradually move into them, they melt at the edge. It’s not opposing the hardness but rather meeting it with soft mercy, knowing that we cannot let go of anything we do not accept.”

I have begun talking to my belly the same way I talked to the fearful feral kitties on the other side of the screen, the same way I imagine my higher self is talking to me: “I love you. You can trust me. You can let go. You are safe. I will take good care of you.” As a result, my belly softens, my heart softens, my throat relaxes, and my mind quiets. The belly is control central; once it is soft, the whole system softens and relaxes, and breath comes easily.

I’ve been listening for the voice of my higher self talking to me through the screen. I recently had the thought that if I knew I was going to die soon, I would walk in nature every day. Instantly a voice came to me, saying, “Do it now.” I am now walking in nature every day, breathing through my soft, trusting belly, listening to the sweet whispers of my higher self, “You are loved. You are safe.”

Do you hear the voice of your higher self talking to you through the screen door? What is it saying to you?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Tags: cat guru, higher self, nature, newsletter, soft belly, Stephen Levine stress, trust

A frumpy, middle-aged woman with bushy caterpillar eyebrows walked in nervous determination onto the stage. In front of millions of viewers of the TV show, Britain’s Got Talent, she declared that her dream is to be a professional singer. People snickered and rolled their eyes. Then she began to sing in a clear, lilting, beautiful voice. In the audience, people’s jaws dropped, and a spontaneous standing ovation with thunderous applause erupted. Now over 66 million people have been moved, amazed and inspired by Susan Boyle on Youtube. (Click link below to see video.)

I believe that one of the reasons this has touched so many people so profoundly is because deep down inside we know that we have within us our own version of jaw-dropping magnificence. Just like in the story of the Ugly Duckling, our beautiful swan essence exists, waiting to be owned and revealed.

Gay Hendricks says, “We are so busy trying to prove we’re okay, we forget that we’re magnificent.” I believe that, like the Ugly Duckling, we are all on a hero’s journey to discover our inherent magnificence. One of the challenges on our journey is that we misidentify ourselves as the Ugly Duckling and get lost in that image and stuck in that story. When we try to break free and be more than that, a critical inner voice berates us, saying, “Who do you think you are?” Yet there is a higher voice within urging us to remember, “Who do you KNOW you are?”

Sometimes a life challenge (such as a divorce, an illness, or a great loss) comes along to wake us up and help us remember who we really are. When first confronted with adversity, it can seem that life has turned on us; but we eventually find instead that it has turned us On! It has turned on the big, bright, luminous light of our soul, igniting our courage, strength, and special abilities, reminding us that, like Susan Boyle, there is so much more to us than meets the eye.

I had planted a seed years ago that in my 60’s I would be optimally healthy. I would be slender. I would be writing. I would be deeply connected with my spirit. Yet as the big 6-0 was just months away I found myself thirty pounds overweight and cozily nestled into the comfort of the familiar. I needed something to jolt me into a strong resolve for this life transformation, and I got it! (Life is so accommodating!)

As a result of my appendicitis and uterine cancer, something remarkable has happened…I saw something today that I haven’t seen in years… my jaw line! When my appendicitis struck 9 months ago I completely lost my appetite! I ate very lightly for three months and lost 23 pounds! When the possibility of uterine cancer entered the scene a few months ago I changed my diet even more, eating mostly raw foods, drinking wheat grass everyday, and cutting out all dairy and sugar. I lost 7 more pounds.

The seed I had planted prior to turning 60 is now in full bloom: I feel more vibrantly healthy and alive than I have ever felt. I am loving my body (including my new scars, which I see as badges of courage). I am deeply connected with my spirit. And I am writing and sharing about it all in these newsletters (with two books in the works)!

My jaw drops as I see that this frumpy, complacent, middle-aged woman that I was just nine months ago has transformed into my Magnificent Kick-Ass Big Soul Self, doing the soul work that I came here to do!

Who do you KNOW you are? Have you owned and revealed your jaw-dropping magnificence?

In Love,

Jan Jacobsen

Watch video of singing sensation Susan Boyle (47-years-old)

Tags: appendicitis, cancer, inspiration, life challenge, middle-age, optimal health, soul, spirit, Susan Boyle, Swan, Ugly Duckling, weight loss