So I’m talking to one of the members of my Practitioners
Circle when the discussion moved to working with animal totems. She is fairly
new to the craft, having just begun to explore where her metaphysical abilities
and interests might lie. And, as with all of us just starting out, she’s been using
the internet to “enhance” her exploration. Not surprisingly, she’s quickly become
overwhelmed with the staggering volume of information – books, webinars,
classes, seminars, newsletters, workshops, blogs – that is available to her,
all of which is fascinating and compelling but also – well – overwhelming.
Not so many years ago, it was not so – it was very hard to
gather information from other metaphysical professionals. We wandered through
bookstores looking for the “New Age” section, we culled the library card
catalogs for topics like “ESP” or
“Casey, Edgar.” Now, a cell phone and access to the internet puts EVERYTHING
right at our fingertips.
Which brings us to that sense of being overwhelmed.
In an article titled, “Overcoming Information Overload,” Information
is merely a click — or, more accurately, a Google search — away. Depending on
your query, there’s likely at least a dozen, if not hundreds, of blogs on the
topic, a similar number of books and many more articles. One bit of information
leads to five facts, which leads to three articles, which leads to an
interesting interview you must listen to right now, which leads to 10 pages in
your browser. Every clue leads to another. Every clue uncovered is a prize in
itself: learning something new and interesting and getting one step closer to
the carrot (such as the answer to your original question). This is a good
thing, but it also can overburden our brains.”
Okay, so we have overburdened brains. So what?
According to Lucy Jo
Palladino, Ph.D, a psychologist and author of Find Your Focus Zone: An Effective
New Plan to Defeat Distraction and Overload, “Information
overload occurs when a person is exposed to more information than the brain can
process at one time.” Information or cognitive overload can lead to
indecisiveness, bad decisions and stress, Palladino said. Indecisiveness or
analysis paralysis occurs when you’re “overwhelmed by too many choices, your
brain mildly freezes and by default, [and] you passively wait and see.” Or you
make a hasty decision because vital facts get wedged between trivial ones, and
you consider credible and non-credible sources equally, she said.
So, back to the discussion with my friend. With just a hint
of despair in her voice, she remarked, “If I come across just one more class
that I need to sign up for or one more book I’m supposed to read, I’m going to
cry. Just the other day, I was watching a webinar that mentioned working with
animal totems, and there was a link to a workshop that will show you how to
recognize and work with your totems. Great, I thought, another class that takes
time and that I can’t afford so I guess I’ll just have to wait on figuring out
how to identify my animal totems until I can take the class. I want to make sure that I’m doing it
right.”
Hang on – did you just say, “doing it right?”
Now flash back to just two days before this discussion. This
same Circle member, who is also a co-worker, asked if I could come to her
cubicle. When I get there, she whispers with just a hint of
okay-this-is-really-icky in her voice, “There’s a bug in my cubicle,” and she
points to a rather large insect that looks like some kind of beetle. Now, keep
in mind that we work in a typical office environment – no open windows, no
doors to the outside, few live plants – so the chances of even so much as a fly
getting in are remote, let alone a some kind of big, icky beetle.
Then in equally hushed tones, she says, “You know what’s
weird about this?” (As if seeing a beetle in her cubicle isn’t weird enough).
“I saw this very same bug while I was getting my therapeutic massage a couple
of days ago. It was inside the room with us. Do you think it could be a
message?”
So now fast forward to this chat with my co-worker, who is
honestly concerned about not having the time or the money to take a workshop on
how to identify her own animal totems, and therefore, won’t be able to work
with them.
So I asked her, “Remember the beetle in your cubicle? Why do
you think you need to sign up for a class when it’s obvious that this beetle
bug – icky or not – has made itself known to you already?” She looked puzzled.
Then I said, “Okay, so let’s look at this another way. Is
there an animal that just resonates with you, that whenever you see it, you get
a warm, fuzzy feeling?”
Without hesitating, she replied, “Oh yeah, when I was
little, I had posters of lions all over my room. And whenever I go to the zoo,
the first place I want to visit is the lion exhibit. And, I’ve always wanted to
go to Africa to actually see lions. Plus, one of my favorite movies is” – wait
for it, I think to myself – “The Lion King.”
“Then,” I said (trying hard not to have the merest hint of
“are you joking” come into my voice), “Is it possible – just maybe –that Lion
might be your animal totem? And that the beetle is here as your own personal
messenger?
She looked a little
sheepish at this point, and then she replied, “I didn’t think it would be that simple.”
Of course it can. And it should be that simple. It’s supposed
to be that simple.
This experience with my co-worker comes up all the time for
me, and one that we, as Practitioners, need to consider carefully when working
with others. Metaphysical professionals see this all the time – an assumption
on the part of the student that the way to enlightenment requires not only
exploring all of the tools but using them all as well in order to ensure they
do it the “right” way.
But if we believe that enlightenment cannot be achieved
without using all of the tools available, and, moreover, classes and workshops
are the only means by which we learn to use these tools, then the tools become
a trap. Which for most of us means that instead of trusting ourselves to know what
is in our best and highest interest, we “passively wait and see.”
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for asking for guidance when I
need guidance. I sign up for classes, buy books, meet with my psychic mentor
regularly. There are times when we need help from someone else who is further
along the path, who has experience and wisdom and knowledge and tools that we
need so that we may improve our own abilities in order to better assist, heal,
and guide others.
But, for me, a critical component of practicing my craft is
helping others recognize their OWN abilities, to trust their intuition, to
carve out for themselves the path through the wilderness that is our time here
on Earth.
You know the saying, KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid. I use
the KISS concept in my practice as well – but I define it as Keep It Simple,
Spiritually. My practice is aimed at helping my clients empower themselves,
giving them the tools they need to find their own way. And sometimes
it’s as simple as helping them see what is obvious – not just to me as the
Practitioner, but to them as well.
Here’s why I know this to be true.
When I first started exploring my own abilities, I, too,
came across the concept of working with animal totems. And I, too, despaired of
trying to figure this out in the “right” way. I thought, “Okay, I guess I’m
supposed to meditate “really hard” until my animal totem reveals itself. Or
maybe there’s a book I might be able to find that explains how I’m “supposed”
to do this.” So I meditated “really hard” – come on, animal totem, where are
you, ohm, ohm, ohm – and I saw lots of different animals but only because I
wanted to and only because I thought it would be dandy if some really “cool”
animal appeared to me, like Eagle (majestic) or Wolf (free-spirited and
mystical) or even Lion. But I instinctively – dare I say, intuitively – knew
that I was trying too hard, that I was mostly just making this up.
Then one day when I was cleaning my house, I found myself in
my Rabbit Room.
That’s right, you heard me -- my Rabbit Room.
I have a bedroom decorated with all of my rabbit memorabilia
and artwork. And I have all of this rabbit memorabilia and artwork because for
as long as I can remember, I have been completely mesmerized by all things
bunny. If I went to a County Fair or petting zoo, I always made a beeline for
the rabbit cages. If I saw a rabbit in the front yard, I would stop and watch
it (still do, in fact). Over the years, I’ve collected rabbit statues, rabbit
jewelry, and even rabbit cutlery, and people have given me paintings of
rabbits. And, as part of my character that I play in historical reenactments,
my symbol has always been the rabbit. I even travel with a stuffed bunny in my
suitcase, who goes everywhere with me and has his own section on my Facebook
page where he chronicles his travel adventures.
So standing in the middle of this room, it finally dawned on
me – gee, could my animal totem actually be Rabbit? And even more importantly,
could it actually be that simple?
In his now-classic book, “What Color is Your Parachute,”
Richard Nelson Bolles makes this observation: “Your heart
knows the places that it loves. Your mind knows the subjects that it loves.
Your body knows the workout that it loves. Your soul knows the values that it
loves. Therefore, my friend, what a “dream job” is all about (beyond skills) is
identifying these favorite geographies, defining for yourself the places that
your skills, your soul, and your body, heart, and mind, most often yearn to
be.”
My work as a
metaphysical practitioner is about helping people find the courage to listen to
the truest part of themselves-- their “favorite
geographies” – in order to
discover what speaks to the deepest part of their nature and to move forward from where they
are to where they want to be.
In her book, This Time
I Dance, Tama Kieves relates a dream she had: “You were meant to write
books,” sighed the angel in the fantasy, running the movie. She bowed her head,
as her feathers shuddered with my cosmic shock and loss. . . The angel in the
after-death fantasy was the ghost that plagued my days. I did know. I did know. I did know.”
Surely, the most credible vital facts are what we know at
the soul level about ourselves. And I think we all know our truths, our own
credible vital facts.
A student once asked his teacher, "Master, what is
enlightenment?" The master replied, "When hungry, eat. When tired,
sleep." (Pierre Teilhard De Chardin).
Let me add one more to the list: When seeking your truth, try
looking in your Rabbit Room.
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