Marian Buck Murray

Release, Relax, Tap into Your Brilliance. EFT Tapping to help you unleash your creative genius.

Stay With Yourself — Be Here Now

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I just got back from a beautiful week at the Omega Institute, assisting Dawson Church with the EFT Practitioner Training program.  Throughout the week, we helped participants transform limiting feelings and beliefs with both EFT Tapping and meditation.  It was a transformative, and in many ways miraculous, week for us all.

What became so clear to me (once again), is the importance of accepting all feelings, no matter how uncomfortable.  It’s in the acceptance of these feelings, that we are able to transform our experience.

In this world of ours, so often it’s the striving that takes front seat. How, for example, will we succeed if we don’t strive for more?  And more? And more? And so often, once we get ‘more’, we don’t feel the success we imagined.

The problem with striving is that we’re frequently propelled by a feeling that we’re not enough, or complete, without whatever it is we’re striving for.  You know the refrain:  I’ll be happy when___________. 

The underlying feeling of inadequacy will follow us, until we find a way to stay with it long enough to transform it.

To stay with yourself, to be here now, means to be present with whatever is going on.  Not off in the future, hoping for something better.  Not back in the past, wishing things were different.  Here now, whether it’s comfortable, or not.

It’s when we avoid the now-moment that we lose power.  That we abandon ourselves.  Unfortunately, by avoiding our feelings with substances and experiences, we will never feel better about ourselves.

True transformation happens when we accept ourselves exactly as we are, exactly where we are, right now.

Easy to say, and usually, not so easy to do.  Yet, it gets easier once you begin to realize how truly powerful you are.

Next time you find yourself avoiding, whether it’s with food, internet, tv, shopping, alcohol, or any other type of escape, ask yourself what you’re avoiding. Be gentle with yourself.  Pause and notice what you’re feeling.  If you can, stay with yourself.

Stay with yourself, through thick and thin.  Stay at the time when you need yourself the most.  Stay to reveal the truth of who you are.

Ideas to help you stay:

  1. Sit, close your eyes, and notice what you feel.  Don’t push anything away.  Just sit.  Don’t worry if you don’t feel peaceful or enlightened.  Just sit and notice.  Stay with any discomfort.

  2. Breathe deeply, from your belly, and notice the flow of your breath. Notice the beat of your heart. Notice this power within you. Know that this power is always with you.

  3. Send love and compassion to any discomfort you feel. Any and all discomfort is worthy of your love and compassion.  If you can’t summon feelings of love and compassion, that’s okay too.  Stay with what you are feeling. Notice any insights that arise.

  4. Use EFT Tapping to tap on your feelings. Accept them, and if they’re ready, allow them to release. For information on how to use EFT Tapping, click here.

  5. Connect with your higher consciousness.  Use meditation to tune into your higher consciousness. Ask it to help you during challenging times.  This added assistance will help you tune into solutions, and relief,  you didn’t see before.

For most of us, it’s not possible to stay present at all times.  Escapes can be pleasurable and sometimes necessary.  And, we can choose to stay present with any escape.  However, when escapes turn into chronic avoidance, we will always experience more pain.  We can’t maintain the bliss of the escape, so we fall into a funk, or look for new ways to escape.

The key to all of this is to stay.  Stay with the discomfort, with love and acceptance, so that it can begin to transform. By being here now, we find the true bliss of a clear mind and soul, as we open to the gifts of the universe.

Peace,

Marian

Do you need help transforming your discomfort? contact me.

Your True Value

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Recently I went to the store to buy a large pad of paper.  My collage teacher had told me that I needed larger paper to allow for ample white space for my ongoing collage work.  She says the white space will give my collages the value, and respect, they deserve.

So, thinking I knew exactly what I needed, I eagerly went off to my favorite art store.  Once there, however, I realized I hadn’t checked the dimensions of the paper I had been using.  I couldn’t seem to find a pad which looked like the next size larger.  So, I purchased a pad which was obviously larger, even though it seemed too big.

Once home, I immediately realized the paper was far too big.  Knowing I needed the dimensions of the original pad, I peeked inside the bag where I store my collage materials.  And, there, in plain sight, were the dimensions printed on the lower corner of pad’s cover.

If only I had taken one extra second to check in ….

So, feeling eager, dimensions in hand,  I set out the next day to purchase the ‘right’ pad of paper.  This time I found a pad which seemed to be the proper size. Strangely, though, something didn’t seem quite right.  I couldn’t put my finger on it.  So, I purchased the pad, and went home, excited to finally have what I needed.  Or so I thought…

You guessed it.  Once home, to my great chagrin, and embarrassment, I realized I had AGAIN purchased the wrong paper.

This time, though, as I pulled the original pad from its storage bag, I realized my mistake. Instead of 140-pound paper (which I had purchased the first time around) I had twice purchased paper that was only 98 pounds.  I purchased Mixed Media paper instead of Watercolor.  The wrong value, wrong quality, for the work I was creating.

UGH!!!

Feeling so disappointed in myself, I knew I needed to shift out of my foul mood.  I also knew that my inner critic was running wild and needed some loving attention.

So I meditated.  And during my meditation,  I hugged my inner critic with love and compassion.

I saw that in my eagerness, my playful glee, I had gone to the store without taking time to see what I truly needed.  In other words, I had forgotten to check in.  A common error, and one I could forgive.

What I saw next was even more important.  In forgiving myself, I saw what I had truly missed. I had missed the original value, or weight, of the paper. 

So, I went for the bigger, cheaper versions,  neither of which worked.

And, isn’t that what we’re always doing?  Forgetting our value, and looking outside of ourselves for bigger, cheaper versions of ourselves? Versions that will never align with who we truly are?

The facades we wear.  The secrets we keep to avoid exposure.  The criticisms we take to heart.  After a while, we forget who we are.  We forget how valuable we are.  And the more we forget, the farther away we go.

Two pads of paper.  Both wrong, because I failed to check in to see what was right for me.  Wrong because I hadn’t appreciated the value of the original pad.

The white space surrounding my collage helps me see it’s true value.  Stepping out of our busy minds, checking in with ourselves, helps us create the space to see our own.

If you need to  get in touch with your true value, contact me.  I can help.

Peaceful Blessings,

Marian