Your Fall 2019 Prescription for Maximizing Wellbeing: The Witnessing Protection Program and the Post-Traumatic Soul Growth Protocol
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WORK/PLAY VARIATIONS Joan Pancoe
“The entire world is my true personality.”
Anonymous Zen Master
Dear One,
It’s certainly heating up on the planet, in many more ways than one. Consequently, it’s essential that we choose to take some breaks from the incoming and, at times, alarming data bombarding us from the 24-7 news cycle so that our heads don’t explode. For, if we find ourselves continuously filled with stress, tension and anxiety from this assault, which is unparalleled in human history then, sooner or later, all this negative energy will make us sick.
Therefore, it behooves us to choose to place our wellbeing first for, otherwise, how can we be of service to others and the planet?
In the old days of the 20th century, I would advise clients with news-related angst to “back away from the remote.” But these days, the number of clients coming to me with serious karmic PTSD arising is reaching epidemic proportions. And one of the triggers is from absorbing too much fear-based social media news—fake or otherwise.
As the brilliant neurologist, Oliver Sacks said:
“Younger people, who have grown up in the social media era, have no immunity to the seductions of digital life. What we are seeing—and bringing on ourselves—resembles a catastrophe on a gigantic scale.”
Instead of feeding our addiction to various newsfeeds hourly, it would be much more conducive to our wellbeing and that of all beings if we chose to spend more of our time cultivating peace and equanimity through daily spiritual practices. This could be whatever helps quiet our mind: reading spiritual books, sitting meditation, chi gung, yoga, or even walking mindfully in nature and focusing on our breath as we ground ourselves to the earth.
Also challenging our ability to stay internally calm and stable are the ongoing, continuously accelerating frequencies of planetary, cosmic and galactic energies which I call the Quickening. These downloads are a gift for mankind to help raise our vibration and shake us up to wake us up.
In addition, it’s important to remember that our souls all chose to incarnate in the specific circumstances—personally and en mass—that we are now in as perfect vehicles to maximize our karmic healing and soul growth. So, just because we’re in a period in human history called the Kali Yuga or Dark Ages, spiritually speaking, continuously questioning “Why me?” and “Why now?” is, in the end, a waste of energy and a disempowering distraction.
To make the best use of our time here, it would be most effective if we regard the Quickening as a synergistic offering from the Universe to exponentially speed up our conscious evolution so as to allow us to ride the wave of this Dark Age, rather than be inundated by it.
Then we can choose to view Life as the ultimate guru who is relentlessly pushing at us to make us stronger as a form of spiritual resistance training through what I call FGOs (f**kin growth opportunities).
The higher frequency of the Quickening may feel like a gift in a distressing disguise as, until we are fully acclimated to these energies, they are causing our nervous systems, psychic circuitry and internal operating systems to vibrate at an unprecedented velocity which can, at times, be uncomfortable, exhausting and, at the very least, necessitating of daily grounding practices.
These sizzling energies can also cause or exacerbate many symptoms, mostly called idiopathic in western medicine, and which I call the “Cosmic Flu.” As we’re getting rewired to handle this new mega-voltage running through us, we need to give ourselves permission for daily naps and more downtime than ever before.
Nevertheless, as this is, without doubt, our new normal, we might as well surrender to What Is, and get on with the show! For much more, please read:
Greatest Hits of the Kali Yuga
2019 COMING ATTRACTIONS: How to Be in Paradise During a Cosmic Flu Pandemic
My psychic read on how best to, not just survive, but thrive during these times of increasing chaos in the Earth Game is to cultivate being in what I call: “The Witnessing Protection Program.” The foundation-level attitude adjustment that is required to move into this witnessing mode is to accept the reality that everyone on the planet is mentally ill; it’s just a question of degree.
As Mark Twain said:
“When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.”
My definition of sanity is based on one’s ability to maintain one’s primary identity from the witnessing perspective of the higher self or soul with a wide-open channel to being nourished by Source, the Divine or the Tao as our main food supply.
This means being able to see objectively beyond duality and judgment to the bigger picture of unity consciousness in which we’re all one Being with billions of faces, each playing out our karma through cycles of incarnations in the earth plane.
In the most ancient spiritual tradition of India, Vedanta, this infinite process of soul evolution is called Leela, Divine Play, or what I like to call: Cosmic Hide and Seek. For more on this, please read: LEELA
Based on this definition of mental health, all forms of religious fundamentalism, nationalism, racism, and misogyny that pit us against each other are quite high up on the scale of mental illness as they are fear-based, reactionary survival mechanisms arising from frantic egoism and ignorance of our true nature. This means that the mass consciousness has “a l-o-o-ng way to go, baby” in the getting sane or mentally healthy department.
How do we deal with a world in which we find ourselves surrounded by various forms of madness? I’ve found that the Taoist philosophy of going with the Flow, or Wu Wei, is the most helpful, as it provides an internally peaceful view which naturally allows for a very long-range perspective on the whole Earth Game to permeate our relationship with Life.
Here’s one of my all-time favorite quotes on Wu Wei by Alan Watts:
“When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself, becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. If the cat made up its mind that it didn’t want to fall, it would become tense and rigid and would just be a bag of broken bones upon landing.
“In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all falling out of a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact, the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we are falling and there is nothing we can do to stop it.
“So, instead of living in a state of constant tension and clinging to all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the whole world is impermanent, be like a cat. Don’t resist it.”
The witnessing perspective is the optimal protection from being infected by the tone of the mass consciousness, which is always the lowest common denominator—particularly so now in the Kali Yuga. For, when we do choose to check in on the “news,” we’ll be witnessing more and more chaos, as some who are mentally ill act out life-and-death dramas that trigger pockets of mass hysteria to arise. We can also expect more reports of seemingly “surreal” acting out as if we’re watching an alternate universe or twilight zone based on fake news and fear (false evidence appearing real) in certain sectors of the population.
Gandhi said:
“The difference between a crime of evil and a crime of illness is the difference between a sin and a symptom.”
From my perspective, this translates to the reality that “evil,” or dark forces, come from an absence of Light. Therefore, the best use of our energies, as a remedy for healing dark forces and symptoms of mental illness, is to be the Light ourselves and radiate this outward with compassion to all those who are too ill, blocked or encased in darkness to access it yet for themselves.
As the Dalai Lama says:
“From the Buddhist point of view, the Chinese officer who is committing the cruel act against the young boy is initiating a new cycle of negative karma. In the case of the child, there is a closure of a particular karma that the child is experiencing. The perpetrator of the crime is in fact an object of more compassion and mercy than the child.”
It’s also essential for our sanity to become aware that, news cycles to the contrary (as they usually tend to focus on getting our attention through ongoing “train wrecks”), we have already reached the tipping point of over 51% of the consciousness of the human race moving towards the upward cycle of spiritual evolution towards the Light. YAY.
However, to counter too much exuberant, irrational optimism, it’s equally important to keep in mind that it may still take many more millennia for the entire Earth Game to move to the next quantum level of potential for human development.
But it’s still imperative that we not give into despair at the fate of the Earth. The Earth will survive, even if its nature is currently undergoing a Plutonian death cycle, appropriate to the Kali Yuga, before her transformation and rebirth from the ashes. It is the human race who will be reaping the whirlwind of the ongoing mass karmic abuse of the planet. And the probable outcome may be a vast diminishment of our numbers here over the next few centuries. So, it’s good to keep in mind that physical death is absolutely safe:).
For much more on this, please read:
“Owning Our Inner Pluto before . . . It Eats Us for Lunch”
Would you like to know where you stand on a spiritually- based mental health continuum? For a baseline read, check out these spiritual truths and contemplate how self-evident they are to you:
1. All beings are part of one greater divine Being.
2. The Universe is made up of energy and ALL energy is conscious.
3. The gold standard of energy is love in all its forms.
4. Everyone is doing the best they’re capable of, and no one on the personality level chooses to be physically, mentally or emotionally ill.
5. We’re powerless over other people’s karma playing out; therefore, all we can do is take care of our side of the karmic street and set a tone of equanimity in the Flow.
6. Cultivating bodhichitta—i.e., compassion and loving kindness, without judgment for those who are suffering due to illness of body, mind or spirit—is taking the highest road spiritually.
On the above theme, here’s a poem from the witnessing perspective of the Soul:
Sickness
Seeing the sicknesses as the teachers, pray to them.
Sicknesses are coming to you by the kindness of the masters and the Three Jewels.
Sicknesses are your accomplishments, so worship them as the deities.
Sicknesses are the signs that your bad karmas are being exhausted.
Do not look at the face of your sickness, but at the one (the mind) who is sick.
Do not place the sicknesses on your mind, but place your naked, intrinsic awareness upon your sickness.
This is the instruction on sickness arising as the Dharmakaya.
The body is inanimate and mind is emptiness.
What can cause pain to an inanimate thing or harm to the emptiness?
Search for where the sicknesses are coming from, where they go, and where they dwell.
Sicknesses are mere sudden projections of your thoughts.
When those thoughts disappear, the sicknesses dissolve too….
There is no better fuel (than sicknesses) to burn off the bad karmas.
Don’t get into entertaining a sad mind or negative views (over the sicknesses).
But see them as signs of the waning of your bad karmas and rejoice over them.
By Rigdzin Jigme Lingpa (1729–1798)
From Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary by Janet Gyatso (author)
For more: Why is This Happening to Me? Body Karma Explained
As for the other component of the prescription for wellbeing: how do we turn our traumas into vehicles for soul growth?
I wrote about karmic PTSD here:
SUMMER 2019 ECLIPSE ALERT: Shocks to the System Are Triggering Karmic PTSD in Everybody
Firstly, let me reiterate: Everyone in a human incarnation has karmic PTSD and some level of mental illness (unless one is a fully enlightened Being with no return to lesser states). This is part of the karmic package we’re all here to heal through reincarnational cycles in the earth plane.
As the Buddha says in the first noble truth: “Suffering is part of life.” Just so is trauma part of everyday life—sometimes minor traumas and sometimes major ones. That being a given: Those of us dealing with an extraordinary amount of massive trauma in this life are certainly NOT taking this incarnation off in terms of healing karma.
The most important question to ask is: How do we get out of the seemingly endless loop of either thinking/worrying about more trauma coming, experiencing more trauma as a manifestation of our fears, or recovering from the trauma?
This reminds me of what they say in AA and is true for any addiction: We’re either thinking about picking up a drink, having the drink, or recovering from the drink—ad nauseum. And it has occurred to me—after thousands of soul readings—that many of my clients are dealing with an addiction /attachment to pain and suffering as a default karmic identity and are afraid to let it go as: Who would they be without it? Or as the Buddha says: “The root cause of suffering is attachment.”
For those addicted/attached to pain and trauma for identity, the dissolution of the little self into the inner void or emptiness is viewed as a far greater fear than the ones they’re used to. This then generates a continuous recreation of traumatic events, fear of them occurring or recovery from them.
It is human nature to always go for the lesser pain, rather than the clean sharp growing pain of letting go of our attachment/addiction to our default karmic identity. But what comes with choosing the lesser pain is a life of ongoing low-grade chronic suffering over decades or lifetimes.
But, if we choose instead to experience our inner emptiness or inner void as the ground of Being, which is also called the “god hole” then we will find that our suffering becomes truly optional.
There are many spiritual practices that work with how to sit with our inner emptiness and learn how to fill it with Source energy. For, since the inner void is infinite, only something also infinite could ever fill it satisfactorily.
For more: The Nature of Addiction—It’s Only Human
However, no matter how many samskaras (karmic grooves) we have wound into our emotional, mental and psychic bodies, if we choose to unwind, release and dissolve these trauma grooves—the process is not infinite—there IS a bottom to it.
But be aware that the internal resistance on the ego/personality/little self levels to this unwinding is fierce because trauma comes with justifiable anger over our powerlessness. This “rationale” makes excavating each layer of deeper and heavier trauma the most challenging work of this or perhaps any incarnation. But the rewards are maximal soul growth, wellbeing and a new identity that is “antifragile.”
One of my new favorite philosophers, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who reminds me of some of my old favorites, the Stoics, has written about how to become “robust” in the face of the unending trauma of everyday life:
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty.”
For more: ANTIFRAGILE
An easier read than Taleb on the potential growth benefits of overcoming trauma is in Malcolm Gladwell’s book in Part II: The Theory of Desirable Difficulty:
One of the best practices I’ve found for dissolving trauma is Taoist sitting meditation, which I and many of my clients do daily to maintain a relatively stress-free state in the Eternal Now. Standing chi gung is recommended as a foundational practice for grounding the being for the inner dissolving work ahead.
At the bottom of all our fear/anxiety/suffering/trauma samskaras, once we fully unwrap that package, we rediscover our true nature: An awakened state of consciousness, with peace and equanimity in the Flow at its core. For more:
For those of us who are feeling the need to get outside help or guidance to help us heal, it’s important that we don’t completely give away our autonomy and power to so-called authorities, whether they be eastern or western physicians, healers, or spiritual teachers. This includes those with external degrees or validations, as well as those who are self-labeled.
When it comes to the actual truth about doctors, self-described spiritual teachers, and masters or gurus in any tradition, it would be lovely if “First do no harm” was the reality, rather than a seldomly realized ideal.
In western medicine, my observation has been that sometimes there can be as much, if not more, long-term harm done as there has been short term benefits from side-effects of pharmaceutical drugs and procedures which are considered the “standard of care.”
Much of this mixed bag of benefit and harm comes because:
1. We are impatient and desire a “quick fix” to our discomfort, pain or ills.
2. We are unwilling to do the long-term work to heal ourselves over months, years or lifetimes of accruing karma.
3. We actually want to give our power and authority away to “experts” because we really don’t aspire to that level of responsibility for our own fates.
One of the best books on turning our mental, emotional, and physical patterning around is by Joe Dispenza:
We can choose to make ourselves the ultimate authority for our own wellbeing, and this includes taking full responsibility for whom we choose to help, support and assist us by relying on:
1. Our intuition or inner voice from our higher mind and soul.
2. Our instincts which come from the wisdom of our primal nature from all earthly incarnations in any form.
3. A judicious use of our intellect combined with the witnessing capacity of our discriminating higher mind.
In addition, I have worked with dozens of clients over the years who have been damaged from teachings or advice from mind/body instructors, spiritual teachers, masters and gurus.
This includes severe neurological and psychic damage from kundalini practices, especially if done before age 40, or for those not yet fully embodied, such as psychically sensitive souls who are more comfortable in higher dimensions. For these delicate, ungrounded beings, the rising of energies in the central channel is especially contraindicated.
Instead, what they do need to focus on is becoming fully embodied by grounding practices rather than teachings which just help them check out more. The only way out is through the body in a human incarnation.
The worst cases of harm perpetrated by “experts” that I’ve seen has been through techniques which forcibly divert the natural flow of chi or prana through kundalini or Taoist fire-method sexual practices. And these practices are very popular because they give one almost immediate “special effects” and are so well marketed for those who want a quick fix.
However, any techniques which push or pack chi (life force energies) or force the kundalini to rise before it’s naturally ordered evolution, causes harm to the nervous system and psychic circuitry which can become almost irreparably damaged.
I view these forceful energy practices as a misuse of the personal will. For, if we firstly wish to do no harm to ourselves (or others, if we’re a teacher), it is optimal for us to allow Source energy to descend in a natural flow to dissolve blocks on all levels and replenish the chi without undue effort.
So, just because a spiritual teaching is ancient, and the path is a broad highway for seekers, taught by a master or guru, it doesn’t mean that it is necessarily right for you at this time in your development.
I almost called this newsletter: “Who’s in f**kin charge of your wellbeing anyway?” Because, unless we use our intuition, instinct and discriminating mind as the decisive authorities for healing our souls’ magnificent human vessels, but instead turn over this responsibility fully to others, then we are accountable for whom we give our power away to.
So, no matter how high and mighty these spiritual experts’ credentials may appear, we are incurring karma and must take all the blame for harming ourselves for making someone other than our souls in communion with Divine Mind moving through our higher centers be our “higher power” or ultimate authority.
This dynamic of giving away our power to heal ourselves and evolve spiritually is especially rampant among those of us who feel so powerless to heal our traumas that we are sucked in by the hard-sell of self-proclaimed spiritual teachers who feed on fear-based projections from their own uncooked, karmic dark sides.
This is especially so in the Kali Yuga with the spiritual supermarket that is available to seekers on the internet in this dark age. Hence the epidemic of abuse among gurus, healers, and teachers who have skillfully manipulated their autonomy over others into cults.
For more on this please read:
On Spiritual Teachers: Buyer Be AWARE!
In closing, the more deeply we reside in the Witnessing Protection Program, the more we’ll experience our consciousness expand exponentially as we continuously evolve and move higher on the spiritual mental health continuum. From living from our souls in 5D and higher, we will come to know unequivocally with our full heart/mind these key concepts:
1. Everything is always happening perfectly in the Divine plan.
2. All structures—internal and external—need to cyclically break down and fall apart before there can be a transformational rebirth from the ashes.
3. Inner stability can only be cultivated and maintained through some form of daily spiritual practices.
4. Setting an inner tone of equanimity in the Flow affects our personal reality and beyond with the ripple effect.
For more, please see:
Spiritual Practices Reading List
Enjoying the Earth Game in all its wonders and horrors without judgement is only possible if one embraces the perspective from the Void (also known as the 8th body of consciousness in Taoism) or from the Buddhist concept of emptiness as the ground of Being. In Tantra, this translates into embracing the ambivalence of existence and non-existence sparkling through each moment.
All dimensions or planes of consciousness (i.e., form) arise and fall away spontaneously and infinitely in every moment out of formlessness. This is called non-duality or “the one taste” in many Buddhist teachings. Then, everything that happens in 3D can be viewed as a “plus:” Pure aliveness and adventures in learning how to be cocreators.
Now, more than ever, it’s important to remember that we always have free will in how we choose to respond to our personal and racial karma as it arises, and this choice determines our individual destiny as well as affecting future probabilities en masse in terms of accelerating the evolution of human consciousness.
With divine order-ly chaos running rampant, I’m reminded of a quote by Ram Dass: “Wise beings can be peaceful in the midst of chaos, experiencing delight in the changing play of forms.”
Wishing us all some of that as a crucial component of our new normal!
J o a n
THE GUARDIAN OF THE VOID Joan Pancoe
“The basic rule is to ‘be here now.’ The rule is to start from exactly where we are at this moment. The rule is to be able to say about oneself and the universe with all of its horror, with all of its beauty, with all of its imperfections, Kali and all her manifestations, “It is all right. It’s all OK.” RAM DASS
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Do you feel the need for some help in dealing with the Quickening? Then it’s time for a daily mind/body/spirit practice that feeds your Soul! If you’d like to learn what keeps me sane, serene, internally stable and grounded, please check out my:
NEW AND IMPROVED, REMASTERED TAOIST STANDING CHI GUNG AND SITTING MEDITATION RECORDINGS FOR 2019
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For full details:
Taoist and Tantric Energy Arts for Couples (please scroll down on this page)
And read: “On Pleasure, Joy and Bliss” (to prepare your mind:))
If you’re in the mood for some seriously delectable entertainment that will blow your mind wide open, please enjoy my erotic/psychic memoir (written under the pen name, Leela Jones:)):
The Amorous Adventures of a Modern Mystic
“A Sweet and Tasty Cosmic Feast for the Body, Mind & Spirit!” Ruben Gabriel
“Cosmic Sugar is a sumptuous book, like a meal you won’t forget. I haven’t read a better memoir—beautifully compassionate, utterly honest and seriously profound.” Matthew Newnham
To check out more great reviews:
***SPECIAL NEWSFLASH***
The ever-savvy Jesse Kornbluth, of Vanity Fair and New York Magazine fame, posted about his personal experience with my work:
“I’m no seer. But Joan Pancoe just might be.”
For more, click here:
To help catalyze an opening to a higher perspective, I’ve written a number of articles on body karma, astrological themes, spiritual teachers, addiction, aliens, meditation and much more: WRITINGS
Most pertinent to read now:
Embracing the Unexpected: Everything You Wanted to Know about Uranus (But Were Afraid to Ask)
“If This Were Your Last Incarnation, What Would You Do?”
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For details: Psychic Empowerment Practices
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GALLERY OF MULTIDIMENSIONAL DELIGHTS
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