Uncovering the I AM: Celebrate the Prodigal

Uncovering the I AM: Celebrate the Prodigal

by Nan W. Burke
Uncovering the I AM: Celebrate the Prodigal

Uncovering the I AM: Celebrate the Prodigal

by Nan W. Burke

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Overview

“… an honest look at the energies I had allowed to run me most of my life. When I awoke to the simple, astounding Truth of the built-in innocence in free will and individual sovereignty, I chose to be a master at Love, not fear.
Anyone can change. We are responsible for our own choices.”

• Nan opens her mind and heart in a way that at times, is startling, yet is deeply refreshing. Read, Uncovering the I AM, and prepare to change. You will be invited and challenged to get real with yourself, forgive yourself, and ultimately to love yourself unconditionally.
John Mark Stroud, Founder: One Who Wakes, www.onewhowakes.org

• Nan captivates us, transparently sharing her metamorphosis from dark, angry confusion to joyful innocence of the child within. We too can loosen our grip on patterns of self-judgment and misperceptions of ourselves and others. We can change a sense of personal unworthiness into a light-filled delight of self.
Myra Partyka, Reiki Master Teacher, www.reikiworksri.com

• We learn from those who have sincerely made the trek from fear to love. Nan found a way to turn her mind back upon itself and look curiously at her life until the deepest reasons for events unmasked themselves in revelation and even mystical awakening.
• Journey with Nan and breathe deeply, so the flavor of her often humorous sharings may suffuse every cell. Growing in awareness of Love’s Reality is a sojourn that requires care, patience, and just a smidgen of our willingness.
Jayem, www.wayofmastery.com


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781504360982
Publisher: Balboa Press
Publication date: 09/28/2016
Pages: 198
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.42(d)

Read an Excerpt

Uncovering the I Am

Celebrate the Prodigal


By Nan W. Burke

Balboa Press

Copyright © 2016 Nan W. Burke
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-6098-2



CHAPTER 1

Affordable Psychotherapy


2010 - Wakefield, Rhode Island

Gerald and I, strangers until today, face each other as instructed, seated on the wooden floor holding each other's forearms and with my legs straddled across his so we can gaze into each other's eyes. Naturally graying hair and deep furrows in his forehead make Gerald seem older than his 76 years. I, at 67, claim the saving grace of a bottled blonde, but I sport laugh lines and similar creases. We are the oldest among the ten people at the wellness center in this one day retreat focusing on honest self-inquiry.

We two stare into one another's eyes, as the moderator purrs, "Tell your partner of some transgressions or omissions in your life that you truly regret. Just state it, 'I acknowledge that I threw the baby out with the bathwater, and I forgive myself.' No explanations, no details; just say it, plain and simple. And feel it, folks, truly mean that forgiveness part. Your soul is asking this of you." She adds, "The listener waits, but asks no questions in response to the acknowledged act or omission. It's the forgiving yourself that's the biggie here."

"And you listeners give eye contact and empathetic listening to your partner. Be absolutely present to him or her. If you truly want your money's worth out of this day, you'll each let your psyche push out of you whatever it is that's loitering inside."

The other couples haven't started yet, so Gerald jumps in first. After speaking, he seems genuinely consoled and relieved at having voiced to me his lifelong penchant for giving in to the insistence of others in order to gain approval or keep the peace. I am glad for him, silently noting the serenity he exudes.

The rest of the folks are still dickering over who goes first, so I blurt out to Gerald, "I betrayed my religious vows as a nun in a two-year affair with another nun, and I forgive myself." Shock widens Gerald's eyes, but I plunge forward, "I acknowledge that I humiliated and hurt adolescent children as a teaching nun, physically beating them with a steel ruler, and I forgive myself."

Verbally vomiting, I continue, "I forgive myself for being too fearful of living alone, so I sought out my partner in Old San Juan, after he deserted me on the island of Culebra. I forgive myself for living with him in a cockroach-infested back room instead of admitting error of judgment to my family." Gerald's eyes blink and flicker, but he instantly recovers. I mutter, "Then, against all reason, I married him. Wow! And I forgive myself for that!"

By now Gerald is rocking back and forth slightly on his haunches but to his credit he has not faltered in his empathetic stare. I am energized by these admissions and Gerald's painfully steadfast expression, so I hurtle onward, "... I shot those sick, helpless dogs, and I forgive myself." I tack on, "... and drowned those kittens at the dock." There is only a tightening of Gerald's fingers on my elbows as I rush into a litany: "... I tossed that injured puppy into a plastic bag and hurled it into the bay in the dark of night and I put down my three faithful dogs rather than allow my soon- to-be ex-husband to threaten me with hurting them. And I forgive myself for dumping their bodies in an open field." Gerald's fingernails now painfully dig into my elbows, but I can't stop the projectile gushing of words, so I throw in, "... I borrowed my friend's husband to father a child for me, and I forgive myself." Gerald's body noticeably sags. It goes limp when I tag on, "And I forgive myself for leaving my two year old baby girl sleeping in my car when I went in for a tryst with Violette, one night."

Couples are still talking, so I stick on, "Then, back in the States, I shot my noisy rooster, to please my bisexual partner and I forgive myself. I sold my soul to her, actually. Yep, I forgive that too."

Other transgressions bubble to the surface, the S&M stuff, the credit cards bills, the screaming arguments in front of my daughter, but there is no time for me to include them, as the moderator calls the group to reconvene. This is merciful, because Gerald's composure has crumbled. He is cooked, shell-shocked. He probably never processed the last couple of admissions.

We return to our own backrests on the polished wood floor. I rub the indentations on my forearms where Gerald's grip has left purpling bruises. Gerald has not made eye contact with me since the mention of the "husband borrowing," and Violette's "tryst."

When the retreat ends, I help put things away and don't see Gerald again. I doubt I ever will, presuming that from his view, he's heard the confessions of a religious nutcake, bisexual serial animal killer, hiding in Rhode Island. I smile inwardly at the scenario of Gerald fearing he'll see my photo on an internet Wanted site and that his conscience will drive him to turn me in and be a witness at my arraignment.

I, though, can drive home in light-hearted peace, having finally begun to uncover the cesspool of guilt that has festered in my soul for years. I had just voiced, in laundry list fashion, various acts of mindless violence. I heard these actions in their raw ugliness, voiced them and saw horror in the eyes of a listener. I had admitted to arrogant disregard for the sanctity of life - both of animals and humans. I had faced the shame of ownership, without the softening of any explanation or mitigating circumstances.

This stream of confessions surprised me with its ferocity as it heaved from my depths. It was grace in action. I had finally begun to honestly view my past, to claim it, as the mosaic of my own personal choices. I saw with searing clarity that the offensiveness I had openly or furtively aimed at others, basically sprang from my need for outward control because within there was only chaos, not a shred of recognition that there was anyone in there.

CHAPTER 2

Indwelling Truth Inches Forward in the Eternal Now


These things happened. I invite you to consider the possibility that I chose every minute of my life in order to mirror to me the illusion that I was unloved, unsafe, and unworthy. Could it be that as pure spirit, emanating from the Mind of an all-loving God-Source, I chose to incarnate as a human with those particular vibratory fields? I did not send forth these energies consciously at first. In the womb and as a newborn and infant, I definitely shared in the dissonant energies around me, but I was relatively swaddled in the newly-created's innate knowledge of its perfection and innocence. I was aligned and connected to my LoveSource. Soon though, even before a passing year I would begin to relinquish that awareness of connection. I could never truly be disconnected from ParentSource, the uninterrupted flow of unconditional Love. But I would learn quickly that my surface wellbeing lay in the conforming to the conditions presented to me for the display of love as reward. I would let go of the certainty of divine Love, in whose image and fullness I am eternally sprung forth and would seed secret fears within my own psyche, falsely assuring myself that I could only find safety, security, and love outside myself. I then mastered the human art of fashioning experiences that "proved" those secret fears to me.

How do I know this? I don't. That is, I don't know it with the mind. The mind creates structures of, "I should, I musn't, I'm not there yet, I can't, I need to, etc." which spring from comparison and lack. This is the world speaking. No, I have discovered a knowing that is heart-centered. I listened to the heart. I discerned a vibrant joy and an expansion that emanates when the mind is quietened. The heart does not filter things through interpretation, as the mind does. The heart discerns the inner voice of connection. When I found the courage to allow myself to truly feel and value that inner voice, peace came. A growing awareness of connection to my Source aligned and harmonized within me. A knowing calm and a childlike trust began to suffuse me daily, and I continued to listen to the heart. When the ego-mind, which is only a human substitute for God, brought back the fears and threats of consequence that the world of power had fostered within me as a child, I would return to the heart's knowing of peace, safety, and joy. The heart was able to allay the fears, calm the doubts. This was a process. I rediscovered a lightening and an unburdening. It was a sovereignty of the true freedom of my birthright within existence.

This book is a personal archaeological dig, in which I excavate my way through what I once saw as the sewers of my life. Under a seemingly respectable, yet adventuresome surface, spanning over seventy years in New York, Puerto Rico, and the Hamptons, I hid the festering detritus of a soul in distress.

How does the caterpillar know when to start spinning its cocoon? What signal does it heed to barricade itself within its self-made coffin, only to emerge totally, alchemically transmuted? I followed that same instinct as I paid attention to the dim, but persistent urgings of my heart, to remove myself, body and soul from a dead-end. Like the caterpillar, I dissolved the personas I had accumulated. I self-liquified, emerging from a dark stillness able to love. I underwent a process of complete meltdown and rebirth when I fled to Rhode Island, beckoned by Audrey, an as yet unborn child, who would teach me my innate beauty, as I would hers.

When my soul knew I was desperate enough to listen to an inner voice of innocence and to grow in awareness of Truth, my soul showed me how to forgive self for its misperceptions of virtually everything. I grew towards finally recognizing my individual frequency within the harmony of the Creator's gift of free will. This is a mysteriously prodigal gift. It does not need my approval to organically unfold its God-Self magnificence in and as individualized, authentically sovereign human beings. We humans are freely given freedom. We are freely gifted the will to choose anything. Each of our souls knows how and when we will awaken from the illusory dream of disconnect. Each soul knows that its human form will be suffused once again in heart, mind, body, and spirit with the knowing of our own true nature as the perfectly whole and inseparably unblemished child of God.

God is nothing if not everything. God (or whatever word we choose to conceptualize the Nothing and Everything) does not judge Itself. God is not, "out there." There is no, "out there." God is Life's pulsing. God is Truth's vibration. God is Love's harmony. And every creature of every potential realm exists resonating with its own frequencies within that Eternal Song of Love. We humans seem to be the only ones who question that harmony. When we judge anyone, ourselves included, we tell God-Self, "You didn't get this one right!" God is unconditional Love. Conditions are a human invention of time and space, and throughout my life I habitually agreed to love, "... on condition that ..."

However, eventually, like the caterpillar, I inched my way toward unraveling the tapestry of my individual patterns of behavior. I found the roots of my choices, skewed as they were by my misperceptions which in themselves sprang from my soul's particularly chosen fields of vibrational human energy. In gut wrenching, soul searing episodes of layered insights, I saw with horror my lifelong blindness to others' uniqueness. I stared directly at my arrogant disregard for the cherished sovereignty of every individual. Because I did not know there was anything beautiful within me, I never recognized innate beauty in others. At last, I truly began to listen to the echoes of what my soul, my heart, and all creation had always tried to show or tell me.

In these pages I consider how, as pure Consciousness, I chose to enter into humanity within the fabric of a particular family with its myriad generations passing along DNA-infused attitudes, conventions, norms, and secret fears. I explore to the roots of my personal patterns admitting to how I identified with and acted out age old delusions. In such exploration I discovered that a lifetime of apprenticeship to energies driven by fear can still eventually explode into a mastery of self forgiving and a moment-by-moment awareness of the mystery of innocence. And in that discernment, I saw that I had played too seriously with those fear-based energies. As every human does, within the unconditional allowance of the divinely given gift of free will, I got so caught up in the play that I forgot it was a game that I as sovereign being could script and dream as if it were real.

I share a way through the maze. I see that we are, in Oneness, the God-Self. We are Love's Light but in the power of free will's game choice, we fabricate comparison. We take seriously the masks of violence, pride, guilt, and anger with which we voluntarily cloak ourselves to hide the possibility that we could be shimmering in the magnificent power of being. I own up to wearing those disguises of apologetic smallness and I am now lovingly, gratefully permitting them to dissolve.

Come see how - only when I was humanly ready to - I surrendered the fear-filled "me" I thought I was, to the ongoing process of living as the Love and Light of the pure spirit, the soul I AM. Witness how I awakened from victim-based defensiveness into the timeless joy of allowing my pure Beingness to "Take Me with You to Where I AM."

CHAPTER 3

Hooked on the Human Coat Tree


I recently had a mental picture of myself as a human coat tree. There I was, in a lifelong, "poor me," pose, swirling around with all those whom I thought had "victimized" me. My parents, teachers, colleagues, and a lifetime of folks hung off me, helplessly hooked where I had vengefully attached them. We waltzed and spun in the macabre grip of a gruesome energy that I alone had consciously concocted.

I decided, in that gifted moment of insight that it was time to let them all "off the hook." It was time to free them and me, and any other beings with whom I had ever interacted, of any blame whatsoever. I saw that no one was at fault for who I had become. No one was guilty of failing to measure up to my expectations. No one had failed to see my world through my filters, just as I could never see through theirs. Not they, nor any teachers or authorities, religious or governmental systems, not anyone or anything had ever caused my life to turn out one way or the other. And they, in truth had no idea that they were "hooked" anywhere. It was my own vengeful delusion

As much as my mind and ego protested it, my heart's knowing saw this Truth: in the mystery and the flowering of Divine potential within free will, I, as every other human being, had freely chosen to place myself in each and every moment of my unfolding.

There was a time when that idea turned my stomach and assaulted my "intelligence." It is common knowledge, is it not, that the world's changing tides sweep us up and turn our worlds upside down? Are we not products of our parents' and families' input and conditioning? Yes, but each of us is solely responsible for how we choose to filter each occasion, how we choose to react to circumstance, and whether we seek within or outside of ourselves for the happiness that seems obliterated. I saw that each of us, as pure spirit before we incarnate, chooses to play with particular and definitive human consciousness-generated energies. We choose to incarnate into families and cultures which pattern those energies. Then as we incarnate we lose sight of the "playing," and the "what if," part and fuse to a human body-mind identity with those energies running us, forgetting the game aspect. We forget that we can never be separate from the Love that eternally allows us the sovereignty to play the game. We become serious in our fear and self protectiveness. We attach ourselves to what we value and we value, above all, the need to be right.

And what do we want to be right about? Is it the "uh-ohs" that were planted by structures of authority, ideas cultivated by the world of striving and expectation? Or are we willing to allow a tiny feeling of relief that we could safely trust in a loving ParentSource who shared itself AS each of us, equally, fully, perfectly, and inseparably whole? Can we risk feeling in our hearts that each of us as pure spirit dared, from any of the mysteriously immeasurable realms of creation, to choose the daunting experience of being a human whose powers include making fears seem real and building worlds of thought which reflect that false reality?

Grace however, is what turned me inside out and swept my arrogant mind clean of its need to be "right." When I began to let go of each layer of supposed unlovable-ness, I knew that I felt sadness and guilt at my very core. I recognized that I had to eventually truly forgive myself for my expectations of others and for my judgment of self. My heart knew that my perceptions were skewed and that self-forgiveness and allowance of an innate vastness of consciousness and beauty were the keys to peace.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from Uncovering the I Am by Nan W. Burke. Copyright © 2016 Nan W. Burke. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword, xv,
Chapter One Affordable Psychotherapy, 1,
Chapter Two Indwelling Truth Inches Forward in the Eternal Now, 4,
Chapter Three Hooked on the Human Coat Tree, 9,
Chapter Four Poised at the Maze Entrance, 13,
Chapter Five A Signpost in the Maze, 17,
Chapter Six The Maze in Constant Construction, 20,
Segment I: 1942–1961, 23,
Heavenly Knowing Fades to Forgetfulness, 23,
Chapter Seven Apprenticeship in Illusion Begins, 25,
Chapter Eight Witness to the Maze, 31,
Chapter Nine The Apprentice Hones Her Skills, 34,
Chapter Ten The Advance to Journeyman in the Art of Illusion, 46,
Segment II: 1961-1970, 53,
Human Forgetfulness Fuses to Identity The Journeyman Chooses the Illusion of Unworthiness as Her Specialty, 53,
Chapter Eleven The Journeyman Flaunts Her Skills Extending the Illusion of Suffering, 55,
Segment III: 1970–1983 Human Forgetfulness Entrenched: Mastery of Victimhood Achieved, 67,
Chapter Twelve The Master of Illusion Spreads her Wings, 69,
Segment IV: 1981–2006, 109,
Still Embracing the Illusion of Victimhood, 109,
Chapter Thirteen Putting the Finishing Touches on the Maze Construction, 111,
Chapter Fourteen Suffering's Vortex Moves North, 127,
Segment V: 2007–Present, 151,
Apprenticeship in Love's Reality Begins, 151,
Chapter Fifteen Re-membering Dawns, 153,
Epilogue, 179,

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