Don't Hate Me Because I Don't Care If You or I Am a Goddess.

You are whole. You are weak, but with God, you are strong. You are a precious child of God.

When you read these words do you feel the truth of them ringing in your bones?

If not or if so, why are your feelings the barometer of what is true or not true?

Or do you feel the weight of the desire for self-aggrandizement and self-absorption, the deep-marrow fear of not being good enough, and the exhaustion of seeking your value outside of yourself?

Good news. You are not good enough (on your own) and you never will be. You also do not have to seek value outside yourself. All your worth and value comes from God. With God, you are always good enough. Yes, we're dependent on Him for all things, but we are precious beyond measure.

If you don't love and honor God, our Creator and Savior with every fiber of your being, if you could use more joyful play and simple awareness of the presence of His Majesty in your life, if you struggle with understanding the tyranny of your passions and desire to be powerful instead of to serve Him, then it is time for an inner revolution. 

It is time to claim your honored position as a Spiritual Warrior for the sake of what is timeless and true, fighting against the empty promise that worship of yourself as a goddess will bring you anything more than a desolate, selfish spiritual death.

The new women's revolution is an evolution from being self-focused to God focused. When our conscience is NOT silenced and suffocated by our selfish desires, we are finally free to direct our energies towards our own creative, purposive and authentic life that will bring true freedom.

When we bring our attention back to discovering who God intended us to be – not who we wish we were or who we think we should be – we begin a sacred path of transformation towards our innate, authentic, embodied ability to love in the natural way God created us to love.

This is the path of the Spiritual Warrior.

This invitation is a window of opportunity to form the most intimate relationship possible with the infinite Creator and Savior of the universe. My commitment is to tell you the truth so that you don't waste your life with lies. 

This is a parody, but it is also by someone who really does care about the welfare of your soul. (And doesn't it sound like a bit more common sense?

I will not link to the original invitation to emptiness, egotistical inflation and spiritual death, because I do not think it is fair to target one individual teacher and one program, when there are so many doing such similar things..They promise things, like how you will actually be able to study personally with a very important person who knows all about how to be dazzling wonderful goddess. Aren't you lucky? And just $297.

[The picture above is of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Mother, who is not and has never been a goddess. And it doesn't matter that she's not and that we're not either.]

Strange Islands Beyond the Self-Absorbed

As I was walking home from mass today, I noticed that I was standing in an odd place. Why was I there? I had walked a block from where I needed to turn to go home and I had not noticed anything on my way. My last memory was of crossing the street two blocks before and from that point, my legs moved, but I was lost in my mind.

Of course, most people and not just autistics wander off in their thoughts and get physically lost occasionally.  Yet, this experience is often frequent in autistic adults as well as children. Sometimes, it's called, "wandering," and it can be quite dangerous, especially when children do it. In my case today, it was simple to change my path to walk home, but I cannot recall the number of times this sort of thing has happened to me. At times of my life, especially under stress, it's more the rule than the exception.

The comical part of all this is the content of the thoughts I was having. I was deeply pondering and contemplating why I am often so self-absorbed! Oh, wow. This is the very thing I've been "working on" in my spiritual life lately, and I was too self-absorbed to see it! So, I actually stopped and laughed a little bit, (well, actually I giggled pretty intensely,) out of the blue- also a very autistic thing to do.  I did not care who might be looking on at the "loony girl."

On the way home, I was careful to look around and watch the trees and flowers. I really enjoyed the sense of being more open to the world. I did not want to look at the people, and that is common for me.

The social world is not a "safe place" for autistic people.  The social world is a mass of confusing things- Nonverbal communication is supposed to be 80% of communication and my brain has no area  that works to process such things. I know I'm missing a lot. By only hearing the words, I cannot detect deceit. I also don't pick up on insincerity well. I have to be careful to try to take in the overall context of the conversation anyway, so that I don't say something socially that doesn't "fit," and embarrass myself or offend another person.

People are also over-stimulating in themselves. Just watching their face while I hear their voice can be overwhelming. So, social time is tiring, to say the least.. and the better and more convincing I manage to do at it, the more exhausted I am later.

And, of course, this brings me to the topic of how is it that I can be less self-centered, when being inside myself is my sanctuary? At the end of the day, I look back on the times when people tried to share something about themselves to me and I assumed it was all about me, when it wasn't. I want to be more present for people. I want to be a better friend. To do that, I need to take risks and that doesn't mean I feel comfortable with them.

God did not intend a purely contemplative life in a cloister for me. He has called me to be a contemplative in the world. It's the "in the world" part I don't like. Yet, if I can get lost in a book, in artwork or a game or learning coding, I can get lost in a person and what they have to say as well, when I am determined to do that. People should never assume I'm not interested in them or that I don't care about them because of these difficulties, because it usually has little to do with that.

People who need the most love are the least safe. My Secular Carmelite friends are actually perfect friends. They do not gossip. They do not talk negatively about anyone else. If they do, they are running to confession right away! No, I am not worried about any sort of harm from them.

And yet, Jesus Christ calls me to open myself to people, who can be the source of harm, and to a life of loving, giving and service even to the point of the very crucifixion of myself. Now, it would make no sense to continually force myself to socialize to the point of meltdown every day. The trick is to take good care of myself so I can tolerate more and more time with people. To do that, I need to do more than merely monitor and reduce sensory overwhelm.

I need a deeply secure spiritual core, to provide a sense of emotional safety, so that even if I am in a meltdown, I am at peace. (And yes, that is possible, because a meltdown is the involuntary response of the nervous system to overstimulation, not a psychological issue.) We can have migraines and be at peace, so why not in a meltdown? I am learning this.

St. John of the Cross writes often about "strange islands," which is the experience of finding himself in a state of awareness and experience he has never been in before. He is referring to experiences he has within himself with God. For me, the "strange islands" are about taking God with me as I venture into the wilderness of unpredictable and confusing people.

And so, in this way, I hope I find myself "standing in an odd place" more often, with my deep sense of security in God unaltered.

The Eucharist and the “Ghost in the Machine”

As an autistic, I have the unenviable ability to almost completely compartmentalize my intellect from emotions. I go into a “machine mode.”

My friends often have a very unfortunate experience with that. They talk to me while I am in the middle of “implementing my agenda,” and they see that I do not acknowledge their feelings at all. Friends who know me well stop me and say, “Hey, I just poured out my heart to you,” or “I just disclosed something hard for me to say,” and of course, I collapse into a sea of apologies. I don't realize what I did, but of course I want to acknowledge the feelings of my friends!

My autistic reality is not all that different from neurotypical reality. Humans minds work very much like computers, which is why computers are designed based on how our logical intellect works. Our minds are different from computers because emotional drives can dominate our experience. I know all about that too! I have been known to immerse myself in emotion and the “lever” that makes my brain work seems to snap completely off, while emotions drive my life. Whether we are emotionally driven or intellectually detached, we are all divided, unintegrated and crippled in our human experience.

Until we insert the variable of “infinity.”

Infinity. Yes, infinity. The God who exists outside space and time enters our reality in the Eucharist. The God who exists outside space and time enters my body in the Eucharist. The infinite God who created me enters me, body and soul, and begins to thread his infinite Self into my bones and cells. This creates a “jolt” that literally drags me to my knees. I am grateful to know the impact of His infinite love moving through me, joining Himself with my lowly soul.

How must Mary have felt when the infinite God found His home in her womb? I will never know the magnitude of that experience, but I can receive a “taste” of it through my experience of the Eucharist.

Why am I Catholic?

The Eucharist is why. When I was a young protestant, I received the Eucharist without knowing what it was. I immediately wept because I felt in that moment in union with God. It's always been that way for me. The effect of the Eucharist is a stab in my heart that kills me and brings me to life at the same time.

For that instant, I am integrated. I am whole. 

I walk out the door of church and become once again the struggling Secular Carmelite in formation who has difficulty staying dedicated to prayer. I amble about my daily life, continually wondering why my experience in the Eucharist does not stay with me. Thankfully, I let that concern go fairly quickly now, because I realize maintaining a life of service to Him is more important than what I happen to feel, but I still remain bewildered.

Sometimes, it is unclear what really moves me. Once years ago, someone who was working with me started to call me, “The Machine.” That was because I always had a relentless agenda for him to follow. And by relentless, I mean relentless. I should never be in a supervisory position over people. I've always been considered to be hard-driving and that is because “The Machine” that is my mind likes to go nonstop. (Thank God for helpers in my life who help me find balance beyond hyperfocus!) My new study of Xcode to program smartphones is a beautiful haven of structure and logic. I like to enter and shut the doors to the world. But, often, it is difficult for all of us to turn all that off and enter into the softer side of contemplation the machine of our mind longs for.

Human beings also have free will. This is what separates us from animals. Our souls have only one essential choice to make here on earth, "Will we serve God or will we serve ourselves?"

If we do not receive the Holy Spirit in our human lifetimes here in life, the seeds are not planted for eternal life. There is no “Ghost” in our machine. What is our soul apart from God's soul, who created us? How can it survive in any meaningful way? There are many who believe their soul IS actually God's soul and that their mind creates the world. People who take this position live in a counterfeit reality, sadly. Others, who see the Eucharist as a merely “symbolic meal,” or an experience that somehow incorporates “Real Presence,” without being the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ miss out on an immense experience as well.

The Eucharist is more than a “feel good experience,” thankfully. The Eucharist is fuel to go about serving God, infused and strengthened by God Himself. The Eucharist provides the deepest and most intimate connection that man can have with God.

Without that connection, we are alone in our weak human state. We act selfishly. We hurt people's feelings. We damage relationships because we are callous. There is no infinite God to appeal to who can forgive, heal and strengthen us. I constantly and reliably fail but at least that is not the end of my story.

We are more than machines. We need a healthy soul. The soul runs best on the fuel of the Eucharist and nothing else will do.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine

R.I.P. Life

There was once a real world

where wind sang in the trees

and people listened close for sounds of God.

There was once a real world 

where we dreamt our soft dreams

and gentle breezes lifted our prayers.

And here we are now,

between bit and byte,

bleep and blight,

In this digital cemetery

we call our lives.

And the world cries out,

Hey, Look at me, Look at me.

Hear me post, see my face,

I will feed on your likes.

The cacophony, cry of the tech-numbed heart

Pushing man, God and nature further apart.

Burying our souls beneath our screens-

Can you feel? Can you breathe?

Can you look at the stars? 

Do you even remember a time long past,

When your eyes beheld nature

and God’s eyes looked back?

-Laura Marie Paxton,
07/08/14

I Am Free. (And it's not what I thought It was).

I'm Laura Paxton and I am free.

I am free to play, to create, to express myself, to explore my world. I am freer to think and to reason and daydream than I ever have before. I read more. I have meaningful work that I enjoy very much. I wake up each day with the joy of purpose before me.

Only about five years ago, I existed in a cramped, dark apartment where I had given up on life, agoraphobic, eating mostly chocolate bars for sustenance and playing online scrabble all day long to keep my mind off the pain trapped deep inside. How did I end up there?

Let's face it... I'm autistic. I'm bipolar. I've lived on the dangerous edges of life. I've been raped,  survived a near fatal suicide attempt, was almost successfully murdered and lived homeless at times in my teens. Over the course of my life, I've also been taken advantage of, tricked and abused because of my poor judgment, (which was poorer than most people's to begin with, because I'm autistic and don't judge social situations well). Add to that how I had a mother who rejected me. Compound that with how I was immersed in the "New Age" since childhood and my spiritual practices became more and more satanic-leaning over time. How am I alive? How am I even here? 

About five years ago, out of the blue, I decided to read a book on contemplative prayer by James Finley. I got to the part about how deeply people desire God and I wept. The sad tears turned into happy tears, because I realized I could finally feel again. It had been so long since I had felt anything! Best yet, the first thing I felt after many "dead" years prior was the desire for my God. I knew I needed to go back to church, and soon.

Through the past few years, I have come to experience freedom- and it only took over forty years to find it. Freedom is the opposite of what I always thought it was. 

My early ideas of freedom came from my parents, of course. It was really important to my parents that I have freedom- freedom to create, play and explore the world. The only problem with that is when there are no limits to it.

When I was a young teen, I could ask my parents whether I could go to an adult cocktail party and drink all I wanted and the answer was, "We don't believe in telling you what to do." I never had a curfew. I was never grounded in my life or put on any sort of restriction. I lived an anxious life, not even sure about what was safe or not a lot of the time. Being a total nervous wreck in a state of constant crisis, drama and repeated trauma caused by all the above wasn't exactly what I would call freeing!

There was only one thing in my life my parents absolutely forbid me to do- becoming Catholic. I told a friend this on the way to a retreat recently and she laughed so hard, I think soda came out of her nose.

I wanted to become Catholic very much. I was happy in the Church community. I had a good relationship with a nun named Sister Dorothy there and I would go and talk to her. I loved learning in CCD. It all made sense. And no, I did not go to Catholic school. I just found every way possible to spend as much time as possible at the Catholic Church, from late childhood to my early teens. Yet, eventually, my parents forbid it completely, when I was about fourteen. It was their first strong, "No." And why? "Catholicism will disrupt your direct relationship with God," they said. "We want you to think for yourself and we don't want a saint or a priest or a nun or anyone else to influence you."

Sooo... How did that work out for me? Not really well! There is no feeling I know better than the sense of being "lost."

"Lost" would be my area of expertise.

In my thirties, I followed a spiritual path for about six years which purported "total freedom" to be one of its goals. I haven't seen them put forward a consistent definition of what this means recorded anywhere, but the goal seems to rest on concepts like, "manifesting whatever you want in abundance," and "not being attached to anyone else's judgments or opinions of what you choose to do." I can't even begin to describe anything more constraining and spirit strangling.

Why? Because it's all a game of, "I believe, so I get," or "I believe, so I realize I already have." Because it's centered on "personal power" which is nothing more than worshiping at the altar of selfishness. I am. I have. I do with my power. There is none of the, "God alone suffices," of St. Teresa in that. You may find "all the love you need within yourself," and feel blissfully good, but you've only found a clever way to convince yourself you don't need the more deeply gratifying "meat" of spiritual life. And what's wrong with that? Nothing, if you don't mind the shallowness and emptiness that philosophy and lifestyle creates.

I can also tell you, just because you go to a different satsang or drum circle or circle ceremony every night to find spiritual freedom, you are not necessarily freer for it. By always seeking to break through the next set of limits, (or "limiting beliefs"), you will be searching forever. Of course, there are a limited number of "winners" in this way of life, who will tell you they have found what they were looking for. Those are the ones who make money through selling you this "freedom."

Freedom is actually free.

Someone told me a fable yesterday about a group of children who wanted to play ball next to a steep cliff. Of course, they were afraid to play. They could fall over the edge. They could lose their ball. So, they just sat huddled in a circle, afraid and not having any fun. Later, some people put up a fence and then the kids felt safer and they could play happily and freely. And, that would be a good description of my life today versus my past.

Freedom has to have bounds of some sort- edges, limits, containment. In fact, without a sense of outer security, inner peace is difficult to cultivate.

Now, I've talked to many people (mostly "reverts,") who grew up on the opposite, ultra-strict extreme and they are just as "messed up" as I was. When kids aren't given any room to play at all, that can be like living in shackles. So, often they end up throwing away all limits in life as a reaction to that. For either reason, once a person makes the decision to pursue "freedom" as a "limitless do my own thing," kind of an existence, they don't end up happy in the end either.

So, here we are, the converts and the reverts, two sides of the same coin, really.

I am Home again and I can breathe again. And life beat me to a pulp to get here. Because I have "been there, done that, tried almost everything," I know more solidly than most people do how there is no remote possibility that anything other than Catholicism is the Church Jesus founded. Here in the arms of the Church is the only source of the living bread and water our soul hungers and thirsts for so very much.

We need the chalice of God's love to hold us and fill us. Unlike "spiritual teachers" through the ages, Jesus was truly God. Jesus said He was,"The Way," not "a way." Because this is so, there must exist a true way, a path of certain and steady ground. It is not an act of cowardice (such as running from difficult questions) but an act of great courage to recognize and stand up for the answer when you find it. We are deeply blessed. We have the deep, solid security of knowing, "The Way."

Freedom really isn't "just another word for nothing else to lose." Freedom is another word for "nothing more to gain," and to gain everything is absolutely possible. As C.S. Lewis put so well, "A person who has God and everything else has no more than someone who has only God." With God, we truly do have nothing more to gain. And we are free.

(A related quote.)

"In John 8:32, Jesus tells us that the truth will make us free. However, the mentality mentioned above, so prevalent today, is one which fears the truth. It holds that truth is a relative category, and that the truth claims of the Church are not freeing, but rather enslaving. To counter this, Cardinal Ratzinger wrote that Christians today need to counter the skeptics’ question, “What is truth?” with a question of our own: “What is freedom?  What do we actually mean when we extol freedom, placing it at the pinnacle of our scale of values?” Taking up this call, I believe we need to learn and find ways to creatively present the now classical distinctions in moral theology between freedom of indifference and freedom for excellence, on the one hand, and morality of obligation and morality of happiness, on the other."

-Matthew J Ramage, PhD

http://www.hprweb.com/2014/05/benedict-xvi-on-freedom-in-obedience-to-the-truth-a-key-for-the-new-evangelization/

Open Letter to You, A Bipolar

Dear Fellow Bipolar,

Just the other day, I was talking to a friend about all the various projects I love to do, such as creative writing, graphic design, web design, book cover design and app development. She said to me, "Of course, you do all that, you're bipolar. Bipolars are tremendously creative!" 

Suddenly, it occurred to me how I used to believe that going on medication would stifle my creativity, which seems to be the consensus in most of the bipolar community. But, I thought it would be helpful to tell people that the opposite has been the case for me. I'm more focused and so I'm more capable and I am more free to be creative.

No one wants to be on medications. I fought them. A doctor told me and my parents when I was sixteen that I would have to be on medications my entire life. After feeling the absolute numbing effects, the weight gain, the stomach problems and many other issues, I said, "Absolutely not." I believe that over the span of age 16-36, I was on medications about six years, and that was not consecutively. My life during those years was a casualty. It did not turn out the way I wanted, either in career or family life.

You see, what I did not understand was that it takes time to adjust to medications- like several months, or even years sometimes. You need to be patient and bipolars aren't good at that. You will probably need a cocktail of medications. It is extremely rare that only one medication will work on its own. And you will have side effects. And you will hate them. And you will NOT feel creative. Yet, I promise you that this will pass.

I also promise you that your creativeness will come back and your artistic freedom and ability will amaze you.

Staying on medications is better than frequent hospitalizations. It's better than a series of shallow, failed relationships, or blowing money and going into bankruptcy over and over again. It's better than suicide, and the frequency of bipolars killing themselves without medications is about one in five.

Do you want to stay alive? Do you want a life worth living? Then persevere with medications until they work for you.

Over time, I've learned not to take on too many projects or life ceases to be fun and my creative ability becomes too constricted. You see, I'm not in the creative arts business for the money. As much as I love new things sometimes, I've learned that money isn't going to make me happy and it actually adds nothing to my overall quality of life. I want to support myself and have money for the things I need, but I'm mostly in it for the fun and I try to use my abilities to be of service to God at the same time. That is greatly freeing.

I couldn't do that as an unmedicated bipolar. No, as an unmedicated bipolar, I always took on way too much, to the point of nervous breakdown later. I was too pulled and stretched in too many directions to really do anything well. And I was drawn to quick and flashy things that usually involved spending money and taking ridiculous risks.

As a bipolar, you have immense potential. Unfortunately, all of that potential is usually wasted because most people do not stay on medications.  Don't let that happen to you.

Nine years now of staying steadily on meds and five years stable. Four years of knowing it was worth it and waiting patiently through the process of getting it right, even though it seemed to take forever. Even during those first four years of shakiness, waiting for the right drug combo to be discovered, the quality of my life was better. And for the past five, it's gotten immeasurably better.

It's worth it. You are worth it.

The depth of high and low is still inside me, believe it or not. I can still sense and draw from the extremes. Yet they don't define my life experience or who I am and they do not control me. That's how medications have helped me. I am more content. I am happier. I have huge fun creating things and my creativeness does not overwhelm or control me. 

Right now, at this very moment, I have exactly the life I want. I am content. And I am still growing. 

I am writing this now because I want that for you, too.

Sincerely,
Laura Paxton

Why I Am Grateful for Having Anxiety Issues

Grateful for anxiety? This is lunacy. Of course, that is the sort of lunacy you should have come to expect from me by now.

Although it may seem odd to say I'm grateful for having anxiety issues, it is still true. I don't like anxiety, of course, I don't like the way it feels or the toll it causes on my physical health and energy level. I don't like the way it can negatively affect relationships with other people, either. Yet, without anxiety, I wouldn't be as aware of the need to grow closer to God.

The first flutters of heart racing, the first awareness of sweating and labored breathing remind me that I need Him. And even if I end up taking medication for it before I can compose myself enough to pray, I do pray. Later, I find novel and interesting prayers and devotions to try to use when the experience hits. I try all sorts of creative techniques to get a handle on it. I succeed sometimes and sometimes I don't. None of that matters. It's the awareness I have that I need God that matters. That's why I'm on this earth, after all.

I've come to refer to the anxiety onset the "God Alarm." As soon as I can get to a point where thinking is possible, I say, "Thank you God for the call to come closer to you."

Psychological situations can trigger anxiety but I get to have a "sense of control" with them more, since I know my thinking causes them and my thinking can sometimes help stop them sooner.

However, in my personal situation, anxiety will eventually go away on its own, whether I do anything to calm myself or not. And anxiety will come no matter how hard I work to avoid it. For me as an autistic person, loud or screeching noises cause it. Bright lights in my face cause it. Being in a crowd of people can cause it.

My biology reacts immediately. It's involuntary. I carry dark glasses and ear plugs and use them as needed. I try to minimize any situation of overstimulating distress. But, they happen. They happen because life happens. Ambulances screech down the street. Light can suddenly change after a rainstorm, shooting a ray of stabbing light into my eyes, unexpected.

Is my goal to be cured and anxiety free? No, not at all. My goal is to remember I am weak and He is strong. My goal is to remember that I need Him. And so God provides me with that awareness on a regular basis.

With my bad luck, I may end up getting cured of it. And then what will I do to remind myself that I need God? A buzzer on my cell phone just wouldn't be the same.


 "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis