Tag: sandi newton
Spirituality in Trips to the Grocery Store
One of the many ways that my Trinity Energy Progression practice has helped me change is how I experience my trips to the grocery store. I use to view these trips as another errand that I didn’t particularly enjoy. First, there would be the crowded parking lot, the initial glimpse of the extra time (I didn’t have) that this errand would take.The next indication was the dearth of carts, with only wobbly-wheeled ones left for navigating the crowded aisles of the store. But the produce was so colorful that I would feel a renewed sense of joy, only to find the avocados were as hard as rock and the store was out of organic spinach as well as my favorite coconut milk, while having a bountiful assortment of “healthy sweets” (chocolate-covered everything) and lots of really salty “healthy snacks” as an alternative for those with a sugar “addiction” like me. By the time I maneuvered around the store and made my way to the check-out line, I felt a combination of guilt, frustration, pride, and anticipation for what I had chosen to buy (or not buy) only to realize that I had left my “save the Earth” shopping bags in the car when I had finally found a parking place. Guilt completely overtook me as I knew I would not go back to my car to get them.
As I would approach the check-out lines, I would not be “feeling the love” for myself or for much of anything else while I was trying to quickly calculate which line would have the least wait time based on the number of people in line and the number of items in their carts, as well both the customers’ and cashiers’ commitment to take the check-out process “seriously.” And to determine who would do everything as quickly as humanly possible while I judged their success or lack thereof, especially when I more often than not chose the wrong/slowest line. Waiting in line was the most challenging part of the trip for me.
I was an undergraduate English major in college, so when I think about waiting, I often think about Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot.” It is a play about two men waiting to meet Godot, who never comes. It always makes me think about how much time we can spend waiting for the future, or waiting for things that never happen. On another level, the play is about how time is part of our humanness, and how to make time matter while recognizing its fleeting nature. It is also about the paradox of time and how we can change our perception of the passing of time – how time “flies”and feels “time-less” when we are enjoying ourselves, and seems to “stop in its tracks” when we aren’t. Time “stopped in its tracks” for me at the grocery store.
In one of Eckart Tolle’s YouTube videos “Waiting with Presence,” he talks about how the old state of consciousness is waiting for the next thing whereas the new state of consciousness is not really waiting, just being where you are and enjoying that. As I have come to understand in my Trinity practice, everything in the moment is just the way it is – perfect! I now see this stopping of time as often the result of the past and future “crowding out” the Now, whereas time “flying” and feeling “time-less” is the expansiveness of being in the NOW, fully being where you are in the moment.
The ongoing journey with my practice has changed my grocery shopping trips (among other things) into a journey in itself, as I gave up waiting as a state of mind. I now see waiting as an opportunity to be present, and think of waiting as a gift – the gift of time to be present and free of judgment. I also see waiting as a time to connect, not just within me as part of my own spiritual practice. In an interview with Ram Dass by Eliot Jay Rosen, he asked Ram Dass about doing your spiritual practice while waiting in line at the bank. Ram Dass replied:
“Exactly. But you’re not doing a spiritual practice that involves going away from waiting in line at the bank. What I used to do is wait in line and I’d do mantra or breathing. I’d go into my vipassana meditation. But now I’m interested in whether waiting in line at the bank can itself be the thing. I notice my impatience, notice the feeling in my feet as I am standing there, notice the different levels of reality of the people I’m looking at. Am I seeing a bank teller or am I seeing the Divine Mother as a bank teller? I allow myself to play with the moment more, still dealing with the stuff of the moment rather than going away.”
Going to the grocery store is no longer just a trip for me where I have to wait in line. I especially like Eckart Tolle’s suggested response to someone who apologizes about having kept them waiting: “That’s all right, I wasn’t waiting. I was just standing there enjoying myself – in joy in myself.” This is now my grocery store journey where I embrace the waiting without judgment, and experience love and gratitude for being connected in the moment, for this moment. I play with the moment. I rarely forget my “save the Earth” shopping bags, but when I do, I joyfully go back to my car for them!
Sandi Newton
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
My Pet Peeves
I am a dog person and have loved having dogs as pets since I was a child. They are always ready and waiting with wagging tails to be petted. I used to have a lot of peeves as pets, too, that were also always ready and waiting for me to pet them — anywhere, anytime! And they were an ever growing pack of peeves. I remember often saying: “That is one of my pet peeves.”
My peeves were there for me to pet in the car while I was driving. For example:
- Tailgaters when you’re going faster than the speed limit, or those really slow drivers in the fast lane;
- Turn signals on the car in front of you staying on FOREVER (or drivers who don’t use a turn signal at all);
- Litterers who throw trash from their car window as they drive.
My peeves were with me when I went to the movies and restaurants and shopping:
- Squashed cigarette butts outside of entry doors into a building (because no smoking allowed inside??);
- Parents bringing their pre-schoolers to R-rated movies (because they are too young to understand??);
- People repeatedly hitting the elevator button (to make the elevator arrive sooner??);
- Making a sucking noise with a straw to get that very last drop (or all those drops after the very last drop??);
- Drivers parking their cars across 2 parking spaces (for those needing more personal space for their beloved vehicle??);
- Wobbly tables at restaurants (to keep you moving until you leave??);
- Movie talkers, or super noisy eaters during a movie (food, friends, entertainment – what a great socializing opportunity??).
Of course, they lived with me at home, too:
- Coming home to a house smelling like trash that should have been taken out yesterday;
- A topless toothpaste tube now full of dried toothpaste;
- No extra roll of toilet paper in the bathroom;
- An empty carton in the refrigerator…
I’ll stop this particular list now as I do live by myself 🙂
As Trinity Energy Progression became more and more a part of my life, I began to ask myself what was I willing or able to do to actually stop these pesky peeves from being my constant companions. I could never see myself actually hurling an angry admonition into a movie theater audience for someone a few rows away to eat more quietly or to stop their endless talking. But that is exactly what I was doing in my head as I succumbed to the peeves’ demands to be petted without it having any effect on actually stopping their unwanted behavior.
Peeve petting was an instantaneous way to annoy myself without really trying by just looking around me. I rarely missed an opportunity to pick up stray peeves. There were so many of them that were just begging to be petted, ALL the time! Through my Trinity practice, I began to explore why I would ever want to annoy myself with this and why I continued to pick up even more peeves to pet. I realized how petting peeves could obsess me to the extent that they would become a primary focus and distraction, with me often sharing my thoughts about the annoying peeve with whomever was within earshot. I see the peeves as my ego’s pets; my ego loves this “petting.” My ego also loves “peeving” contests where “my peeve is better than yours” or having more peeves than someone else, as well as the superiority my ego feels by only petting the peeve rather than being the peeve.
Now, when I see a peeve looming in front of me or when someone comments that something is a pet peeve of theirs, my head fills with laughter at the thought of a peeve as my pet nipping at my heels and barking incessantly to get my attention so I will pet it. With the focus of Trinity Energy Progression on unconditional love and joy, I couldn’t help but see how my dogs as pets have always been “adorable bundles” (in various sizes) of unconditional love and joy. Although peeves come in many shapes and sizes as well, I see them all as rather “unadorable bundles” of judgment and negativity. I see petting them as expressions of this negativity and judgment by me as the peeve petter.
These days, I laugh at myself at even the idea of choosing to be a peeve petter instead of enjoying petting my unconditionally loving tail-wagging dog. Trinity Energy Progression has helped me remember to choose this simple joy instead of petting peeves. With a smile on my face, I am now going to pet my dog!
Sandi Newton
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
F.E.A.R.
When did I first know fear?
– Was I afraid of being born into this world while I was still in the womb?
– Was I afraid to be separated when the umbilical cord was cut?
– Did my mother pass along fears she may have had during my birth as a result of her miscarriage before her pregnancy with me?
– Was I afraid of moving from the protective darkness of the womb into the light of the world?
I continue to wonder if fear is innate to the human experience, and if so, if fear is something we need to learn to live with so that it empowers rather than impedes us. Maybe security blankets and night lights are just the beginning of ways we learn to live with it when we are babies. And then what?
Throughout my life, I have experienced the duality of fear:
– Fear of not knowing; fear of knowing
– Fear of being lost and alone; fear of losing myself in others
– Fear of looking at my authentic self in the mirror; fear of not recognizing who I see
– Fear of being too smart; fear of not being smart enough
– Fear of the unknown; fear of the known
– Fear of the dark; fear of the light
– Fear of making the wrong move; being frozen with fear
– Fear of failure; fear of success
– Fear that happiness is temporary; fear that sadness isn’t
– Fear of loving too much; fear of loving too little
– Fear of feeling smothered by love; fear of starving for love
– Fear of being in a relationship where my authentic self isn’t flourishing; fear of being alone
– Fear of knowing myself; fear of not knowing who I am
My journey has enabled me to realize that my fears are based on not fully loving myself unconditionally. Fear may live in our past. But I have realized that in each moment of our present, we have a choice to love ourselves unconditionally, and in doing so, to say no to living in fear.
I am still learning how to:
– Live with fears that arise by observing them and seeing how they could serve and empower me rather than sabotage and impede me.
– Open my heart and let unconditional love and light lift me out of fear
– Transform fear into something I can live with and not in, so that my authentic self can flourish
As I reframe my perspective on fear, I am reframing/transforming acronyms for F.E.A.R. into:
– Forget Everything And Remember
– Face Everything And Rejoice
– Feel Excited And Ready
– Forget Everything And Relax
– Face Everything And Remember
– Fortunately Everything is All Right
– Feel Entirely Absolutely Resourceful
What does F.E.A.R. stand for to you?
Sandi Newton
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
House For Sale: 4-2-2, 2 Living Areas, Fenced Yard
No, this is not a realtor listing… but I’ve moved! Because of my Trinity Energy Progression practice, my mind and spirit have been able to “move out” of my “4-2-2” while my 3D body still lives in my physical house.
Recently, I came across the following quote on the back of a T-shirt and it made me think of how so many obstacles have been removed through my Trinity Energy practice:
“Expansion of Awareness is the Removal of Obstacles.”
Right after receiving the training and entrainment to become a Trinity Energy Practitioner in 2012, I experienced an amazing shift. My awareness began to expand at what seemed like an exponential rate. Partitions/walls began to dissolve and fall away. I began to realize that all the rooms in my mind/spirit house that had been my spiritual home and sanctuary were instead separating me from connecting to the Divine Oneness! The stillness within that I had previously experienced in my house was now felt as a vibration of being connected with the Oneness of the Divine Consciousness. I knew that my awareness was expanding as I went deeper into my true self, and knew that feeling this new connection was possible because I was now able to “remember” the Divine Consciousness that had always been in me. I felt an incredible wholeness, expansiveness and limitlessness. I felt great joy and bliss as I experienced this homecoming to a house without partitions/walls. I was no longer limited in my ability to turn up the light of the Divine to its full brightness because of all the different rooms that I had created in which the ego felt at home: fear, anxiety, regret, resentment, anger, guilt, doubt, sorrow, pain, drama, trauma, illness, etc.
My ego still shows up at my mind/spirit house, albeit less frequently, but I no longer have any rooms set aside for extended stays. I now live in open spaces filled with love and light where my awareness continues to expand through my Trinity Energy Progression practice.
Sandi Newton
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator
D5 Creation