Getting
Dragged Around the Desert with Elvis
One summer, when I was twenty something, I decided to
spend six months with my mother, stepfather, and three sisters in Tucson,
Arizona. The heat index was so hot that I had to carry around a Big Gulp just
to walk from the apartment to the swimming pool, which felt like warm bath
water.
I’m big on singing when I take a walk. Singing and walking
has calmed me since I was a little kid running away from family problems. I
would take long hikes down the highway and sing at the top of my lungs. I
remember that summer in Arizona taking walks with Big Gulp from the 7-11. The
heat would get stuck in my throat like sand. No sound would come out in the
high register of my voice. When your saliva evaporates before you can swallow,
that’s heat that melts!
That summer I had not become a minister yet, but was
getting interested in the Jesus movement. I found a small ministry start-up and
helped a preacher and his insane wife with the music. I met a few people at the
ministry who ended up becoming good friends. I absolutely have no idea where
any of them are today. I can’t even remember the name of the guy who ended up
becoming my dearest friend. Because I can’t remember his name, let’s just call
him Elvis!
Elvis was straight, I think, but took a great interest in
me as an individual. I wasn’t used to straight men befriending me. I was a
little effeminate, then, and I think straight guys were afraid to be around me.
Thoughts of the past still cloud my mind these days.
Sometimes people, friends, family… just vanish without saying why. I guess,
deep inside, I’m afraid of abandonment—of coming home from the candy store and
finding Momma’s clothes and belongings gone. I relive that moment a lot.
The dreams are like walking with Elvis in the desert that
summer in 1983. They are phantoms conversing, making up stories of how it would
be if we could talk again, meet one more time, or even just pass on the street
one of those special people from my past.
I wake up confused. It’s as if my dreams have merged with
a greater reality, where spirit and humanity meet. My ego self tries to
understand the deep workings of spirit through connections with other human egos,
and comes up with confusion.
Even this morning I awoke early, because I had a
disturbing dream about a friend who simply disappeared off the face of the
earth. This wasn’t just any friend. It was one of my dearest friends. We talked
three times a day, walked our dogs together, ate a meal two to three times a
week. Her departure felt like suddenly, but I guess it was a matter of a couple
years, when she disappeared like that phantom in the desert. She speaks to me
in dreams, and I feel I’ll never understand her disappearing.
I voice in my head keeps saying, “DIRECTION, NOT
REJECTION!”
So, I go back to my quiet time and pray, once again with
the same prayer. “God, what is the purpose of this influx of love and then
exporting of this same love only to feel hurt and residual pain for, sometimes,
years?”
Then I’m brought back to the story of my best friend in
college. We were inseparable. We even moved to NYC together after college. He
decided one year later that New York wasn’t for him, so he moved to Washington,
D. C., went back to college, and eventually got married and had four children.
This was peculiar, because I knew him as a gay man. Eventually, what was a best
friend, became another Elvis phantom in the desert. Letters and phone calls
went unanswered.
Some twenty years later, I found him on Facebook. He is
single now, back to his gay roots, and couldn’t be a dearer friend. It seemed
his ex-wife had kept my letters, intercepted my phone calls, and secretly hated
me, because of my history with her husband. After my old friend and I discussed
it, everything made sense. But, time and trust in our deep commitment to loving
each other were the only thing that kept me from throwing in the towel on that
ghost.
Let’s face it. We don’t understand the workings of spirit
in our lives, from the friends and partners who depart, to the jobs that
somehow just don’t suit us anymore. We can only follow the path that we see in
front of us with authenticity, eating the manna set before us each day like the
Jews in the desert.
If I could talk to Elvis right now, I would say, “Send me
into a dream where I release my fear of holding on to you, love. Let me release
it like two doves at a wedding, letting it fly away and expand in the universe.
And should you return to me, my love, let our joy multiply like life’s lessons,
only to make the pain of temporarily losing you palatable once again.”
______________________________________________
Go to Week 3
of the “Year to CLEAR
Challenge” at www.Bosebastian.com
_______________________________________
Below is information that I will be sharing for about a month,
as not every person on my list reads the blog every day. If you have already
read it, just skip over it. Thanks for understanding.
A
Year to CLEAR Challenge:
(Please Know: You Can Join Us At Any Point in the Year
Challenge.)
The masses search outward for things that qualify them as a
person, but I always go inward for that which quantifies me for greatness. At
twenty-five I preached on street corners in NYC as an in-the-closet Pentecostal
minister. One day I heard a still small voice say, ‘God cannot be contained in a
book or a law or even in a religion. Dig deeper, reach further to find me, and
you will find your authentic Self.’”
A Year to CLEAR Challenge!
The acronym CLEAR
stands for (Compassionate, Loving,
Enthusiastic, And Relationship-Ready). The goal of this project is to
engulf readers in a weekly study that will transform them by removing blocks,
promote self-growth, and give them wings to fly freely into daily life. Each
week, by going to BoSebastian.com and choosing the Year to CLEAR Challenge tab,
a new challenge or thought to provoke conversation, growth, and group
functionality.
My vision is to make Finding Authentic You the book to
have in your Kindle or on your computer. The book is a comprehensive look at
growth—spiritually, mentally, and physically.
As a yoga teacher and student of the Ayurvedic tradition, I bring
to the table understanding of physical challenges, the ability to overcome
mental problems with Life & Health Coaching, as well as hypnotherapy, and
expertise in meditation and spirituality as a minister.
The combination of all three in one book with an interactive
connection to like-minded readers, for one year, is what makes this Year to
CLEAR Challenge a must-do for every spiritual seeker.
The One-Year Approach to Change
No one believes he or she can change overnight. But success in
change comes from the metaphors of nature. Seasonally, life changes all around
us in nature. Finding Authentic You offers a gradual change perspective,
looking at the triune aspects of change as in yoga: Body, Mind and Spirit.
Accessing the
ability to change and finding
yourself actually pursuing change must be a daily search, which I call
getting to the “observer mind.”
In this frontal cortex of the brain we find the anatomy of change
and the power to counter every negative trigger of the human process. The
workings of Hypnosis, NLP (Neuro-linguistic Programming) and EMDR (Eye Movement
Desensitization and Reprocessing) are all positive actions to help the mind and
body flow to a positive space for change.
Every aspect of FINDING AUTHENTIC YOU fulfills this
constant need for diffusing the negative past and dreaming of a fulfilling
future.
Step 1: Recognize That Change is Inevitable
Step 2: Release from Resistance
to Change
Step 3: Understanding Change and Allow Spirit to Define It
Step 4: A History Lesson—About You
Step 5: Look at Your Past with Compassion
Step 6: Making a Strong Commitment to Change
Step 7: Dream Your Fabulous Future
TOOLS FOR CHANGE:
Go to Storefront to buy any of the following or make a
donation to Finding Authentic You: www.shop.bosebastian.com
·
Introduction to Meditation
·
Smoke Cessation mp3
·
Weight Loss mp3
·
Hypnotic Lap Band surgery Mp3
·
Insomnia mp3
·
Eternal Om mp3
·
Meditation Music mp3
·
Guide to Meditation mp3
·
Healing the Body mp3
·
And my “Lessons from the Heart” book ready for
your download purchase.
Go to Home Page: www.BoSebastian.com
* * *
Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health
Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New
Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at
615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.
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Also, be looking for “Finding Authentic You, 7 Steps to
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