What is friendship? How do you recognise a true friend?

Due to recent events its a subject ive been forced to consider and its a very difficult thing to pin down. Certainly it proved to be trickier than I thought it would be and that is because there is not just one kind of friendship is there.

There are many kinds of relationships that often fall under an umbrella term of friendship. So I started considering relationships between people. You have your work friends, your school friends, college friends, university friends. Depending on your developmental stage and path in life you will encounter one or more of these relationships. Moving on from those you have friends made through shared interests such as hobbies, crafts, sports etc. These kinds of friendship, interest based, stand alone outside of the developmental friendships. Interest based friendships are more likely to stay with us for life. Then there are friendships born of soulmates. A relationship so precious that we feel a deep connection on a soul level. Outside of these are the peripheral friendships, or aquintances. They serve a purpose more for networking than actual friendship.

So, to summarize there are developmental friendships, Interest based friendships, soulmates and aquintances. Of course that is my opinion and I have tried to take an objective approach.

To me a true friend accepts you as you are, all the bad bits included. You cant cherry pick the qualities of a person. It just doesnt work like that. A true friend does everything possible to help you, to be there for you when you need them most. They never turn their back or give up on you. At least these are the things I consider to be attributes of a true friendship. When I enter into a friendship with someone these are the things I expect to give! In a niave way I thought eveyone else did too!

About a year and a half ago I came to the rescue of a newly ex-girlfriend from a good friend of mine since our college days. They had been together over six years and had bought a house together. She was completely in shock and somehow I ended up with her staying with me for over a week. Before this I’d had little contact with her so it was more a relationship of counseller and client and it took that form more and more and she let out her heart to me in those first few weeks. Some months down the line we had grown closer but her phonecalls to me always revolved around her latest problem as opposed to just wanting to catch up and chat. However, at the time I really didnt mind. She had no contact with her family and only aquintances from work so she needed someone she could pour everything out to.
A year later and little had changed in this friendship except she had become a lot more demanding of me and my time and unfortunately, as is in her nature, suspicious. She became jealous if I mentioned other people and suspicious if I hadnt told her my movements for that week. Her need to control is what damaged the relationship she had come out of the year before though it seemed she had not learnt the lesson in it. So, I backed away a little. I have longterm health problems and have been very ill. Being in a controlling friendship really didnt help my situation. Infact it made it worse. I didnt want to cut ties with her because everybody needs someone, a friend they know will be there for them.
Early in the year her behaviour became far more eratic and unstable. A year and two months on from the split she still believed that “he will come round and realise we should be together”. He had moved on and was with a new patner and very happy but she considered this to be nothing more than him “getting stuff out of his system” and she intended to be there when he had.
Trying to help someone who is clinging to delusions like that is very difficult. As a friend I wanted to help her but was also aware of the effect that the reality check she so badly needed would have. There had recently been an incident where she called me up telling me she wanted to end it all. When I asked her why she said “it would mean I could always be with him”. Something in what she was saying felt ‘off’ so I called her bluff. Some years ago, during the worst of my illness I had attempted an overdose so the psychology of that state of mind was familiar to me. I studied psychology afterwards along with counselling skills to gain better understanding. I hit her with a barrage of questions ranging from how she would do it to wether she had all her finances, etc in check so she wouldnt pass on any debts. She was completely flumoxed and that was the idea. She got angry with me because I “didnt react the way I expected you to!”. To cut a long story short she was hoping for attention. They were still sharing the house so when the phone line went dead I called his mobile line and he went to check she was still ok. Thats what she had been counting on! Hopefully it would scare her ex enough into “realizing he was still in love with me”. I admit to feeling really angry with her for using me in such a cheap way! Especially as she knew I had been through suicidal depression some years before. She’d spared no thought as to how it would effect me and that made me doubt the value she placed on our friendship.
Following this I drew away from her but still kept the lines of communication open. If she needed me I would be there but she had damaged the friendship! Recently I txt her to see how she was doing as I hadnt heard from her in a while. She was livid with me because I hadnt been calling on a regular basis and attacked my ability to be a good friend telling me “this friendship cant all come from me!”. I reminded her of all the times and ways I had helped her and with that argument lost she promptly picked another, then another. Her whole attitude was viscious. It was something I had brought on myself. Last time we had spoken, instead of appeasing her I had given her the truth, all be it a watered down version of that reality check she so badly needed. She had been fuming over it, waiting for me to call and apologise. So, when i’d sent her a txt to see how she was she boiled over.

It was during that last communication when I realised that there never truly, had been a friendship. The dynamics had been wrong from the begining. Not once in all that time had she actually called to see if I was well or not. I never was her friend. I had been her therapist, her counseller. It was a one way friendship but not in the direction she had thought. When I stopped giving what she wanted she was furious. Thats not friendship. Even though her behaviour had been appaling I could have forgiven that but when I realised how little she appreciated and valued what I gave I knew that this relationship had come to the end of the line.

True friendship is a connection between two people. The flow of give and take. The respect for one another as we are and the innate love of a kindred spirit. It is a bond of the heart and a meeting of minds. Something so precious that it must never be taken for granted! The true friend she had claimed to be had never really existed from the start and realising that empowered me to take steps to bring closure on a very stressfull time. And I could do so without feeling any guilt or inability to heal her. The only person who will ever heal her is herself!

Remember to appreciate the friends you have in your life. Show them your love for they are your kindred spirits, the soul mates who carry you on. Honour the bond that binds your souls together in perfect love and perfect trust!

Much Love
Danielle Rush
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At the time and in the place where you feel most comfortable, place your body in the position that you have found to be the most beneficial for meditation. Close your eyes. Close your ears by putting your thumbs in them, or by using earplugs. This will intensify the sound of your breath while diminishing the distractions that sight and sound bring. Command your mind to be silent, your emotions to be calm, and your body to stay relaxed.

Focus on the sound of your breath coming in. Associate it with the word So. As your breath leaves, listen to the sound and associate it with the word Ham. To pronounce So and Ham correctly, listen to how they sound. As with most pranayama (breathing techniques), Soham is done either in 3 cycles of 12 or 12 cycles of 12. One inhalation and one exhalation are one respiration. 12 respirations are one cycle. For those just starting to use this technique, it is usual to silently say the word So with each inhalation and the word Ham with each exhale. When you are focused consistently, consciously, you will flow into simply listening to the sound of Soham.

Soham is by far the easiest meditation. It comes to all living creatures without any effort. And yet it is the deepest possible technique, as it presents the opportunity to meditate on the great mystery of life and the life-giver itself.

No matter how we have acted and reacted, with each breath we are forgiven for our so-called sins and rewarded with another breath, another heartbeat, and another moment of life to cherish. No act of will on our part can give us breath. Literally, we are graced with this gift of life from a power greater than ourselves. A corpse has every bone, every organ, and every bodily system that we have, and yet it doesn’t have life or healing energy filling every cell with every breath, as we have. As you merge more and more with Soham, you surrender your reactivity to your thoughts, emotions, and sensory impressions. These are all just heavy earth-bound suffering-causing limitations. The divine energy of Soham is limitless heavenly love and light. Witness, surrender all effort, and fill with this most precious gift of Grace.

(Danielle Rush)

We are so limited by language. What we call the unconscious is really full of consciousness. What the unconscious is lacking is our awareness. Awareness and consciousness are two entirely different things. Awareness comes from our energetic body. Consciousness comes from our Dreamer or Soul.

Part of a spiritual path is expanding your awareness deeper and deeper into the unconscious so as to unlock its secrets and its power. Deep in the core of your unconscious lays the diamond of our Essential Self. The Essential Self contains the purpose of this lifetime. It takes much diligent work with self, often many years, however when you connect to your Essential Self and unlock your purpose for this lifetime, you make a significant leap in your spirituality.

What stops you from unlocking the unconscious? Between your awareness and the unconscious lays the subconscious. Unlike the unconscious, the subconscious is a negative force. The subconscious contains all of your repressed and suppressed pain, emotions and negative experience. The subconscious effectively blocks you from the unconscious.

The subconscious begins to form at a very early age. When one is unable to handle an experience, for example if a 2 year old is sexually molested, a chemical reaction occurs in the brain in an attempt to block the experience out. This mechanism is called repression. The experience is repressed – forced out of our awareness. It is pushed deep into your psyche. As the repressed experience has no place it can go, it begins to accumulate below our awareness. As negative repressed experiences accumulate the subconscious is born.

The subconscious also expands later on in life when you have experiences you could handle, however because they are painful you choose to hide them from your awareness. This is called suppression. You suppress experiences you don’t like and push them into your subconscious. Each time you do this the subconscious grows, making you more disconnected from your unconscious. Repression is a natural mechanism of the brain when it cannot handle an experience. This often happens at a young age. On the other hand, suppression occurs when we choose to avoid, deny or push away and experience so as to hide it from our awareness.

To advance spiritually, you must begin to move your awareness into your subconscious. As you do so, you release the energy behind the painful emotions and experiences you have repressed and suppressed. This is called the healing process. It can be painful. However, it is always good to remember that no matter how painful the healing process is, the pain cannot hurt you.

As you release the energy of repressed and suppressed emotions and experiences, the subconscious shrinks and you unleash the power of the unconscious. Your Essential Self begins to shine through into your life. This is when the potential for co-creating your reality begins. You begin to co-create your life along with your Essential Self.

It is possible, although never fully, to move into your unconscious without dealing with your subconscious. It can be done through meditation and certain esoteric processes. What you do is to tunnel holes through the subconscious into your unconscious. However, even when you connect with the unconscious and aspects of your Higher Self, it will always be polluted by your subconscious. Many fall into this trap. They try to get to their unconscious without dealing with the subconscious. They often get lost in fantasy and become ineffectual in life.

By avoiding the subconscious many people become infected with the spiritual disease I call Spiritual Split. They love to run off into energy, but their daily life is a mess. They try to go higher and higher in their meditations, but their life vibrates lower and lower. They have failed relationships, difficulties with job and career and lack in their life. Their psyche becomes split between their spiritual and daily life.

Part of spiritual evolution is personal empowerment and dominion. You must be able to bring your spirituality down to your daily life. You must be able to handle life, relationships, career, security, and so on. Spirituality is meant to empower these things. But many attempt to use spirituality to escape from life. To be effectual in life you must go through the healing process.

Another difficulty in clearing out the subconscious that is prevalent today is the use of psychotropic drugs. In the past 10 years new drugs have been developed that help people cope with their subconscious without the feeling drugged side affects of previous drugs used for depression and anxiety. The help in dealing with life these new drugs have given some people has been close to miraculous.

However, in a spiritual context these drugs make it difficult to clear out the subconscious. To clear out the subconscious you must be able to intimately feel what is suppressed so that you can process it through and clear it. Psychotropic drugs are intentionally created so that one does not feel so intimately what is in the subconscious. When one comes off the drug, they often find that their demons are still alive and well in the subconscious. The drug is a chemical form of suppression. It does not heal the subconscious.

During my apprenticeship with unseen friends, they would often say to me, “The biggest blocks to spirituality are avoidance, and denial.” Spirit cannot help you when you are in avoidance or denial. You are given free will. If you use your will to avoid and deny something, whether it is too painful or because you do not like what you see, you make it impossible to receive help. Spirit will not cross your line of will.

Do what you can do accelerate your healing process. Leave no rock unturned in your subconscious. This is the part of spirituality that is not always fun. However, if you stick it out and do what you need to do to heal, not only will you realize many rewards in your life, you will be able to excel in ways you would have never believed possible. Spiritual enlightenment is so much more than you could ever imagine. Bring the subconscious into the light. It is well worth it.

(Danielle Rush)

Your Coming into Body Was Intentional!

Toltecs speak much about the importance of Intent. The use of Intent is one of the most basic and powerful tools you use to advance on your path. Even knowing the importance of Intent, what some people forgot is that coming into body is intentional. In fact, it is Intent itself that caused you to take on a body.

Due to the density of the timeframe you live in, one of the difficulties is that you forget what the Intent is for this particular lifetime. You forget what you are meant to complete and fulfill. The good news is that you do not need to create a purpose for your life. It was already created by you with intention before you came into body. All you need to do is to uncover that original Intent and then live it to fulfillment.

Your Intent or purpose for this lifetime lies in your unconscious. Like a diamond, it is just waiting to be uncovered by you. Do your healing, clear your emotional charges and clean out your beliefs and stale knowledge. As you do so, you begin to eliminate your subconscious, opening the way to your unconscious. Some more good news is that when you uncover your original Intent or purpose, all of the forces of your Dreamer or higher aspects of Self rally behind you to help you fulfill your purpose.

Living in accordance to your Intent, is living on purpose or walking the path of your destiny. It is when your spiritual path truly begins. You are connected to that aspect of Self that is so much more powerful, intelligent. It is the Self that exists in alignment to the Intent of the Nagual or ‘All That Is’. That larger self comes through the personality self to co-create your life in accordance to your life purpose.

True fulfillment in life comes through realizing your original Intent for this lifetime. When you live on purpose Power moves into your life. Life flows. New probabilities and opportunities come your way. There is so much help that comes to assist you when you align the intent of your personality self to the bigger Intent of your Higher Self. This doesn’t mean that you will not have any more challenges in life. You will. You are meant to. However, not only is your capacity to handle the challenges greater, you have great assistance from realms beyond the physical plane. As an empowered being, you gain the ability to have a positive impact on your self and in life.

Every morning set your Intent. Find those urges from deep within and set your Intent to follow them. Those urges come from the bigger part of you – the bigger part of you that lies in your unconscious. Do your healing and growth work. Clean and clear your emotional and mental inventory. As you do so your life has greater meaning and you will find the deep fulfillment that comes through living on purpose.

Dont forget to be Happy.

(Danielle Rush)

It is not always easy to give up your old ties to the world and fall head first into the spiritual side of life. Not is it always right for everyone either. I was continuing with my day to day life quite happily, or so I thought, not wanting to give up the many things that I felt were important to me. A part of me knew that I wasn’t quite on the right path but I remained content to continue with healing at a healing centre and giving psychic and mediumistic readings to an audience once a week. I knew that I was so close to where I should be. The final sacrifice of leaving your old world behind, stepping out of the ‘9 to 5′ materialistic world, is such a hard thing to do. When you do, you find yourself grieving not just for your old life but for the things you thought were important, and sometimes the poeple you thought were important too.

The knock for me came when I got ill. I have had M.E,/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, for about 8yrs but have learnt to live with it.
My final blow came 6yrs ago. This time my life was under threat from a little known foe. I have a very rare genetic illness called VKH, it stands for Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada syndrome. The immune system attacks all pigment in the body, the eyes, the inner ear, the lining of the brain and spinal cord, the digestive system, and so on & so on.

One morning I woke up with only half of my vision. All I could see were colours, light and shapes. I was terrified. I went straight to eye casualty centre where they battled to save my sight. My optic nerves were detatching which required injections of steroids into the eye itself. I had 3 injections into my left eye and 4 into the right. I had to be awake at the time to! They doctors then took me into another room where they took lots of photos and scans of the eyes. Luckily for me, a locam from Moorfields Eye Hospital in London happened to be there, it was meant to be his day off. He was a malaysian man, his name was Mr Kok (dont laugh please this man saved my eyesight, thank you . Nobody else knew what was wrong and my eyesight was getting worse by the minute. He asked me hundreds of questions about my childhood, my ancestral line, whether I ever found pigmentless hairs or not. I was so confused.
It turned out that the recessive gene that causes the VKH came from my Grandfathers line. We have latin blood in the family and the Spanish ancestor we traced had shipwrecked in Scotland when the Spanish Armarda came here. How bizarre. A gene that hadnt shown up in the family since Marc O Polo times just happens to switch on in me. I couldnt believe it. The syndrome is only usually found in the poeple who used to travel the old ‘Silk Trade Route’. Why I dont know, but thats how it turned up in me.

So, im one of about 25-30 poeple in the UK with this crazy illness. In the first year that it struck my life became a living hell. I had Meningitis 6 times over three months, this happens when the lining of the brain becomes swollen and is a part of the condition. The pain was truly unlivable. I would lose consciousness quite alot due to the pain, thankfully it means I dont remember very much about the worst attacks. The first attack was one of the worst,my bloodpressure went nuts at 255 over 160, I really thought my head would explode. I couldnt talk due to pain but luckily, as I said, I kept passing out. Over the next 3 months I went from 8 1/2 stone to 18 stone because of the medications. I had to go on a type of chemotherapy to stop my immune system attacking my body which left me with numerous health problems and I had to start using a wheelchair. I had stretch marks appearing so fast that some of them would actually split and bleed. I was a mess. Within a year I was 80 percent bedbound. I couldnt gig with the band anymore, that part of my life had gone and it was the thing I lived for.

Six years on and im about 70 percent housebound which is much better than I was. I dont have to use a wheelchair anymore except for when I am very fatigued, but I still have to walk with a stick. I still need strict rest periods through the day but I am coping better. It would seem that the VKH is now in remission but could easily come back. It usually attacks poeple in their twenties and poeple in their fifties. My eyes are now healed and, although I have been left with some blank spots of vision, my sight is almost back to normal and all the scarring has gone.

Months of sitting in hospital beds taught me alot about life. I got the crash course on what is truly important in life. So many of my beliefs or ideas on how you should live your life were blown apart. I started to listen to what my body was telling me, and what my subconscious was trying to say. I was already spiritual but now I explored my own personal beliefs instead of trying to fit in with someone elses. I thought I was alone in my ideas until I came across the Toltec shamans of meso-america. All their ideas and beliefs fitted with mine rather than me trying to fit with them. The Mayans came after the Toltecs and some chose to continue with their religion (for want of a better term) in the form of the priests and priestesses. Thanks to them the Toltec way of being was rescued and is still practised. The only famous known followers of Toltec ways I can think of are Don Jaun Matus, the man who trained Carlos Castaneda, and Victor Sanchez who has written many books, also Florinda Donner, a female shaman and author, and Don Miguel Ruiz who has written books such as Beyond Fear: A Toltec guide to Freedom and Joy. Teotihuacan, “the place where men become gods,” is the sacred center of the Toltecs, thirty miles northeast of Mexico City. The Toltecs retained and passed down through oral tradition secret knowledge of healing and spiritual transformation which has remained intact for thousands of years. Traditionally the word Toltec defined a group of poeple who achieved a rarified level of spiritual enlightenment. They became known as The Toltecs.

Most who follow a path akin to Toltec shamanism have been through a major trauma of somekind, and in the fifth year of that trauma the person becomes aware of the Toltec way. No one quite knows why but it has been long documented and even researched. I was in the that fifth year and it was this year that I found the Toltec way.

Life has some strange avenues, twists and turns, most of which are meant to be. Some we can change and some are our destiny. Most of us sleepwalk our way through life but some of us, if we choose to ‘wake-up’, get to open our eyes and really see the world and its energy.

(Danielle Rush)

I was thinking that my life would get back on track when I was all healed, when I could get physical mometum. Now I realise that momentum can also be a state of mind. A willingness to progress with life from a balanced, focused mind set.

Momentum is a blessing when coupled with focus and good intent. To look back blindly is wastefull. To always look forward can be unbalanced. To experience the now is where we all should be. In the moment. We have been so conditioned that it is often the hardest place of all to find ourselves in.

During dreamtime we access the now completely. So much so that it can leave us feeling confused. Balance is the key here. Because we have been so conditioned to society it can take time to change direction and return to the center. The moment. Then there is the other end of the scale. Those who will tell you, you must only live in the now. As great as this might be it would also be a little impractical. My analogy is this. For a guitar to play there has to be balance. If the strings are too tight or too slack it will throw everything out of key, out of tune and ultimately leave the instument unplayable!

Letting go of old behaviour is something that will take time and must not be hurried for you, by anyone. Going back to the guitar analogy we must first be in tune with ourselves before we can go about playing melodies. When we are in tune with ourselves and the events in our lives we can begin to make changes for the better that will have long lasting effect.

Being in tune with who you are brings with it the confidence of self. A confidence without ego! The most valuable of all. And thats a precious thing! There are so many people who strive hard to be ego free when all we really have to do is remember. Assuming you were a child once and have’nt been lab grown then you know what it is to be without ego. So we need to remember but not by looking back, by looking within. By returning to center!

I want to progress with my life, to feel the momentum and I do so through action. Action of intent. Physical disability need not be a barrier. It is a state of mind. A focus of intent that allows you to develop and progress as a being and throughout your life.

(Danielle Rush)

From the East, House of Light
May wisdom dawn in us
So we may see all things in clarity

From the North, House of Night
May wisdom ripen in us
So we may know all from within

From the West, House of Transformation
May wisdom be transformed into right action
So we may do what must be done

From the South, House of Eternal Sun
May right action reap the harvest
So we may enjoy the fruits of planetary being

From Above, House of Heaven
Where star people and ancestors gather
May their blessings come to us now

From Below, House of Earth
May the heartbeat of her crystal core
Bless us with harmonies to end all war

From the Center, Galactic source
Which is everywhere at once
May everything be known
As the light of Mutual love

A Yum Hunab K’u Evam Maya E Ma Ho!
(May the peace of the nature of the cosmos be in each and everyone of us)

connection

Originally uploaded by Danielle Jessica

Stand tall
Be strong
For you are the ancient ones
From seven stars strewn afar has come
The wisdom
In oracles old
Your story was told
From singing spheres in heaven’s kingdom

(by Danielle Rush)