Rosanne Bostonian Tumblr Blog

A holistic healer and valued contributor to the therapeutic profession, Rosanne Bostonian, Ph.D., heals with Reiki touch and heart-centered words. As a Reiki master teacher, she works with clients to facilitate positive energy flow, balance physical and...

[rosannebostonian]

The ceiling of professional and personal growth is how we assess our worthiness. In other words, we assume that others see us the way we see ourselves.

How do we learn if we are worthy of love and respect? In our formative years, we take in how we are treated by significant people in our lives. Their treatment may have nothing to do with us, but we don’t have the capacity to make that discernment. Instead, we are sculpted according to the experience and limitations of the sculptors. This is how generational patterns emerge and replicate themselves. Oh, and how true they seem, because they are all we know!

Changing these patterns is a journey of faith. We must believe in what we have never experienced. We feel uncertain and even though the existing patterns are causing suffering we cling to them because they are familiar. “I know who I am as my parents’ child.”  There is a stage in which we don’t know who we are. That is scary, but we are reorganizing our reality to include curiosity and unknown possibilities.

Change assumes that we have courage to explore what isn’t known. We admit to ourselves that there may be something about life and even about ourselves that we may not yet know.  Most of us would rather know unworthiness and not take the chances needed to know worthiness.  “I know how to be when I feel unworthy. I know how to act, and I know what to expect.”  We would rather build off a flawed Blueprint than start a new one.

It’s a rough road to start a Worthiness Blueprint, one in which we deserve and are willing to invite possibilities beyond our earthly experience. It fills us with doubts and fears. But the life lived according to flawed Blueprints is a life not fully lived.

With love, Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

If you are like me, you’ve noticed that there are many #servicefailures in our travels these days. On line, during phone interactions and during our shopping experiences it feels like great service is harder to come by. As the pace of life increases, especially in the northeast US, attention to detail is diminished. We tend to move horizontally and superficially through time.

Maybe it’s the attitude that quantity replaces quality? If we do a lot of work we rationalize that we’re productive and pay less attention to the detail and quality of the work. If no one is watching, we can figure out how to get the reward without making an effort. Humans are cunning creatures! Little humans are no less cunning as they realize how to work the system. Paying attention as educators and parents is especially vital.

As our culture becomes more accepting of individuality, lost in the process can be values that bring us all higher. The concept that anything goes doesn’t serve us well. For example simply participating isn’t the same as winning. Showing up isn’t the same as attending to the task at hand in a way that makes a difference. Submitting work that is sloppy and unedited isn’t care about a finished product.

If #qualityofservice and sloppy ways are the result of inattention and unconsciousness, attention and consciousness can be the remedy. The good news is that we humans have neuroplasticity meaning that we can change our ideas through experience. The need to be aware and not rationalize our lack of attention is central to a much needed change. We have to dispose of the raft of excuses and hold ourselves responsible for creating a quality effort in our particular circle.

To accomplish this, we have to internalize the reward system. If WE notice, that is more important than if someone else does. It’s nice to hear we’ve done a good job, but our inner satisfaction and high standard is most important.

When we care about the quality of our effort and attention to detail, the world we touch transforms from ordinary to extraordinary. Multiplied by the number of those who accept this challenge, our life experience will feel connected, conscious and purposeful.

With love, Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

Entitled?

If you observe yourself and others, the basic entitlement we all assume is feeling good. In fact, when disharmony visits us (as it always will) we quickly seek remedies legal or illegal to feel better. In fact, all addictions are based on the entitlement to feel good. No news flash: Life doesn’t always feel good. Things happen that we wouldn’t happily pick of an events menu. Emotional pain such as loss, loneliness, anxiety and depression head the list that sends us running to Walgreens and CVS for relief. In addition, there is physical pain of all sorts. I’m not a fan of feeling bad, but I’ve discovered that the things we wouldn’t pick off Life’s menu usually contain lessons that lead us to deeper awareness.

Like a pendulum, life swings between happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, love and loss. We live in a world of duality, filled with opposites. At the top of the pendulum is its fulcrum, the non-moving point containing the energy that is expressed as opposing directions at the bottom. What if we are the ones observing the opposites? What if we don’t chase feelings and thoughts and simply remain aware while having various experiences?

To be the observer while we are having an experience may free us from the great disappointment of not being able to hold on to the good and prevent the bad. Faith dictates patience and stillness in the face of the temptation that demands reaction. Responses on the other hand can come from allowing Life to express Itself through us and as us.

With love, Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

We humans have a conditional love of Life. We love Life when nice things are happening. We love Life when we are showered with our hearts’ desires. We seem to believe that we are entitled to Life as WE define it, without hurts, troubles, mistakes and other unpleasant “surprises.” When Life deals out its challenges, we believe something is terribly wrong. We feel like victims, and we become anxious and depressed. Since “this isn’t supposed to be happening,” we look for relief from the supposed injustice of our suffering.

What if Life is happening exactly the way it should? What if the ebbs and flows are part of the full experience of being an embodied soul? What if our fulfillment depends on learning from every nuance that Life presents?

In my last blog I stated that letting go isn’t giving up. Letting go of blame, resentment, victimhood, and the belief that something is terribly wrong if we are uncomfortable, allows us to learn from moments we would rather bury. Spiritual texts give us examples of those who continue to remain aware through their own suffering. Are these the few, or are we all capable of rising above individual hurts to bring Grace into the world?

The ways we escape facing pain are blaming situations, other people, and Life itself. Various addictions are based on the premise that we are entitled to feel good. What if right behind that pain we are feeling is a precious lesson? What if we could deepen our vision at those moments, abandon the notion that we are supposed to feel good (all the time) and develop a focal length that sees the lesson beyond the pain?

This way of thinking is counterintuitive but sit with it and breathe into the notion that Life is Itself happening. If we let go of the desire to control Life and observe It with curiosity, there may be peace within our grasp.

With love, Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

As we string together our days, the comfort of familiarity can be shattered occasionally by realizations.  For me, the Discovery Channel and the incredible revelations of Creation are startling and sometimes creepy.  They are startling because of how amazing the Creation concept is and they are creepy because of their unfamiliarity.

“Why us, why here?”  Why the Earth in our unique position to breed Life and to manifest awareness of ourselves?  What formed matter and what is dark matter recently discovered. (Look it up…mind boggling.)

What amazes me is the unquenchable drive toward higher knowing. Will we outsmart ourselves with Artificial Intelligence? Anyone remember “2001 Space Odyssey” when the computer HAL goes rogue and turns on the astronaut?  Are we stumbling toward self-destruction in our desire to make our lives easier and easier? As I am writing this on my computer I flashed back to using a typewriter and correcting errors with those white strips. If you don’t know what I mean, good…you’re young!

Along with our progress we have to grow “consciousness.”

Our intentions are critical along with our knowledge.  If it is all about ourselves without a grand view of service in a state of humility and profound appreciation, our knowledge can turn on us like HAL the computer. Nuclear weapons are a great example in the hands of a voracious maniac.

The bizarre political landscape reminds us of the quest for power manifested in an egocentric (me first) framework. Even the truth can be redefined to serve a material mind. If we ignore those trends, rather than seeing them as attention-getters to readjust, we will tear at the heart of our American Experiment.

In service of all that is guided by Higher Wisdom, may we grow in all of our faculties and most of all in our compassion and gratitude for being us and being here.

With love,

Rosanne Bostonian

[rosannebostonian]

Anyone who has read my blogs knows that I am not kindred to technology. I just wasn’t born with that “chip!” Since all of this is unfamiliar, it causes anxiety for me (and for many others). Undaunted, I am forging forward, in a state of bewilderment and sometimes futility, to navigate. The latest mystery is the QR Code. It has shown up on boarding passes and various products. Now, however, it is on my TV screen. Lord have mercy.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. What do I scan with? Well, duh, I know it is with my phone, but do I randomly wave my phone at my TV screen? Someone is reading this blog and saying, “Google the question!” Yes, I get it, but now I’m using the devil to conquer the devil! Maybe there is poetic justice in that? I have Technology Paranoia (TP), constantly concerned that when I’m online there are lurking observers. (I made up the diagnostic category.) I recently was scammed, so my fears are well-founded and have ignited further insecurities.

I’m wondering if each of us will have our own QR Code that will serve as our signature and allow us to be admitted to classes, jobs and a variety of venues? Since we seem to have no reservations making out bodies into canvases with tattoos, why not have a Rosanne Bostonian tattoo? It’s feeling like the realm of science fiction is no longer fiction.

I recently had a student whose eyes couldn’t focus on the eText for the class. I understand that 100%. There's something about holding a book and turning the pages, writing on a piece of paper and handing in an assignment from student to teacher that feels right. I am writing that on my computer, though. ☹

With love,

Rosanne Bostonian

[rosannebostonian]

Thought Hoarder

You've probably come across the show "Hoarders" where people accumulate "stuff" that occupies every space in their homes. The accumulation sometimes reaches proportions that prevent the hoarder from entering a room or using their facilities. We say to ourselves "that's crazy...why would someone do that??" We'd be better off noticing our own brands of "hoarding!"

We don't all have layers of stuff that prevent us from walking into a room, but we do have piles of thoughts and experiences that prevent us from approaching each day with an open mind and an open heart. We have accumulated experiences that create biases. We enter Life living through a familiar filter that narrows possibilities. The familiar thoughts rattle around in our brains over and over again, occupying space. I call it "thought hoarding."

Life coaches and therapists try to help the TV hoarders clear space in their homes. In meditation work, people are instructed to find the space between the thoughts. Does the space between our thoughts have value, or is it simply nothing waiting to be filled with another thought? Some say the space is sacred...that what is most authentic is waiting to manifest in it.

As in all things, awareness opens the door to possibilities.

With love, Rosanne Bostonian

[rosannebostonian]

Have you noticed that you “feel before you think?” The body is wise and intuitive…the mind can be easily fooled.

The longer I practice Reiki (light touch energy healing) I realize that it is a validation of what I’ve known all along. As they say in the East, the mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. My particular mind is capable of all sorts of mischief along with occasional wisdom. Notice the characteristic thought loops that feel familiar to you. They are seldom encouraging and usually sort of depressing. On the other hand, the body has a certain intuitive honesty. Like a loyal friend, it takes on the overflow from the mind and becomes symptomatic to remind us that we aren’t listening.

The truth is that the mind is a relatively new evolutionary twist. The body, on the other hand, is far more enduring and attuned to the Earth’s energetic wisdom if we don’t get in its way. The alternative healing arts such as Reiki and all varieties of energy work, merely remove obstacles to the flow of energy and allow the body to function as it knows how to do. It doesn’t function when we feed it poorly, subject it to negative thinking, don’t exercise, or fail to align with the flow of energy that embraces the entire Earth and all of us in it.

We have an obesity epidemic in this country. No surprise considering many of us are eating food that resembles nothing natural. If it’s in a box or a can it probably hasn’t seen the Sun (our material source of energy) for many months. The profit motive has sentenced us to GMOs (artificially engineered foods) that confuse and assault the body. The incentives of pharmaceutical companies and corporate farms are financial, so unless we are clear-minded we can inadvertently dose ourselves with an array of toxins masquerading as food. I used to wonder why, in poverty stricken areas of our country, that obesity was particularly apparent. Cheap food is fattening, toxic food. There is the answer.

The new focus of “mindfulness” asks us to choose consciously, with an alert mind that is attuned to natural rhythms. When we go to Nature, that portion of us that dozes in civilization is awakened. In holistic practices offered by conscious practitioners, we are blessed with the channeled energy of Infinite Potential and Universal Wisdom. This is the source of wellness and abundance.

So the alternative is to be mindful, to treat the Earth and the body as sacred vessels of life-giving energy. The fact that molecules have assembled to form a conscious being that can behold itself isn’t ordinary…it’s a miracle. If we stay with that thought…”My life isn’t ordinary, it’s a miracle,” it will be easier to make conscious choices. As we each awaken, the world will change. That’s how we “bring Heaven to Earth.”

[rosannebostonian]

Since I’ve been doing Reiki practice, I have much more appreciation for feet.  My now famous dog, Toby, looks in puzzlement as I try to negotiate slippery stairs and sidewalks on two feet.  He cocks his head wondering why in Heaven’s name I am a biped.  I can empathize with his puzzlement.  It seems to make so much more sense to be cornered, like a table or chair.  We would never think to sit on a two legged chair. 

The obvious advantage of the biped is having hands that do things.  But that places a tremendous responsibility on our feet as our only points of contact with the Earth.  I find myself spending a lot of time on people’s feet when they are on my table.  Their feet seem really grateful for the acknowledgement. 

Not only are we bipeds limited in our contact with the Earth, we then insulate our feet in strange shoe configurations.  I’m amazed observing my female students sporting their incredibly acrobatic boots and shoes.  I picture their feet wedged in at precarious angles and the even less contact the contraptions afford the feet with the ground. . I’ve commented that walking on those shoes should be an Olympic event. They laugh, but it’s true. 

Back in the day when I pitched for the Budweiser Belles Women’s Major Fast Pitch Softball Team (yes, it was another lifetime), I wore spiked shoes on my feet, pounded away running and training, and my feet were of amazing service.  They performed better than I deserved, having paid little attention to them.  As time has gone on, I’m much more appreciative of their service. 

When I was in Florida I made a point of walking barefoot on the living Earth.  Of course, I was vigilant of the resident fire ants.  They have six feet.  Maybe that’s why they dominate the environment! 

I wonder how many steps the average person makes in a lifetime?  We’ll never know the actual number, but my guess is that it’s multiples of millions.  When I finish writing this, I’m going to put some wonderful Young Living Essential Oils on my tootsies.  They deserve that and more.   

May your feet carry you away from harm and into many sweet places.  May they move the negative energy we accumulate back into the Earth where it will be transformed into harmless neutrality.  And may we appreciate their service of mobility and connection to the sweet Earth from which we are born. 

With love and appreciation (of feet and many other things), 

Rosanne 

[rosannebostonian]

Why are all forms temporary? When we follow the transition of form to energy, we are on the Path to Enlightenment and Abundance.

There is a part of us that finds the loss of familiarity and form off-putting and disconcerting. I’m sure you’ve experienced that feeling…the sense that we want our loved ones with us always and our youth not to fade. We want abundance to show itself in a material way as reassurance that our existence isn’t in vain. We foster the denial that all material form is temporary. But if we’ve done any spiritual study and believe in a Creative Force beyond the senses, we know that part of Creation is the movement from invisible energy into form, and from form back into invisible energy.

We tend to celebrate the former, but not so much the latter. So many cycles in the natural world demonstrate that both are necessary. I used to think of this in a material way, that the necessity of death and destruction was simply to make room for more Creation. Now I tend to see the disappearance of people and things as lighting a Path. This is intended to teach us what and who we truly are, i.e., physical embodiments of Creative Love. When we return to that Love gracefully and without resistance (even while we’re still in physical form), we underscore our identity as manifestations of glorious abundance. This is a paradox that troubles the mind: it seems like a contradiction that destruction on the material plane reinforces the path to abundance. But when we are closer to the Creative Source, connected to Universal Energy, we are closer to abundance in every way.

Coming to this realization means letting go of the most basic notions we’ve come to believe about who we are and what Life is. It allows us to make every stage of our lives an opportunity to embrace abundance showing itself as this moment and these conditions. Accepting this can lead us to gratitude and the peace of acceptance. And it can fuel enthusiasm and defeat futility and depression.

Let’s try to move with the tides of change and not resist. Changes embraced and blessings multiplied!

With love,

Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

[rosannebostonian]

Human "Being"

The place of “being” (without doing something) is a guilty spot. In fact, if we aren’t doing something, we’re “wasting time,” and if we aren’t doing something, we’re thinking about what we just did or what we’re going to do next.

The result of this is a mad dash through time and space until something takes us down. The emergency take-down occurs through illness or some other calamity. Our earth suits (bodies) want the being place of stillness. They get tired and frantic thinking or running ragged in the spaces around them.

If we’re not running ragged, we are thinking. The Buddhists refer to this as “monkey mind.” The term conjures up monkeys chattering and flying through the treetops of time for no rhyme nor reason. Our minds grab onto any available thought like monkeys grab branches in their immediate vicinity. Frenetic internal movement and to-do lists that never get completed because there is “that other thing I forgot.”

Nature moves slowly and we are of Nature. The notion of more and faster goes against Natural Rhythms. The idea of results ruling with little respect for process is a killer.

If you read this, I hope you did so slowly, carefully and took time to breathe.

With love,

Rosanne Bostonian

[rosannebostonian]

Impatience

If there is a downside to technology, it is justifying impatience.  “I want it and I want it NOW!”  The idea that some things take time feels like a violation to many of us. It all started with the TV dinner and microwaves! (No official validation of that, just my opinion.)

Competition seems to bring the best and worst out of us. The best, digging deep for our talents and the desire to manifest the best. The worst, cheating, inability to compromise and yes, impatience.

This is another pandemic (next to our friend Covid 19).  In politics it leads to character assassination and polarization.  The biased news programs are revolting and give me (more) anxiety.  As the midterm elections approach, the heated exchange between our major parties is escalating into transparent self-interest at the expense of the Great Experiment which is our floundering USA. Most of us are distracted by our micro-lives and may not see that the attitudes filter down to our experiences of life.

There has been a reactive swing in our culture toward meditation and a search for inner peace. Nature goes on despite our blind foolishness, so many seek solace in the depth of green forests, the rhythms of the ocean or the peaks that mirror an overview of life.

As we run headlong into the next thing, the passionless voices of on-line “helpers” such as Alexa and Siri, remind me of HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey. I that movie, the computer goes rogue during space travel and the humans on board lose control of their mission.  Let us not lose control of OUR mission in a frenzy of impatience.

With love,

Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

What I have come to understand is that everything our senses experience has come through us, not from us. In other words, the material world is already created, so its slow vibration is only the reflection of highly potent “pre-manifested energy.” So, if what is already out there, people, animals, things, isn’t a “source,” what is?

The famous tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, was asked “What does it feel like to sing like that?” He said (paraphrase) “You fall backwards into the arms of God and the voice comes through you, not from you.” Of course, he tuned his “instrument” over his lifetime and created a sacred, vibrational alignment to express his gift.

Our biggest mistake as humans is to seek from the material level what can only come through us from the Invisible where all things originate. This leads to chronic frustration and disappointment. It leads to overconsumption and serial relationships in search of that “special thing, or that special one.” The most inspiration exists before a song, a relationship, a painting, a book comes into manifestation. There are unique gifts waiting to be expressed through each of us. We must find the alignment with the Invisible asking to be manifest through each of us to avoid the addiction to things and to other people.

In faith and stillness, clearing the pathways of awareness and receptivity, may each of us overcome our addictions to that which is in the world and reach for that which is not of this world.

With love,

Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

TRANSFORMATION

Our species started out as roamers. Our ancient ancestors moved with the seasons, finding fertile areas to hunt and gather. Later, we evolved into agrarians, planting crops, tending them, and harvesting the fruits of our labor. Bred into our ancient DNA is the need to process, rest and go within. The rhythms were natural, and the rates of change were predictable and tolerable.

As industry and technology entered human experience, things sped up. There were no longer the seasons to guide the rates of change experienced in one lifetime. Life became unfamiliar at an accelerated rate. This may be why many of us are resistant to change and experience anxiety at the accelerating rates at which change is occurring.

Time is a measurement of motion.

The world spins one revolution every twenty-four hours. The solar system dictates the definition of time depending on our distance from the sun. These are limitations dictated by the physical, three-dimensional world. Is there a way to define our lives in a more universal way?

It seems that the advanced spiritual teachers have evolved to a state of Universal Consciousness, not limited by time. All faiths join in belief that there is an observational platform, not limited by time as we know it. As life in time and space becomes less livable due to rapid change, maybe we are being invited to the place of observation?

Look at the to-do list you have for today and the rest of the week. Is it overstuffed? What is guiding so much packed into limited time? Who is all of it serving? Is there a higher mission that our preoccupations are obscuring? If our purpose is to transcend what appears to be limiting, realizing this can take us to a place where there is no limitation.

This would be the ultimate life of transformation. With love, Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

The first part of life takes us apart and the second part of life we are challenged to put all the pieces together.  We come in whole, but we aren’t always welcome in that innocence. Some parts of us are overused and other parts aren’t used at all. The challenge is putting ourselves back together in conscious wholeness.

The world around us accepts and encourages certain skills and identities that are part of our whole self.  We come to believe that we must please others, so we hide the pieces that aren’t deemed acceptable by the family and the society. There is a nagging sense of incompleteness and desperation to this process. Denying our whole being creates anxiety. We look for those pieces in others, even though we already possess them.

There is no one external who can reassemble the pieces. That process is inner work and requires that we transcend the approval or disapproval of others who themselves are looking for wholeness.  The faith it takes to move beyond human approval/disapproval is a true test of self-awareness and has been called “the spiritual path.”

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again. But through self-acceptance and freedom to be authentic, each of us can.

With love,

Rosanne

[rosannebostonian]

Accepting What Is

I was listening to Mitch Albom on Super Soul Sunday this morning. He wrote the book “Tuesdays with Morrie” twenty years ago. I remember being inspired by the book at the time, but as life rolls on and we are often surprised (not always in a good way) by events, the book becomes more meaningful. If you haven’t read the book, please consider it. Morrie was Albom’s professor who contracted ALS in later years. Albom’s life changes in his weekly meetings with his former professor as true grace unfolds through pure wisdom.

Life isn’t set up to be a happy dance. There are mistakes we make, and others make, that affect us. Sometimes we are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. When we feel threatened by the unexpected, it is easy to revert to anger or feel like a victim. The truth is, Life lives itself as us and through us. The measure of the man or woman is how we use the most difficult moments to grow.

No one gets a menu to check off ideal circumstances in one’s life. Can we evolve to a higher place to view Life unfolding? Can we be curious rather than resentful? These seem like lofty goals, but the alternative creates nothing but suffering.

I wish for you and for me, the grace and wisdom to choose curiosity.

With love,

Rosanne Bostonian