Audio of Living Out of Darkness

Hello Friends-

Long time no hear from me, aye?  Yup, well, it’s been almost a year.  Long story short.  My passions have led me elsewhere…

Bipolar was a really intense issue for me in my teens, twenties, thirties, and early forties.

I’m not sure when it happened, but it did.  Bipolar faded for me, slowly, over many many years.

“Clear your energy.  Honor your rhythm. Live your vision.”  George Denslow.

Several years ago, I finally finished a professional quality audio version of my book,

But, I ran out of interest or passion to figure out how to monetize it.

So I’m giving it away.

If you would like a hardcopy of the book, it’s still available on amazon, and electronically through iBooks.

Much Love and Prayers for you and yours

George Denslow

 

 

Inner Mess

So much of mental health, is not about today. I’m a whiny little boy today. Wordless moody helpless one year old. I don’t like it. I just want to cry pout throw a temper tantrum or two break stuff, repeat, eat something, and then take a nap. Not much has changed for many of us. So mental health and functionality becomes managing these symptoms. I didn’t wake up on my day off today, expecting to get in a tissy fit with my bank, but I did. There is no financial concern or serious issues, I was just in a mood to get in a fight and I did. Now the more mature part of me feels like a shit, because I was not nice to people being paid to do their job which involved obeying rules and the laws of time and physics, what a bother. I couldn’t instantly fix a semi complicated online banking process, that I screwed up a month ago(or more), and decided today, this exact moment I was going to fix it. Hmmm. Yes, whiny crying explosive, aaarrgh.

I’m in a new layer of growth, and to be fully honest, I kind of like it. Life was getting very simple, routine, and calm. So I was open to the idea of writing another book, and the first month or so flowed easily. Gee, when I write about something I might grow??? How audacious is that? What do you mean I might stir up unresolved feeeeeeelings and issues and be a bit grumpy vulnerable out of sorts? What do you mean the big picture relaxed attitude might not jive with the minutia of daily details. Waa Waa.

So do I continue this disastrous trajectory of my day, or figure out how to change my own emotional diapers, again. Euu, smelly emotional crap, arrrgh. Ok. Fine. What??? WTF, do I have to do.

Why thanks for asking, how about sitting down and shutting up, and turning off your phone, closing your computer and… …no you idiot, not right this second, but I admire your willingness. So, finish writing your blog, close your computer, and SIT, silently, for 5 whole minutes, AAAAAAAA. Trust me, this is not the first time I’ve wrangled your emotions in, this will work. And no 5 whole minutes, in the middle of your week off will not cause the world to end, that’s barely a fraction of a tv episode you would rather numb out in on netflicks. In fact, if you dared to give me a whole 20 minutes, I could really get you on track to a better day, like. Hey, sit for 5 minutes, then write for 10, yeah, ok. Ready. Set. Sit.

?Self Trust? WTF?!!!

So I had a conversation with a friend the other day about bipolar and selt trust. My response WTF??? I have never trusted my uneditied self. My mind is way too open my boundaries have all been violated by myself and others, I have no trust at all whatsoever, and yet I do. Certain people certian times, situations, I trust. Faith in a Concious Flow greater then myself, yes. Absolutely no, can’t bullshit you there, I have experienced plenty of couch druel time when God was no where near a concept I could trust much less believe in.

So this bold suggestion from her that I could actually trust myself has got me in quite a diddle. A bit grumbly diddle I might add. WTF I could begin to trust myself? It feels like my entire life my mind has been suggesting and convincing me to do really stupid shit, as well as talk other people into it not to mention dwelling in thoughts of suicide from time to time, when I’ve given up hope.

I even brought up a classic example of mania at a retreat one time and she had the audacity to point out she was there, had fun, and would trust me again to go on the adventures we came up with. How dare people trust me. This is just a bizarre concept to me. I’m serious, I’m trying to be funny sarcastic and blow it off, or come up with some twist, but I’ve gotta sit down and think about this seriously for awhile. Am I trustworthy? I’ve invested so much of my life taming and riding the bipolar monkey brain on my shoulder, that I’ve never bothered to review what and if I’ve made any progess. In fact it wasn’t until recently I started observing and measuring the stimilus and response to and of situations that trigger me. This is what led me to my first clue, that I may indeed may not be actively bipolar anymore. Holy shit!!!

Is that even possible? What about the “experts”, what about what about what about, and is it possible that I haven’t been for a couple years even????

Shit! I was so wrapped up in my identity of being bipolar, I forgot to invent a new identity, what if all this crap I’ve been preaching and practising about spirituality and self-regulation and slow gradual improvement over time is paying off, and actually true?

WTF! Inspite of my language I have actually been pretty calm at home and work for awhile now. Slightly on the depressive side, yet very manageble and functional, no need for meds(which I’ve never taken), or missed obligations, moments of laughter, adventure and fun happening even.

hmmm, maybe bipolar behavior is just an Illusion?

Let it be…

I catch my self in fear, mind spin, extra think, ratio of input to processing, off triggering,

breathe, breathe, breathe,

I don’t have to take immediate actions for every real or perceived input.

It is ok to breathe it is good to breathe. Sometimes life is full and busy, that’s ok.

When I was an empty shell/vacuum, with little but bipolar behavior coping skills, it was a constant stirring mess.

With an identity and soul outside of the bipolar illusion, all I have to do with rapid income input that triggers the bipolar behavior output response, is let it be.

It is sometimes best to not take action. Be what I need to be, but temporarily suspend actions from mind/ego/fear.

I’ve been riding a wave lately. Investing a lot of time and energy and building up networks, projects, collaborating, completing as well as Life101 items like taking care of a home.

I just kept telling myself, I’m not inside the bipolar illusion full time anymore. It is an illusion, it is a set a behaviors in which I have discovered other healthy methods of coping with stress.

Yes, their is a full on enticing physiological, mental, emotional, spiritual, intoxicating aspect to it, yet it is not my only option. Especially since I’ve taken a lot of years recently to just slow down and listen be interact discover explore re-introduce myself to my soul.

And guess what? My soul is not bipolar behavior.

I’m actually a calm root happy go lucky goofy soul, that loves to see explore humor in everything completely unedited.

My soul has gently re-introduced me to my mind, emotions, spirit, and body. My soul helps me calm down, relax, let it be, using time to regain a mellow happy perspective.

I suspect many of us diagnosed with bipolar and exhibiting bipolar behavior, are similar.

Are we bipolar, or are we temporarily stressed out people, ingrained/identified in learned bipolar behaviors?

Letting it be…

George

Talking me down

bloggers note:

I used to call it bipolar opportunity, my current terminology is The Bipolar Illusion. Because that is what it has become for me. It is a temporary bio, physiological, spiritual, mental pattern/ coping mechanism I can drop into from time to time when triggered.

on with the blog

I stopped blogging a lot because I felt empty. I personally have moved on from being and identifying with bipolar. My life has challenges I have episodes, but they are pretty miner, boring, and feel pretty “normal”. WOW!!! congrats George. this is why I put the blogger note in. Bipolar is an illusion for me now. I’ve been on to it’s game for many years and the pay off has been excellent.

Yes I feel manic coming on, yes I feel depressions, and I feel a lot of calm functional peace.

Anyway. A new topic has gained interest for me, which perhaps I can begin blogging about, because I love to write.

How to deal with bipolar people?

Ahh, now we are on to something good deep thick and juicy. Why George why do you know so much about this topic. Uh, duh, hello life long bipolar illusionist here.

Todays topic: Talking me or someone else down.
(p.s. this can apply to anyone, not bipolar exclusive behavior)

Step One: Identify the situation. Become aware that your loved one or coworker has raised their voice or pace of words, actions, emotions, etc, beyond a functional level to the situation.

Step Two: Prep yourself. This is vital to your personal mental health!!! Don’t skip it, trust me on this one. I grew up enmeshed with crazy people, it’s no good to lose yourself in the mental illusions of another’s challenges. I don’t care how nice and empathetic you are. Prep yourself.
How? Pray-connect with whatever is positive unseen and bigger then your ego, Breathe. Scrunch and release your toes. Practice feeling the skin on the bottom of your feet and the earth below. Feel as grounded as you possibly can.

Step Three: Make a decision consciously to interact or WALK AWAY.
don’t worry there are an abundance of riled up people everyday everywhere, so no need to interact with everyone all the time. ( hello another lifelong george lesson gem here, If only i could fix everyone, I would be ok and wouldn’t feeeeeel this way)

Step Four: obsess about being calm. breathe, feel feet, let it go.
lower your voice and pace of words and energy, re-connect with spirit and trust all will be well.

Ok you are in. Now, you have created calmness, and spirit connection in the presence of a temporarily upset person dealing with the illusion of fear in some way. This is the magic. Don’t take it personally, know that you can walk away at any point, trust your intuition.

I’ve used this method thousands of times, and it’s been used on me even more. I thank my blue collar brothers for teaching me this. Let’s face it, we are rough and tumble guys that grew up in the ‘80s and went to shop class in high school, didn’t always finish high school, and ended up in industry. All was well until the human relations department showed up and started firing us because we couldn’t beat each other up to solve differences of opinion any more. So let’s just say, we’ve been through a transition, and are really good at talking each other out of beating each other up and getting fired so that we can still work and provide for our loved ones.

Step Five; At some point, when I maintain a calm, spirit connected, grounded presence, usually the other person sees that i’m not getting riled up, and begins to self regulate and calm down again. This is MAGIC! We usually become good friends as well, and often the next time, the other person is calming me down. I think it’s a modern day form of male bonding in the work place. But I use it everywhere now.

If the person doesn’t shift their own energy in a time or manner you feel comfortable, trust spirit to step in and take care of the situation. AND WALK AWAY.

ok, that’s it, enjoy, be SAFE.

Big HUGS
George

Rile up, or breathe.

Familiar words. Family. Father. Work drama, ego fear mind drama. How easy it is to be riled how easy it is to rile.

I first learned it from my father. I remember observing the pattern as I got older. He stirs shit up then sucks the energy off. I started hating it. I labelled it unnecessary emotional bullshit. I was an old soul, and 9 earth years by that point, long being bitter sarcastic rebellious, angry.

What I didn’t know, was that I was learning these patterns to deal with low self esteem, physical energy, and the stress i felt from this. What I learned was that if I was ever scared, bored, low energy, feeling overwhelmed, I could just rile people up and watch the show.

What I didn’t know was these family bonds I connected with my father would not only make me easily manipulated, but also excellent at manipulating others.

Thank God it makes me feel very uncomfortable, and I’ve had a life long obsession for serenity and calmness, to create inside me and generate whenever possible around me.

Don’t get me wrong, I can go from calm to compost stirring jerk in a half second, just ask my long term coworkers and friends who really know me. What can I say, my training was excellent, and my ego loves to feel the illusion of power.

Fortunately, my soul and spirit cringe, it’s also taken many years to see these patterns in me, and begin to choose to be calm, breathe, walk away, any other means possible then to stir people up and watch the show, and listen to my ego find creative ways of justifying it.

Today I choose peace first, as much as I can, and compassion as soon as I can after an episode.

Dyslexic Untie!

Dyslexics not I am Untie! is their a Dog insomnia?

If you can decipher this message then we are a mind meld. I love shotgun wording, brian space sometimes just needs a flow. Cares if “english” grammar, etc are discarded. Yup. Free the brain. Communication is just an opportunity for souls to vibrate in proximity, exchanging info non verbal non physical.

I love just popping the cork and putting it out there especially when recovering from a long term deep dive, ahh. Yes, I know a high percentage of “normal” english speakers have now moved on which is good! I’ve never been a champion, worried about or communication king with the Chorus.

I’ve always been a fan of the people outside the circle who still have a sliver inside them to come back into light. It is my journey, it is the conscious bipolar journey, it is a journey we all take, some of us on a very large range/scale/extremes.

I heard recently at a new age retreat that we are finally realizing that everyone is crazy, I burst out laughing inside but kept a straight face on because they were laughing and saying this as if it was a newsflash and new concept.

Yeah! Us crazies are finally ahead of the pack. If life has given/born/created, who cares origin, insanity, dysfunction, or crazy, then we often know, from the beginning, life is crazy, we are all screwed up, it’s just that some of us are so raw, we can’t, don’t wish to, or have just completely ignored the normal train, and “normal” people are able to maintain a copying mechanism to cover cope with their neurosis in a non visual, or socially acceptable way, example, Bars, drinking, and everyday jerks, snobs or ___.

Welcome aboard or off the tracks to the “normal” people. I love it that the world is in chaos and a majority of the “normal” people in my life are losing their sh*t, ?.

no seriously what are you talking about George it’s horrible!

Really?

People are losing their sh*t. Sh*t being fertilizer, coping mechanism, separation, ignorance, avoidance.

My mom always said, “If you really want to get to know someone, take them on a crappy camping trip.”

It’s true, welcome to camping world.

Our convenient coping mechanisms are failing in masse. Our realness is showing, our connections, REAL, connections are growing, and we are finally, finally getting to see the people we thought we new, as more real.

I love this as a bipolar person, because the extremes in my life, have always shown me my insanity first hand, and opened my eyes to see what others have always hidden.

This, this my friends is the gift of being “crazy” outside the box or normality all or percentage of ones life.

Because here is the juice. Once I get past the b.s. with mutual coping mechanisms with someone, we get to decide whether we like each other, and if we do it’s awesome! Or if we don’t and have to deal with them anyway, then we get to grow, and sometimes, sometimes that leads to liking ourselves more, and sometimes even the other person.

This, is truly the gift of these “crazy”, opening, growing for all times.

peace
George,

ok how do I find my way off this soap box…

Calming In

Life goes on, and in, if I get out of my way. I’ve been in Hawaii for 10 days, and I’m feeling the shaka hang loose flow. How easy to forget in the mainland, how necessary to be in the groove of. I miss my home and life, and it will be even more enjoyable with a refreshed hang loose approach.

Shaka

Shift Happens!

Shift Happened! At The Hapuna Beach Prince Hotel this week!

Alan Cohen’s Advanced Life Coaching Tribe gathered and created a lot of shift.
Good Shift. We shifted up, downloaded gems from teachers all over the world, and shared our life coaching skill sets with each other from all walks of life and geographic locations on the planet. And what a place to experience teachings, renewal, and to practice the life coaching skill set.

I haven’t experienced anything like this in over 5 years, and let’s just say my spiritual batteries disintegrated a bit back, yet somehow got me signed up, through my mind ego fear long enough to show up and participate. And I am so grateful!

Hawaii has a tradition of cities of refuge, for me, any Alan Cohen retreat, especially on the island of Hawaii, is just that.

If you are struggling with your spiritual connection and life “opportunities”, I could never recommend enough the need to connect with a spiritual tribe, and the chance to develop skill sets and connections with like minded individuals.

I can assure you, I never done it perfectly, become enlightened, left the darkness behind, but I have All WAYS, no matter how lost I’ve become in life, found renewal and hope. At times I’ve stayed connected, at times I’ve drifted, each develops a strength.

The biggest shift I received this week, was hope. It was also that which I needed the most.

Thank you Alan, and thank you Alan’s Tribe, for helping me seep back into light, again.

Choosing Sanity

?me, choose sanity?? but but i’m working up a good crazy here why would I calm down and choose sanity???

Yesterday I had a mini blow out at work. The preverbal help request call came from an offsite location for a type of instrument I haven’t worked on much which means learning curve yet I was covering an entirely different position because we have two people on a 6 position crew out on medical. And as usual management doesn’t back fill, and oil prices are low I don’t want to rock the boat, no no I can do it all yes sir no sir, 3rd shift in a row i’m in ops instead maintenance and BING!

My brain melts. I”m all about crisis management, it’s what I grew up in, how my brain developed, etc. DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA.

yuck

Fortunately, for many many years, I’ve been studying, and carefully practicing, applying;
… a very foreign concept at first.

SANITY.

YES, HELL YES…saner, yes please, thank you, breathe.

So I had my mini melt down, turned over my second set of job duties and went back to my regular job duties to begin catching up on the huge backlog.

and of course my brain decides i’m a horrible person because i’m not superman and can’t do everything because …..snip.

Finally, a calm inner voice of sanity kicks in.

Good Job George, you chose sanity today.

but but it didn’t feel sane when I did it. It was messy and uncomfortable.

yes, well your normal is crazy, and sanity sometimes feels really weird.

yet it happened. and hey guess what? today i am feeling calmer and more functional and not doing a crappy job covering two positions and quickly escalating to a bigger blow out.

wow.

You mean it is ok to back off and choose sanity?

yup.