But we start from where we are, always. 

We can compare ourselves to others and imagine that they are more advantaged, or special.

Or in my case, I could be totally dismayed at having the mastery I’d spent my life developing reduced to rubble. I can say from so many levels of personal experience that you start where you start, and you move ahead, not looking to the sides and certainly not looking back.

The good thing that came of this is , having to teach myself how to identify and maintain a boundary the second time made it possible for me to teach it to you now. It’s hard to teach things we learned intuitively as children! But when you have to come to it again with an adult’s brain, you understand it in a way that is easier to transmit.

Don’t focus too much on the outcome.

I know we need to do this to some degree, and we also need to score “wins” along the way. It keeps us going! But really, whether you perform a perfect shield on any given day, are able to maintain your space in the face of some overwhelming external pattern…the outcome is not really the end all. It’s using each situation to sharpen your resolve, acuity of your awareness, personal strength, and so on. Anytime you are able to see into the sequence and mechanics that underlie the trigger/action sequence of a program is a huge win, regardless of the outcome of any single interaction or practice.

Now, just understand that any negative, critical internal chatter is not you. You are not speaking these words to yourself. It’s kind of like having the radio on whilst driving, only you don’t know how to turn it off. It’s on some wretched channel that is spewing all this terrible discouraging stuff at you, but you can’t turn it off. That’s okay for now. We’ll work on turning it down, changing the station, etc, later. For now, when it happens, don’t believe that these are actually your self-generated thoughts. This is not you saying crappy things to…you. See it as foreign. Just changing that perspective can be helpful.

A couple of years ago, I invited a woman who just moved into the neighborhood over for tea. It was our first interaction and in the middle of it, I realized I was being vamped. She was (inadvertently, I’m sure) just sucking the life force out of me. I was so shocked, because people aren’t generally able to do this. As I said, I used to be an expert at shielding, but after awakening, that was wiped out. So even now, on occasion, I do not execute a strong enough shield.

Don’t expect instant facility with clearing, filling or shielding. When you experience any facility with it, celebrate and appreciate it. Focus on the wins, mine every possible bit of useful information from instances where it doesn’t work as intended or expected.