Opportunity For Transformation
Memorial Day 2019
My fellow veterans,
Today, I’m mindful of my time in the art of war.
War is a part of our shared human life, and I think life must be seen as a whole to appreciate its parts. Destructive as war is, it produced a personal value in me, a strength, far greater than my personal cost, once I resolved to find it. This value would necessarily have to be tremendous to justify the price I paid in war. I found it did.
War depends on hatred to exist. However, because this is a love based universe, the thing more powerful than hatred is love. We honor veterans because on behalf of love they face into evil and hatred, sacrificing themselves to affirm the right of others to love. Thereby earning, by the experience, the lessons of both. I found love’s lesson gained in war by realizing the effort of will it took to actually enter the nature of love itself after my war was over.
I found to love took a far greater effort of will than to wage war, even with destruction, personal injury, collateral damage, and horror. That was no small thing. This is how I know you as a veteran, are uniquely qualified to enter and express love itself.
Turns out love’s a great creative power and annihilates evil on contact in and around us.
From the beginning, humanity has struggled to learn and live love. Progress was made but, as a group, we have failed. Not through lack of seeing love’s value, we do, but from the lack of the surrender of personal will it takes to enter love and then the strength of will it takes to express that Love. While that combination of strength, surrender, and commitment can be learned through many of the terrible ordeals of life, none are better suited to do it than war.
Examples of those who have demonstrated that Will to Love is the great heroes of history and myth we honor even more than we honor our heroes of war who have stood against hatred.
After I was a marine in Vietnam, I worked to experience and express love, not fight hate. It was doubly difficult because to love I had to first love myself past what I had become in war. As I worked to overcome my personal stuff to enter the impersonal power of Love, I became aware of the tremendous strength of will in me, that I had earned in action and thought lost was a secret weapon waiting to be summoned.
A warriors “will” becomes so strong they can overcome impossible obstacles and face horrific things including express the creative power of pure love, which in war, it does not occur to us to do.
I also realized in doing this why so few in the world actually live love and how valuable it is to others when they do. This value of expressing the actual power of love, and not its sentiment, is in how it inspires those around them in the strengthening of the ability in them to do it as well. How many of our leaders now cannot stay positive with love?
I believe there are enough veterans in the world, on all sides of all wars, to claim this world for love, ending all war, if even a small portion of us make the commitment and take the stand. This is not about any religion or movement. It is about humans creating with love as war is about destroying it. I am a part of and will help, all who attempt this no matter who they are or where they have been or what they have done.
In my case, I had nothing to lose because I had nothing left. So rather than end myself, or live crippled, I took the time to investigate the idea of love as a healing power. Along the way, I realized the difficulty and the greatness of succeeding at it.
Like you, I am a sword that has been tempered in a fierce fire. While I do not desire to use that will ever again in war, in the actual expression of love as a polished power creating good, it is my great joy.
I know you can do this if you want to, and if you try you will heal from your wounds. I also recognize those who master the power to love can end the war before it starts. They are the warriors of the future if humanity is to have one.
The free tools on this web page are a great place to start.
Have a great Memorial Day!
Semper Fi,
James McTague
P.S. As a gift for Memorial Day weekend check out the no-cost “I’m Free” Veterans Guided Visualization MP3 Bundle.
Although you can purchase this set at any time, this free gift offer is only valid Memorial Day and Veterans Day weekends. Veterans download yours now.
Memorial Day
An open letter and offer to veterans everywhere
You have survived the ravages of war and lived through unspeakable tension, strain, and horror to return to your loved ones and the life you left behind.
You may have noticed that things are different from the way you remember them to be.
You may have noticed that you are different from the way you remember yourself to be.
Too successfully return to civilian life, your life, there are some things that would be helpful for you to understand. By understanding these things and having the tools to transition from the stress of your war experience back into civilian life you can make a successful transition home.
To help you continue to make a successful transition I have created a series of guided meditations with techniques and tools that can help. As my gift to you on Memorial Day and Veterans Day weekends, I would like to give you the first three CDs in my new “I’m Free” series. If you use them to resolve and come through the normal residuals of your wartime experience, you can transition back into the experience of being home and leave the experience of war where it belongs, behind you.
Perhaps the first thing you need to understand about the transition to home is that you have been through an experience that required you to have and to hone skills that may have saved your life and the lives of your buddies many times, but applying those same skills to your family life and your daily life can create challenges for you and those you love.
In wartime, you had to be super vigilant. The slightest sound may have signaled a need to bring you to full awareness, full alert, on guard and ready. That was true as you slept and as you were awake. This state of readiness was appropriate to war. This same state of readiness can result in sleepless nights that wear away your patience. You had to sleep with that edge in war. You now need to relearn a pathway to sleep that turns down that energy to let you have peaceful sleep.
Just as you trained your consciousness to be ever alert, now you need to train your consciousness to relax and be refreshed by a peaceful, secure sleep. That is why the first guided meditation in this gift bundle I’m Free To Relax is to help you release and leave behind the stress of war.
According to a 2011 Mayo Clinic article relaxation isn’t just about peace of mind or enjoying a hobby. Relaxation is a process that decreases the effects of stress on your mind and body. Relaxation techniques can help you cope with everyday stress and with stress related to various health problems.
Whether your stress is spiraling out of control or you’ve already got it tamed, you can benefit from learning relaxation techniques.
Learning relaxation techniques is easy and can reduce stress symptoms by:
- Lowering blood pressure
- Reducing muscle tension and chronic pain
- Improving concentration
- Reducing anger and frustration
- Boosting confidence to handle problems
Certainly, the constant stress of the strain of war can leave a myriad of little pains that do not serve you. You can release these pains now. You can leave them behind. They will be healed. This meditation can help you do that a little at a time, releasing and letting go of what you no longer need of the pains of war as you transition back into peace and family life.
As you once trained your full being for war, you can now train your full being for everyday peace of mind. Moreover, although this may not seem necessary or important, letting go of the little tensions and anxiety that a car parking in a strange place or stopping next to you can engender is a part of making that transition. The physiological response to the unusual, that is different, is part of what helped you survive in war. Those same physiological edges to alertness can, if not tuned back, leave you always in a state of hyper-awareness and hyper vigilance that makes you edgy and impatient with those you love.
They have not been through what you have experienced. They do not understand and hopefully will never have to understand. You do not need to continue to carry that edge with you. This first guided meditation in the series I’m Free To Relax will help you take that adrenalin edge off and begin to react to the stimulus of normal civilian life without the warrior’s edge.
The second meditation in the series is I’m Free To Sleep. This will help you learn to sleep again in a way that is appropriate to peacetime and family life.
Be assured that if you ever need the skills of ready response you learned in war, they will be available to you. You do not have to have them turned on all the time.
The third guided meditation in the series, I’m Feeling Free, is to help you release the emotions engendered by being in a situation where you had to see unspeakable things and maybe do unspeakable things.
These things can be a part of war. They may have been necessary and appropriate to the situation you were in. They were created in the past and can stay in the past. They have no place in the now.
You need to let yourself move that energy out of your body, out of your being, out of your consciousness. You need to now put it behind you, transform it, transmute it and release it.
We know from the science of physics we cannot destroy energy but we can change its form. This meditation is about transforming the emotions we are carrying from our past and letting them change into that which is positive and of service to others. It may not make sense that just focusing our mind and our attention on our emotions can change their form, but it works. It has been proven that energy follows thought. It is powerful and helps you release what was past to let you return to now so that you can enjoy and appreciate your life without carrying the war with you.
I have worked with Genevieve Gerard for over thirty years in transformation, healing, meditation groups and on many projects. She is eminently qualified having worked for many years with trauma victims. Genevieve created these products out of love to help those who suffer trauma, including me. Her guidance works.
-James McTague Vietnam 66-68
These well worded guided meditations may seem to be simple solutions to complex problems, but by using them regularly with an open heart and an open mind you will find that your energy gradually balances and the dynamic guardedness you have carried, that saved you in wartime but can now slay you in peacetime, is able to readjust to your current circumstances and begin to re-bridge the distance that seemed to exist between you and those you left behind.
These proven meditations only take 15 to 20 minutes each. They are guided so that you only need to follow along in your mind. Most people who have used the Sleep meditation say that they are asleep before the meditation is over (and that is perfectly ok.) What is great is there are no pharmaceutical side effects to these meditations. You can use them as often as you want and as often as you need them. Using them will help you shift your awareness to who you are beyond the experiences you have been through. They will help you regain and restore yourself, to your self.
Download The “I’m Free” 3-CD
Series Bundle Now
A note from the creator of these meditations:
I wrote these meditations after having studied meditation for over 45 years. For over 35 years as a counselor I have used guided meditation both in my own life and in helping others who have been through severe injury and pain. I have brought these meditation techniques to you to help with your transition back into your life. You have given enough, you have sacrificed enough. It is time to leave the war behind you and come to the world you sacrificed to serve for, able to fully participate in your life and receive all the love and joy that life can now offer to you. This series was created especially for you, for that purpose.
I recommend using I’m Feeling Free at least once a day or more times when emotional responses are troublesome. I’m Free to Relax can be used whenever the world is too much and you find yourself stressed out. I’m Free To Sleep is best used upon retiring for the night.
Please enjoy these as my gift to you on Memorial Day.
In Gratitude,
Genevieve Gerard
P.S. These techniques can be done quickly and silently at any time without anyone knowing and repetition enhances the effectiveness. Anyone can master these techniques; it’s as simple as breathing and only takes minutes to put into practice.
Although you can purchase this set at any time, this free gift offer is only valid Memorial Day and Veterans Day weekends. Veterans download yours now.
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