Sample Non-Fiction Prose

Amelia recently had a chapter published in Mission Hope Vol. 5: The Power of Joy. Here you may read an excerpt from that chapter and an alternative version of the chapter which was not included in the book:

"The Doors to Joy

While approaching this question of how to find joy, I felt an intense pressure build between my eyeballs. The only kind of joy I found myself capable of feeling at the moment was somewhat wry, tinged with resentfulness. People I loved had been dying in rapid succession, each before I could get my bearings following the preceding. Homicide, suicides, peacefully in bed. It felt as though grief was the only friend who would surely never leave me. I am always aware though that when grief seems unbearable, its antithesis, joy, can and should be gently sought. In the past, I have found many doors to joy.

From this place of grief, I shall knock on them all: calm, hope, gratitude, perspective, faith, humor, wisdom, play, and purpose.

I always approach each of these doors to joy with an understanding of how my body and spirit respond to varying emotions. The contractions of grief, of sadness and anger can feel so intense one quite literally curls into a ball on the bed or the floor. The expansions of happiness, love, calm, and joy cause the muscles to relax and the body to feel softer. The soul requires both expansion and contraction. Both of these states are entirely necessary and normal while here on Earth.        

When a state of contraction in the body is too intense or lasts too long, the spirit can lose perspective and the body or mind can even get sick. I was diagnosed with schizophrenia. When a spiritual contraction lasted for too long within me, the fractal would form exponentially. I used to believe that I was the source of all evil in the universe, the piece which needed to be purged. This led to suicide attempts. In order to move forward and heal, I had to successfully knock the doors to Joy. And now, facing death and grief, it became time to knock the doors again..."

To read the rest of this chapter, please pre-order a copy of Mission Hope Vol. 5: The Power of Joy by emailing Amelia

An important alternative chapter about Joy and mental health. This version is exclusively found here below:

Healing Our Minds to Find Our Joy

"As I walk through the doorway toward

Joy and Wisdom

Clouds rumble behind me

And I dare not look back

In the distance, a rainbow

Shines with grace

Over open fields

And roaming animals

Of every peaceful kind

Real and imaginary

I am invited forward

But, this time, I do not make the mistake of tumbling in 

like Alice after her rabbit

I notice and gracefully step over 

The hole at the entryway

Which would have taken me back

It oozes black

With the bitterness 

I could have fallen into

If I had not passed the test

To enter in

To Joy and Wisdom”

-Amelia A. Itnyre

           What obstructs many people in their search for joy is mental illness. It is my belief that the search for joy and the search for sanity go hand in hand. Ultimately, if we are seeking inexorable joy, we are seeking true sanity and an experience of inner peace and wisdom. Some people say they do not believe in mental illness. To those people I say this: mental illness is when the natural mechanisms which prevent the production, intake, amplification, and transmission of negative and/or misleading thoughts, beliefs, and/or emotions are not properly functioning. It is also when the mechanisms for dampening and elimination of negative or misleading thoughts and emotions are not properly functioning. These mechanisms are both biological and metaphysical. When properly functioning, these mechanisms make life manageable and even enjoyable. 

       I went to college for Biology, Chemistry, and Mathematics. I have also been diagnosed with both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. I have been told they are incurable. I told my doctors at UCI Medical Center that I enjoy talking to plants and animals and my guardian angels and to please not medicate that away from me. They promised not to. Something I noticed about talking to plants and animals is that they are rarely, if ever, cruel. They might alert me to something that needs attention but they're never just mean. They don't have any particular interest in sending negative energy. Plants especially. For the first 12 or so years of my schizophrenia, my primary delusion was that I was the source of all evil. It was all encompassing, very convincing, and nobody seemed able to help me. I sat under the trees and prayed. I downloaded my experience into the collective consciousness of the trees and asked for their help. I said, “Trees, no human can help me. They don't understand. Not one. Please help.” Ever since then I've always felt extra special love and support from trees. I hug them whenever I can (after asking permission, of course). When facing this dilemma of how to heal my mental illness and find what joy means again, I look to the trees and to my background in Biology. I also look to my learnings of the metaphysical and how they overlay with my understanding of the biological.

        The primary reason I was diagnosed with schizophrenia was that I heard many kinds of voices. Much of it was negative. Where were these thoughts coming from? Who else could hear these thoughts, these voices, these negative energies? I was not only concerned about my own situation but its effect on others’ energetic fields.

         Ok.

         Trees communicate with one another through their roots. Well, actually their roots are connected by a matrix of fungi. It's like their internet. And what the trees told me (just go with me here) is that there are specialized fungi (and rocks) which filter out and transmute negative thoughts and negative energy such that the negativity is not ordinarily transmitted from tree to tree. Most trees do their best to only transmit kind, healing energy to one another. If one tree is sick, the other trees can be made aware of this so they can send healing chemicals and energies that tree's way but the ultimate goal is that the other trees aren't made sick by the receiving of that communication.

         What if humans could be the same way? What if we could have natural filters in place which prioritized transmission of more positive and healing energies and lovingly eliminated negative or misleading energy patterns? If we could prevent the intake, amplification, and transmission of overly negative or misleading thoughts, beliefs, and emotional energies, we could begin the process of taking down mental illness all together. 

          My personal belief is that rather than fungi, what humans have is God herself. And perhaps, we also have angels. We have ancient mechanisms so powerful and so happily able to do this for us if we will just understand and allow for it. That is my belief. However, one need not believe in God to believe in a protective energetic matrix - a network of light (like roots or neurons) surrounded by a cushioning field of healing energy with filters, dampeners, redirecting mechanisms, etc. in place to make sure bad and misleading thoughts and emotions are not passed on and that we are safe while navigating our thoughts and emotions in this crazy world. Regular gentle prayer, meditation, and exercise enable better functioning of these mechanisms. Thus, with or without God (I find it much easier with) we can heal our minds and rediscover joy again. 

                I was lucky enough to have a near-death experience where I got to be in the presence of God. I could never truly relay the entirety of the experience as it could not be brought back to Earth. There are just no words for how extraordinary and joyful it was. What I can remember was very like what others have reported from similar experiences: a bright white light all around, immense all-encompassing love and joy - just unending love - it cannot be overstated nor described. I was given a tour and taken to an immense, unspeakably wonderful library staffed by angels (of course, that would be my heaven). Once I was moved from that heavenly space, I was brought to a place closer to Earth that was somewhat like a hospital, somewhat like a homeless shelter - a place where people were in need of help. I saw a person standing over each of the beds in turn, treating the people intently and fervently with immeasurable Grace. I knew without having to think and without any doubt that this was God in human form. He looked at me. And told me without speaking that He needed my help. He told me that no matter how sick and suffering I have seen myself to be, there are people worse off in this world: people who need His help and people who need mine. 

             My ultimate goal is for all my thoughts and emotions to be filtered through God's love. Regular self care, prayer, drum beating, art making, medication, meditation, positive reminders, time spent well with family and friends, etc., etc. - these things will all work better to clear our energies and our spaces once we have a more simple energetic field managed by God, assisted by mechanisms which transmute sickness into wellness energy and once we are unbogged down by unnecessary amplification and transmission of negative and misleading experiences. Thus, joy and service can permeate the experiences of those here on Earth. 

          I can place my experiences into several categories, three of them being: reality, intuition, and imagination. Reality is concrete, physical before me. Intuition comes from God and is difficult to deny. Imagination, well, imagination can run away with me. It can serve me well and be a wonderful tool or it can get me into all kinds of trouble. Imagination is fantastically powerful. It is perhaps what is behind what we call the placebo effect. When I was very sick, I believed that reality was a delusion and that the real reality was the one where I was evil and had to be destroyed. I believed this so strongly that both plant medicines and antipsychotics made my symptoms worse. The medicines made things worse because I thought their purpose was to remove me from the “psychosis” of reality and place me in the “reality” of what was essentially hell. It took me many years and much happenstance to come upon a solution. I pretended mind, body, and soul to be another person - with a different name, backstory, everything - one who belonged in reality and whose body could tolerate antipsychotics and return to reality. My body developed the ability to take one of these medications. Perhaps, after the dozens of antipsychotics I had tried, this always would have been the one that didn't harm me. I will never know. But I believe it was the power of imagination, of the placebo effect, which allowed me to take the medicine without getting sicker again. Slowly, I returned to my own identity and now had a body which could tolerate at least one form of antipsychotic medication. I still feel like it was a miracle. The joy of sanity was one gigantic step closer. 

           Now, let's be real here. I do take medications to treat my mental illness. I intentionally adjust my biology with chemicals which better allow for regulation of my emotions and thoughts. My serotonin and dopamine levels (the happiness and joy regulation chemicals) are not properly balanced without this highly necessary assistance. I also pray over and perform gentle reiki on these medications before taking them to add an extra spiritual oomph to their effects. The medications on their own are not enough to create a true sense of joy. But make no mistake, joy and sanity can definitely be assisted by the proper implementation of medication. I will add this however, when the medications were making things worse, no one seemed to want to believe me. Even worse, the voices would tell me to lie and pretend that the medicine did work. It is interesting that the field of psychiatry can only be measured by the outward appearance of results, with no true means of determining what is occurring for a patient internally. If someone does not wish to take medications, do not assume it is because they do not want help. They may have a very good reason to not wish to take them. The medications do not always work. When they do, be grateful. 

             In order to stop believing I was the source of all evil, I had to remember that I am human. I had to remember the collective ancient wisdom of my species and my planet. However, in connecting so intensely to the collective human consciousness, I became overly connected. I even became aware of the actual evil that existed in the collective. There have been beings who did terrible things. There are people who chose wrong instead of right. This awareness made me sick in a different way. Now, instead of being connected to a vast but delusional self evil, I was connected and made aware of actual evil that humans were engaging in in the world. Accusatory and condemning energy and thoughts that were meant to go the way of those committing evil also came my way. It was out of the frying pan and into the fire. I was hugely overconnected to the collective consciousness. I turned to innocence and forgiveness, to God and to Love. I learned how to remember who I was and that I was innocent. And that most, if not all, people are. I learned and continue to learn how to transmute fear and anger into forgiveness and love. It is because of this over-connection to the collective that I turned to the trees and angels for help again in how to obtain filters and protection both for myself and for others. They reminded me that just like cells need selectively permeable membranes to function properly, humans need protection around them in order to function properly. Cells only let in water and nutrients. We should only let in love and healing energies. We must shield ourselves or be lost to insanity. I find blessed joy in the privacy of a protected mind, body, and spirit. 

           Some empaths have struggled to keep their joy because they believed it was their job to absorb others’ negative energy and transform it into positive. It is not the job of those currently living in bodies to do this. The body and mind cannot take this. It leads to mental, and often physical illness. We must lean on higher spiritual forces to do this for us. We must lean on our version of the trees’ matrix of specialized fungi, rocks, and dirt (which are also connected to God and the angels, you see). It can be hard to believe that there are entities or forces which can do this with no effort… since it requires so very much effort when we try to do it on our own. Empaths who take on other people's negative energy might struggle to believe that they can just stop doing so. However, in the same way fungi digest what we consider to be waste, in the same way plants breathe carbon dioxide, we can be lovingly assisted by beings designed and designated to help us. By disconnecting from the PTSD and fight or flight responses in the collective, we take a closer step toward sanity. In this way we can better live in a joyful state and can better serve others. 

           As we awaken collectively, we would like to awaken to a world where overly negative thought and emotional energy is transmuted rather than transmitted. Where God and/or Goodness is what speaks to us directly. Who wouldn't want to stay asleep otherwise? If we have a negative thought, it should stop with us; thus, we can shake it off and thank God for helping us transmute it. As far as negative actions in the world? It's our job not to engage in negative actions, to encourage others not to engage in negative actions, and to let God guide us in stopping anyone from doing so wherever and whenever possible.

         Staying present with the heart is another secret to finding joy and sanity. Welcoming true joy and presence into the heart prevents mind sickness. Being aware of all there is to be grateful for and all the love that is there for us to hold onto brings us to center and allows us to enjoy life fully. When I am struggling with staying in the heart, I pour myself a tall glass of water. Water can be imprinted with energy. I recite the Hawaiian Ho’oponopono prayer to the water over and over again: “I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I forgive you. Thank you. I love you.” When I feel the water is filled with a sense of forgiveness, gratitude, and love, I drink it down in one long gulp. I allow the energy to fill my body, most especially my heartspace. I visualize a glowing presence exuding from and surrounding my body. And I meditate upon my heart and upon my feelings. I dance to express the needs of my heartspace. This heals my heart and helps me find the peace needed to return to true joy and inner understanding.

              Not only does healing mental illness require the transformation of negative energy into healing, it also requires one to obtain a true sense of clarity. Sometimes mental illness stems from confusion. There can be experiences which are seemingly positive but which lack grounding and lack the simple clarity God wishes for our minds to have. Trees and nature often have a power to imbue human beings with this clarity and grounding. I believe this is because they have these things themselves. Their communication network is one of peace, grounding, and clarification. They are connected to each other, to God, and to the angels. And they are connected to us. To me, it is no small coincidence that we should model our energetic field after those of trees, those of nature. Communing with nature is no small part of the spirituality and religion of humans. It has played its part since antiquity. This is who we are. Connected by nature, connected by God. This is how we find one another in the dark, guided by truths exuded by natural mechanisms of healing and protection along our pathways. 

             Joy is many things. One of the things I see joy to be is a deep understanding of the reality of all creation. When we are stuck in delusion, we cannot have joy like we can when we remember what the truth of everything is. This is why I believe mental illness is so rampant in our society today. We have forgotten the eternal Joy we are meant to be aware of at all times. Even the temporary sorrows which weave through life and death cannot destroy joy when we remember the truth. It is important to connect to nature. In my opinion, it is important to believe in heaven. I believe that having God in one's heart is essential. Perhaps, I'm crazy. Or perhaps, this is what has stopped me from being so. Joy springs forth from the acknowledgement of goodness. The knowledge that we are inherently good to our core, that goodness forms the very basis of our existence and the existence of our universe is essential to remembering what life is all about. When we do this, we shake off the cobwebs of disillusionment. This philosophical perspective allows my spirit to breathe. Joy is an expansive energy, it brings in fresh air like an inhalation of oxygen. Now, we do have to exhale as well. We must express our emotions such as grief and sadness. But with wisdom, we can ride out the waves and maintain our true joy at the base of our being. Some have claimed over the years that intelligence and sanity lead to depression. They say that if one truly understands the mechanisms of this world, they will find themselves terribly sad, perhaps even want to end it all. I disagree. I believe that joy comes with sanity. Sanity, to me, requires a grounded interpretation of the scientific which does not throw out the needed wisdom of the spiritual. This is not simply an unloving, physical world. This is a living, breathing world filled with love and understanding. We come to experience this world from a perspective of remembering the wisdom of joy and of being of service. We must remember the truths that we have asked ourselves never to forget: that we are loved, that we are here to love, that life and death are temporary. Sanity requires a balanced interpretation of reality, intuition, and imagination. If we remember the truth, we can prevent the overproduction of negative thoughts and emotions. We can easily produce and transmit the energies of natural and spiritual joy. They go hand in hand and are one in the same. We can remain in joy when we lean on God to balance our thoughts and emotions. Once we have healed ourselves of mental illness, the wisdom of joy will allow us to live the lives we are truly meant to live.