Wise Thoughts about Life and Death from "the untethered soul"

The beauty of deep truths is that you don't have to change your life; you just change how you live your life. It's not what you are doing: it is how much of you is doing it.
 page 160

Life itself is your career, and your interaction with life is your most meaningful relationship
page 161

What actually gives life meaning is the willingness to live it.  It isn't any particular event; it's the willingness to experience life's events.
page 161

You are not living life;you are living mind
pge 161

You should be experiencing the life that is happening to you, not the one you wish was happening.
page 163

You really don't need more time before death; what you need is more depth of experience during the time you are given.
page 163


I am not afraid of dying anymore.  That is one of the reasons why I am so willing to put away my health seeking. As long as I was seeking I was clinging to life in fear of death.  Now I feel free to live my life...whatever time I have left.  Don't get me wrong...I don't want to die any time soon nor do I think I necessarily will...but I am not resisting death any longer.  Resisting death equates to resisting Life. I want to embrace life.  And as Michael Singer puts it...what a wonderful teacher death is.

All is well

You need to read:

Singer, Michael (2007)  Chapter 17: contemplating death. the untethered soul. New Harbinger.

Relax and Release

No matter what events take place in life, it is always better to let go rather than to close.
Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 67


If we are going to depend on words to support our experiences (and let's face it most of us will be thought and word junkies while we tramp through this planet), there are two valuable words we can use as guide posts: Relax and Release.  I have talked about these concepts from the beginning of this blog and there are so many others who do so as well, much more eloquently and much more read than I will ever be able to.

Relax

 

 

When I think of the sound advice offered by Michael Singer and so many others: "Relax".  I think of this little video I did a year ago on the need to de-stress and put an end to the low grade stress response that is taking over so many of our lives.  I strongly believe that most disease/dis-ease is a result of an inability or refusal to "relax". 

Many of us spend our lives contracted and tense as we stay stuck in low grade stress responses.   This stress often comes from building  defenses around ourselves to protect us from Life.  We are on a mission to protect some illusion we have of ourselves from all that is "out there" that may harm it.  We cling to ideas, we build walls , we defend , we attack, we hope for some validation in special relationships and we seek to fill in holes we assume we have in us.  We see relaxation as a 'sin" almost and force ourselves to do, do and do.

Man that takes so much energy to do that...and what do we get from all our hard work?  Are we able to cling and stop "bad" things from happening?  Absolutely not.  We just get stressed out, burned out or sick.    Believe me, I know from my own experiences.

Release

This is the biggy.  If we really want to relax and be happy and peaceful as we were meant to be....we need to release.  We need to release and let go of our resistance to Life.  We need to release and let go of our attachment to things and stuff that will never make us happy.  We need to release and let go of illusions we cling to about who we are and what the world owes us.  We need to release and let go of our walls that are not protecting us, but smothering us. We need to release resistance.

Most of our unhappiness is a result of our resistance to this moment.  Life is this moment so we resist what it offers us because it is not as we assume it should be...we resist Life.  How contracted, how bound up, how blocked and miserable that makes us.

Release  resistance and let Life do what Life does.  Accept the moment as it is and learn to embrace it...for that is the true secret to happiness.

All is well in my world.

References

Singer, Michael. (2007) the untethered soul. New York: New Harbinger.

Don't Close!

How long have you been struggling in there to keep it all together? Any time anything goes wrong in the protective model you built around yourself, you defend and rationalize to get it back together.  Your mind does not stop struggling until you've processed the event or somehow made it go away.
-Michael Singer, the untethered soul, page 136


According to Michael Singer, in the untethered soul, the solution to ending all suffering is, "Don't close!"  As human beings we have a tendency to close up the doors of invisible fortresses that we have built around ourselves to protect us from whatever is going on "out there.".  We fear Life more than we embrace Life...we close up to it because we are afraid of what it offers us.  We become overly comfortable in our home-made comfort zones as a result, and unconsciously resort to pseudo -protection behind images of who and what we are.   

We resist and resist and resist anything coming through or anything seeping out.  Yet keeping these walls up takes remarkable energy and we constantly feel the outside weather beating against them. Heaven forbid something should blow open and the unexpected should flow in or our vulnerable selves should slip out. We suffer.

When we close up ...we not only stop the judged "bad" from coming in ...we do not let the light in either. We do not only stop the "unwanted" from hurting us...we stop the love from going out to heal others and ourselves. Constantly being on guard, defending and attacking from walls that really do not have any foundation in the true sense, is suffering.

We learn this when our walls eventually crumble or the doors, because of wear and tear, no longer seal. What a wonderful thing that is, when that happens.   At first it is frightening as we face all the things we were afraid to face...then we see them for what they really are.  The light shines in and around us and we realize we never ever needed any walls.

Our hearts and our minds are meant to be full of love and light.  When we choose to close them up behind dark walls...we do not experience that love and light and we do not share it with the world.  It is time we put away our defenses and let the light in and the light out...as it was meant to be. 

Don't Close!

There is no need for false solidity when you are at peace with the universal expanse of your true being.
-page 137

All is well in my world.

Reference

Singer, Michael ( 2007) the untethered soul. Oakland: New Harbinger Publications

What we really want

Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend the day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love.
-ACIM-W-339:1:9

Are you asking for what you really want or are you confused about the things you want and the state you will attain from your request? Are you getting the things you ask for and are those things bringing you happiness?

According to ACIM, you will get what you ask for, "I will receive whatever I request."  Too often we ask for "things" that we assume will bring happiness but that only bring pain.  Too often we confuse suffering with peace because we live in fear rather than love. Most of us are pretty mixed up in the request department of our lives.:)

I am finally coming to terms with the fact that what I really want from Life is peace not pain.  I was asking for pain for a big portion of my life...playing a victim of suffering thinking it would get me somewhere.  It didn't.  It only brought more suffering. As I started asking for peace, Life started testing me, pushing my faith to the point so my seeking would become more purposeful.

As I sat where I was on Thursday, intending to  find peace by finally  putting  closure on my health seeking journey, my family (who didn't know where I was at that time or why) was desperately trying to get a hold of me to tell me that our 61 year old brother had infarcted and was rushed to Calgary General for surgery. If you knew my whole story you would realize just how ironic that is!

If they were to reach me in those hours, I would never have made the decision I did.  I would have opted to continue my "crusade" as it was referred to. You see... I embarked on my mission to find answers and retribution as somewhat of a  Templar Knight...seeking to protect future pilgrims from nasty and unfair decisions and to protect my family from further injury. For the longest time...I thought I was doing the "right" thing no matter how unsuccessful I seemed to be at it.

While my brother was unknowingly being wheeled into the cardiac OR...I was in a room miles away from where he was, making a decision that could change all our lives.   I had decided to put down my sword and my red crossed cape and accept a life of peace instead.  I was so tired from carrying that heavy burden for as long as I did.  No matter how I tried I was not getting anywhere...not helping anyone. I wasn't a very good knight :) Selfishly,  I just wanted closure.

It was more than coincidental  that my brother infarcted in those very same hours of my deciding to let go. Why was I not able to get my sister's messages at that time when there was no reason why I should not have been able to? That was indeed serendipity at its best.  Though part of my argument was my family history, he was not one of the siblings on that list.  He was added to it that day...making it six of us. Who, but the most close minded or fearfully defensive, could call that coincidence?  

I don't know what I am to learn from this yet.  I don't know what to ask for from here on in ..except...except... peace.  It is still what I ask for...for myself and all those in my life. I want peace for me and I want peace for others.  Hopefully I will live long enough to attain it and to share it.

All is well

Everything will be Okay

The truth is, everything will be okay as soon as you are okay with everything.  And that is the only time everything will be okay.
-Michael Singer untethered soul- page 95

Wow!  How can I speak to that piece of wisdom? In its perfect simplicity it tells us that peace is our own making.  It isn't about making everything "out there"  work perfectly in our favor.  It is simply about being okay with things no matter how they turn out. 

I learned the value of that wisdom Thursday. I was in a situation  where I was originally determined to do more than break even for some monetary losses incurred because of events that were beyond my control. During the hours I sat there,  I made a decision to put away my struggle to make a point for peace; to put away my anger and resentment for forgiveness; to put away my desire for a secure future for the psychological release of letting go of the past and to put away my wish  for more for just  enough to pay off my debts and to assist my children in the small ways I have not  been  able to assist them  for years.

I could have went further.  I know that...I mean I really know that. I could have caused a lot of trouble for the other side.  But something in me...told me to let go. Just let go.  It wasn't any longer about "winning" and proving how right I was nor was it about losing. It was just about peace. I wanted peace more than anything.

 Sure...I am no farther ahead in knowing how I will survive in the future but I will not owe and I will have helped my children in some small way...that is all that matters. 

Isn't this the direction I truly wanted to go in? Am I not learning about what is really important?  About the internal harm in grasping and clinging to things of form and the freedom that comes from letting go of our mental attachments to things?

I can't say I walked away feeling thrilled or excited as others seemed to want me to believe I should lol.  I walked away feeling nothing really...not excitement, not a tremendous amount of relief, not hope or a sense of security that I thought I would walk away with....but...but...I also did not  walk away with  grief, anger, resentment, loss, fear, or worry.  The thing is, I walked away psychologically unaffected by the outcome. That to me says it all...that to me shows how much I have grown and healed. 

My peace is not determined by what happens around me or to me.  Everything is okay as it is.  Why?  Because I am okay with everything.

How cool is that?

All is well.

Weeping or Rejoicing?

When the ego weeps for what it has lost, the Spirit rejoices for what it has found.
Sufi proverb

Do you see how wonderful loss is yet?

I can actually say, in all honesty, that I am grateful for my recent losses.  I am grateful that I have lost some of my perceived physicality, my ability to work in a job I loved, my professional designation, my income, that sense of financial stability I once depended on, the recognition I once enjoyed and most importantly the sense of identification I had with these things.

Say what???

It was ego's weeping that  brought me to the "inevitability of is..." as Tolle describes it.  I have finally gotten to the point in my Life where I am no longer thinking, "No!  This should not be." ...but..."It is as it is."

I see that these situations do not make or break my life. It is what my mind is saying about them that does that.  I may not be able to control what life hands out but I can control what my mind says about it. I want a healthy relationship with my Life as it is right now in this moment. That is what is important to me.  All the stuff ego sees as loss...is just that "stuff.'  It is not my Life.

I would never have realized the insignificance of that stuff until I lost it.  I would never have realized the importance of "being" over "doing" if things didn't happen the way they did.  I would have still been stuck in ego dominated thinking and doing if Life didn't present what it did to me.

Life is not meant to make us comfortable.  It is meant to challenge us. Life is unpredictable...nothing of this material world will last forever.  Loss is inevitable. (Tolle, 2018).  And it is all okay.

I choose to rejoice in what my spirit has found...the moment; rather than weep over what ego perceives as loss.

All is well

Eckhart Tolle (2018) Getting Beyond Thinking   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgos7QmJ_DQ

I seek but the eternal.

ACIM-W-234:2:1



Conflict must be resolved

Conflict must be resolved. It cannot be evaded, set aside, denied, disguised, seen somewhere else, called by another name, or hidden by deceit of any kind, if it would be escaped.  It must be seen exactly as it is, where it is thought to be, in the reality which has been given it, and with the purpose in mind accorded it.
ACIM-W-333:1:1-3

I used to teach conflict resolution in my Communications class.  When I asked the students, every year,  if they thought conflict was good or bad in fostering a healthy team...most answered that it was a bad thing to be avoided at all costs.  Of course, I would throw that line from Hamlet at them, nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.  Then I would proceed to tell them basically the same thing the above excerpt from A Course in Miracles tells us. "Conflict must be resolved not denied or avoided."

Conflict is not only an expectant part of group dynamics but it is an expected part of Life. We can close our eyes to it, walk away from it, promise to deal with it later or call it something else...but we will never escape it if we do that.  The only way to deal with a conflict or any less than desirable life event...is to go through it. Resolution is the key that allows us to do so.

Resolution begins with seeing the conflict for what it is, where it is. And of course...that is in our minds. We need to put it all out on the table, so to speak. Just recognizing conflict: "This side has a different way of seeing things than my side does...and that is preventing us, as  a whole,  from moving forward with one unified goal." ...is enough to start the resolution process and create freedom from it.

In our own minds...conflict might exist between what ego wants for us and what that wise part of us (God) wants for us. This conflict makes us feel uneasy, unhappy and we might squirm and wiggle our focus from it.  We may run from it by numbing our minds or getting lost in superficial pursuits.  The more we run, however, the bigger the conflict gets and the further away from reaching a  unified goal we are.

Just by recognizing that there is a conflict...heck that there are two sides in our minds capable of disputing....is a big step toward resolution.  When we recognize an ego self...lets call that side "Fear" and a true Self ("Love") we begin the process.  Then when we recognize how they both want different things...we take another big step into resolving the problem.

By the time both parties sit down at the bargaining table and lay down their demands we are well on our way.  It is only when we see the demands, however,  that conflict gets dismissed. We see how futile and counter productive ego/fear's demands are and it is like...wow...why are we even bothering to try to negotiate with such absurdity? There really is only one side that makes sense.

So ego is respectfully dismissed from the table and the true goal..."peace, happiness, Joy" is re-established. This is conflict resolution.  This is awakening.  Hmm!

All is well!

Forgiveness

Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility.  Yet with forgiveness does that light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.
-ACIM -W-332:1:7-8

What does forgiveness mean to you? I was brought up to believe it was something that only came if one repented for their sins...and sins were horrible and evil things that we or others committed because we were inherently bad. Pretty gruesome , eh?

I don't think that way anymore.  I see forgiveness simply as freedom, a freedom that comes from letting go of old perceptions and ideas, a letting go of fear.  We were born free...just as our minds were born peaceful.  This so called 'sin' was just all the 'wrong and busy thinking' we piled on top of that peaceful state and  that led to fearful choices and behaviours. It darkened the light that is us. A change of mind is all the repenting we need to do.


Forgiveness is warm. Like a tear on the cheek. Nell: The Haunting of Hill House: Red Room Scene.

 

(Recycling my pics like crazy....need to get out and shoot some more lol)

 

All is well!

Conflict is sleep

Conflict is sleep, and peace awakening.
-ACIM-W-331:1:8

I just finished binging on The Haunting of Hill House. And like ...wow! Sure it was scary and I certainly jumped and screamed  at certain points lol...but I was amazed at the wisdom in the story line. This whole idea that conflict is sleep and peace awakening was expressed so clearly.  It really was a beautifully scripted allegory about how we are haunted by fear and shame and can be lifted from that when we awaken...when we confront our fears and see them for what they really are. Fear is a dream...(7)

We will all awaken eventually at death but we do not have to wait until then. We do not need to be haunted by the past and suffer our way through life as the Crane kids did.  Nor do we have to "end it".  We simply need to confront the ghosts that haunt us, accept the world that exists beyond what we can see or perceive with our bodily senses, look at time not as a linear line but as moments "falling like confetti" all around and embrace each of those moments.

I wasn't expecting to find so much of this "aha!' and so much light in a dark and scary movie said to terrify. lol Well done!

Autonomy or Suffering?

For all things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice of God.  It seems that we will gain autonomy but by our striving to be separate, and that our independence from the rest of God's creation is the way in which salvation is obtained.  Yet all we find is sickness, suffering, loss and death.
ACIM-W-328:1:1-3

Wow!  We got it all wrong, don't we? We are not going to find the 'salvation'  we are looking for through striving, or  by building borders around ourselves that separate and defend. 

What is this salvation many of us seek?  It is simply freedom from suffering. We think we need to do whatever we can to protect ourselves from the suffering life hands out. Do we not often believe that God is out to get us? So we  separate and defend this 'little me' we believe is us from all potential villains.  We build walls around it, throw our spears from it and from our fortresses we strive to own, attain, and have all the "things' of the world that will fill a hole in us.  We mentally argue against our need for each other, the world and God thinking this argument will make us autonomous, strong and successful.  It only makes us sick, suffering and victims of illness, loss and death. Is this the salvation we are looking for?

No!

Isn't what most of us want...if we really, really think about it...is just peace of mind and joy and happiness.  Do we just not want to be free of fear and feel safe?

Well the good news is ...we can have this.  We can be saved.  This salvation, however, does not come from our fear induced argument that we need to protect ourselves from Life by separating from God and others.  It comes from realizing that our perceptions are upside down.  God isn't out to get us.  We were not meant to suffer like this...we created all this nonsense in our minds so we can un-create it. We can change our perceptions. We can begin by realizing what God really wants for us.

It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace.
ACIM-W-328:2:3

All is well!

Life Doing Life....

From judgment comes a world condemned.  And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth...
ACIM-W-325:1:5-6


I don't even know where to begin.  If I write from my heart right now it is going to be all frustration, resentment, doubt, fear mixed with hope, love, a desire to forgive and a desire to forget.  If I write from mind right now it will be all story.  If I write from the Observer of mind and heart, there will be just this simple reminder:..."Wow!  A lot of learning going on.  Don't forget you are not the so called 'problem', just the watcher of it.  From that place there is no problem...just Life doing Life."

Hmmm! Right now that observation...is getting covered a bit by the turbulent weather of mind and heart...but if I ponder the sky/space beneath ...eventually I might come to know I am the sky beneath. The thoughts, feeling, story and situations are just passing clouds...that's all! Man ...I would like to know that right now...

All good!

Training the Wandering Mind

I cannot lose the way.  I can chose to wander off a while, and then return.

(ACIM-W-324: 1:3-4)

I read this line in my ACIM lesson for today and it hit home. It spoke to not only finding our way down Life's many paths but I could also see it applying to meditation.

Wandering Away From Home

We can never actually lose this peaceful state that is within us for it is who we really are.  We can, however, wander away from it at ego's urgings.  We can allow our minds to become cluttered by mental modifications and a need for 'more' of something.  We can grasp, and seek, and cling, and fight and defend our way along paths that take us away from this natural state. We can wander away from home.

But we will eventually return...that's a given...even if it isn't until we die. It is assured  we will return to this peaceful state because it is home. Home is always there with its bright warm lights welcoming us back and we need do nothing but turn towards it and chose not to wander off any longer.

Meditation: A Training that Keeps Us in the Property Lines

I see meditation(and mindfulness) as practice, a learned thing, that will stop us from wandering off so we can eventually reap the benefits of being home.  

Our desire to run off away from home/ truth/ our peaceful state  leads to suffering...or Dukkha. Yet, like the animals we are, we are often compelled to seek more out there in a world we made up in our heads. 

What can we do?

We can train ourselves to recognize that home is where we want to be and that wandering away causes pain.

Have you ever seen those electric fences used to train dogs who naturally like to wander off, following their five senses (especially the nose)  in search of something 'more',  to stay within the property lines? An invisible fence is created  around the perimeter and guideposts are set up to let the dog know he is getting close to leaving home.  The first sign  of wandering is met with  little white flags and the dog who is wearing a collar will hear a buzz when he gets close to that.  Another buzz will go off in his ear when he goes beyond it and if he makes it to the actual fence he will get a gentle shock. (Believe me the gentle shock hurts a lot less than the impact of a vehicle would.)  Eventually with enough practice the dog will learn to be aware of the signs and will avoid  exposing himself to  unnecessary suffering.  He will learn that  leaving this present state causes unnecessary discomfort. 

He will begin to explore instead the yard he is in, finding all kinds of wonderful satisfying things there . He will discover that everything he needs is already where he is. He doesn't have to search; he doesn't have to wander or risk things like fast moving traffic that could damage or kill.  He doesn't have to get lost. He doesn't need to be chained or tied, either.  He can wander freely around home.

In meditation practice, we can remember that.  We can remember that our peaceful state is here within us, going nowhere.  Everything we need is here.  We are already everything we need to be.  Dashing through the busy traffic of our minds is not only dangerous but it can never give us what we truly want...what home provides.

Until we remember we want to be home, wandering off is going to happen. It is human nature.  Our minds are so conditioned to followed our noses, our five senses, and ego's lead into thought and feeling.  No big deal.  We need to learn to expect that we will wander. 

Training the Wandering Mind


The thing is we can train ourselves to stay home so we do not wander off into the illusionary world thought creates.  We can learn to calm the mind-stuff. 

It is not easy at first.  Minds wander. We can, however, gradually learn to recognize the signs we are wandering off.  We can begin by realizing that Life has already set up the perfect learning tool.

Maybe every minor discomfort we experience, every feeling of confusion and questioning as we step close to the end of property lines...are like the white flags and gentle buzzing offered to dogs.  Maybe Life is signalling that we are getting close to straying from home. Many of us will ignore the white flags and the buzzes,  so convinced that what we need is "out there.".  We will keep going despite the buzzing in our ears.

We will walk right into the shocks offered by Life and suffer the sudden pain as circumstances and loss and illness gets zapped through our experiences. Still, after the shake of the head and the falling down, we may get back  up to  "push past it"...We will learn to endure it, ignore it, live with it...convinced that what we want and need is out there somewhere. We won't learn from the pain. We keep going.

Then some of us require getting struck my those fast moving vehicles  before we realize that we do not want to suffer anymore.  For many of us...it takes that sort of crisis or suffering to get us to turn and look towards home.

So to assist Life in the learning of these valuable lessons...we can practice meditation and mindfulness. We can learn to be present.

We will likely start with finding ourselves in full fledged suffering  again and again as we begin a meditation practice. (We will keep hitting that fence and finding ourselves running terrified  out into the noisy, busy, unsettling traffic).  We retrace our steps. Eventually we learn to recognize the outer buzz  of warning before we get there and next the inner buzz and then the white flag blowing gently in our mind's eye as we make our way back home.

In other words we begin to catch the mind wandering and then coming home step by step, practice after practice, "Oh I am going  off again. "  We keep wandering, keep recognizing the signs that we are wandering and we either chose to endure the fence or come back into home. That is what the practice entails...what the training requires.

Eventually, we realize that home is the place to be. We no longer need the fence or any of the reminders.  There is nothing out there that we need or want to make us whole.  Searching for it just causes unnecessary suffering.  We settle where we are and find pure peace, joy and contentment. We can never lose the way because home is the way. Unlike the dogs we are not being confined against our wills...we are being freed to be who we really are.

Meditation can be like an electric fence that trains us to stay within the property lines of our natural state of being. It is all about awareness.   The more we practice, the more we learn to observe the signs we are  wandering off so we can come back home.   Wander, come home...wander, come home...wander, come home... until we decide not to wander anymore, not to suffer anymore.

All is well in my world.

Peace Again

And we are at peace again, for fear is gone and only love remains.
-ACIM-W-323:2:4

The natural state

According to Patanjali as well as other great spiritual  philosophies, peace is our natural state of being.  The citta vrttis, or the modifications of the mind-stuff, disturb that peace.  (Satchidananda, page 4) 

Ego creates the mind stuff. We are peaceful until we let all that fear based ego thinking get in the way.

Control the rise of the mind into ripples

The Yoga Sutras  tell us that  we need to learn to slow those old minds of ours down enough, so we can see beyond the dust they create, to who we really are.  Patanjali taught that by controlling the rising of the mind into ripples, we can experience this connection with our natural selves again.  It will involve practice.  That is what yoga is, what meditation is, what mental control is, what mindfulness is...a practice.  It is a practice that takes us back to a mind freed of all the grasping, the anxiety, the doubt that fear creates.  Slow down!

What part of us needs to practice?

But if who we really are is already peaceful why do we need to practice these things?   It is the image you or the ego-you that does all the Yoga practice. not the real you.(page 222)

It is good to know that beyond this busy tormented mind, there is peace, there is joy and there is love.




All good!

 

ACIM-Workbook

 

Satchidananda, Sri Swami (2011) The Yoga sutras of Patanjali. Yogaville; Integral Yoga Publications

Sing

You don't have to sing best, you just have to sing!

Offering Whatever Talents We Have

Use the talents you have. You will make it. You will give joy to the world. Take this tip from nature: the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except those who sang best.
-Bernard Meltzer (Brainy Quotes)

What is your special talent, the one thing you can offer the world that will bring it joy? Do you openly express it or are you held back by your social story?  How do you react to others and how does this prevent you from doing the thing you do that makes you...you? I am wondering if my social/writing story relates to yours in anyway?

Awkward

After much practice, learning and confronting my fears I can now stand up and speak in front of 600 people without a quiver in my voice but I am still a bit awkward in social situations. I avoid 'exposure' of my vulnerability, of my 'broken' parts for fear of scrutiny and judgment. The egos of other people, frankly, scare the crap out of me.  :)

I tend to stand back and a little away from other people.  When I do approach or share in a 'social forum' my speech is  often flushed, rushed and/or backwards lol. I may stutter or stammer or say something I shouldn't have said.  The image I create is far from what I feel I am and wanting to protect that sense of self from egos that I fear can do so much damage, I pull back even farther.

It is much easier, I discovered, to appear aloof and distant...to step back and away...to become a lone-wolf or a wall-holder-upper rather then the center of attention. If anybody notices my retreat, I then become in other opinion...someone who is too 'stuck up' or 'too into herself'  to care about others. Of course, that is not the case but who am I to argue with social opinion?

Social Story

That has been my social story for as long as I can remember (for almost 50 years). If I feel I have something important to say though, something that goes beyond my ego or the egos of others, something that has the potential to heal...I will step out there into the spotlight.  I will let whatever is in me, beneath all my conditioning, my fear and my shame, to do what it has to do. It is almost like I have no choice. Something bigger than my fear and my shame takes over. Potential 'exposure to scrutiny and judgment ' seems like such a trivial and insignificant risk at those times. I am not held back. Thus my ability to public speak, to teach and to write the things I write.  I do not seek ego fame and fortune through these mediums...I seek release. They truly are beyond me. I don't call it 'talent' as much as I call it a need to offer and share.

Offering and Sharing

This blog  and my other writing has been like a high school dance for me.  For the most part I  lean against a wall in the back of the room.  I may appear distant and aloof but part of me does want to connect.  From that protective spot I shout out all the things I want to say. I remain unseen and unheard. It's safe and comfortable to be hidden away (little readership)but at the same time I get the release I long for. I'm okay with being the least popular kid in the room as long as I can write.

Every now and again, though,  the thought that I need to get  out of my comfort zone and connect pulls at me. So gingerly and hesitantly, I step out to the center of the dance floor  in order to increase readership. There are soooo many kids on the floor, many of them prettier, smarter, and much more popular than me. Still... I introduce myself. I stutter and stammer as I do.  I feel myself blushing and trembling. I feel extremely uncomfortable.

Few even stop to pay attention to my awkward introduction and the ones that do  stand there with their hands on their hips and their heads titled to the side saying "What the Front door?"

Awkward!

I want nothing more, at these times, then to retreat back into the shadows.  I want to run away but if I feel what I have to say needs to be heard...that 'thing within me' takes over.  I have no choice but to stand where I am  and do my thing.  I don't look to see who is giving me the thumbs up or down.  I don't speak to the egos in front of me, I speak to what is beyond them.  Awkwardness slips away and this part of me slips out to express Itself.

When I have said what needs to be said...I gingerly and hesitantly walk back to hold up the wall again.  It is only then,  there in the darkness away from the scrutinizing eyes of others, that  I check to see if I have been heard. Has my readership increased?  Has a publisher or agent found merit in my work? Have I been understood and accepted?

The Outcome is not your problem

Hmmm! So far I remain an 'unknown.' I mean I do receive a thumbs up every now and again through publications and bumps in readership or comments  and I am grateful for them.  They keep me going.  But for the most part, in high school popularity terms, I am not being seen and heard despite the effort it takes to go beyond the comfort zone.

The question is: am I okay with that?  I think I am.  I think as long as I can release this thing inside me out onto the page it's all good.  As long as I try every now and again to step out  of my comfort zone  to be heard by someone its all good. I guess it is not my role to get all hung up on the outcome.  I just need to write, and then step out there and attempt to connect that writing to an audience every now and again.  When I do,  I have done my job, regardless of how socially awkward I may feel.  The rest is not up to me.  :)

Moral

So what is the moral of this big long rampage?  Comfort zones are okay for awhile, especially when you are creating, but after you create whatever it is that makes you... you...than at least try to share it.  Step out away from safety and offer what you have to the world.  What others do with it is not up to you.  The opinions others have of you are not yours to own. And the outcome of anything you pursue is not your responsibility. Creating and sharing is.

All is well in my world.

Awareness: The Essence of Meditation

The essence of meditation is awareness. Awareness is like space and space can not be changed by clouds. Beautiful clouds, ugly clouds, dark clouds or bright-can not change space.
-Mingyur Rinpoche

In a lecture to potential meditators in London, Buddhist Monk Mingyur Rinpoche explains the practice of meditation through his own story of dealing with childhood panic, explaining how to meditate and by offering the audience exercises to practice.

These are some of the key points I gathered from that lecture:

What Meditation and Awareness are:

• The essence of meditation is awareness.
• We are all aware
• Awareness is always there.  The problem is we sometimes get lost in mental activity: thought, feeling, sensation and activity that we do not see it
• These things can cover the "space" like clouds or turbulent weather but awareness is still there unchanged behind them
• The practice of meditation involves recognizing and  tapping into that space, that awareness again and again.
• One moment we are mindful and the next we are lost...we bring ourselves back to a state of being aware of being aware.  Then we forget again and go off.  We bring ourselves back to that awareness of being aware.  It is a constant process of going from not being aware, to be being aware that we are not aware, to being aware we are aware.
• Back and forth and back forth until the little moments of awareness, of space become longer and longer...until awareness opens up into something grander bit by bit.
• It is a slow, mundane and sometimes boring practice of training the mind to recognize awareness...when we are aware of awareness.
• It is the formation of a new healthy, life enhancing habit

What Meditation Does:

• As long as we can see a river (the mind) flowing past us we know we are not in it.  If we were in it, we wouldn't see it and we would be swallowed up by it.  We wouldn't want to be swallowed up by a dirty turbulent river would we?  (Most of our monkey minds are such rivers).  If we were going to fall into the river and we all will...from time to time...we want to make sure that river is calm so we can float along.  Meditation helps to create a calm river...a calm mind.

How to meditate

• Don't resist anything!
• We must not resist thought, feeling, sensation or experience when we practice meditation.  We must welcome and allow anything that is in our experience into our practice.
• He relays how he overcame severe panic attacks by welcoming panic without judgment...simply allowing it and being curious and interested in the sensations it provided...from a place of awareness. 
• These intense emotional experiences that we sometimes judge as 'negative' can be powerful teachers, friends and supporters of our practice.  Resisting them makes them persist.  Befriending them makes them interesting things to learn from before they leave us...and they will.
• He explained that many of us misunderstand meditation and see it as a practice where we try real hard and we  resist stress and negative emotion, call on breath and "Peace" to bring out relaxation...when it is not about struggle or resistance at all
• The more we resist the more whatever we are resisting persists
• 'Meditation can take place anywhere at and time even in the city'...it is just about bringing attention back to awareness
• He kind of made fun of the way I and other westerns sometimes meditate...with hands in Guyan mudra chanting peace or other mantras or focusing on breath.  He just stressed that meditation doesn't have to be that structured or challenging. 
• He said 'trying' and resisting just makes it more difficult to connect with our awareness of awareness
• He doesn't speak of breath awareness as so many practises do...I assume...and I can only assume...that is because of his panic ( and possible ADHD?) as a child.  I can see body sensation would be an easier focus in those situations where awareness of breath may increase these feelings???
• He also closes eyes where other Buddhist teaching recommend opening the eyes and focusing on a spot in the visual field about 12 inches down from the tip of the nose( a form of Trataka from the yoga tradition?)
• I guess the key thing is then...do what works for you.
• If we simply make meditation about becoming more aware at any time or anywhere...it becomes so much easier (He does not use the term mindfulness)
• He encourages meditating in the beginning on body sensation...just becoming aware of sensations in the body from head to toe.
• He also says it is good to listen to sound...Buddhist bells in particular.
• The preferred way will depend on the individual but going back and forth between the two ways is recommended so one doesn't get bored
• Accept all emotional experiences
• don't try to relive a past experience that was joyful...past is past...create new experiences
• Remember that failure is a good thing...it is 'the mother of success'

Four trouble shooting remedies in practice:

1.           Watch: watch the sensation in the body, simply be aware of it
2.           Try Something Different: Change focus if necessary.  If you find you can't settle with sound try body sensation and if body sensation becomes a problem because of the areas of concern you are focusing on...try focusing on a neutral part of body
3. Step Back:  mentally from the object of focus...become aware of what is watching it.  Observe the  observer
4. Take a  break: if it is still too much of a struggle to meditate which it should never be...take a break from it.  Try physical exercise.

Recognizing energy Movement (what would be referred to as Prana Pinga Nadi in the yoga tradition) (Kundalini?)

• Can be experienced as a physical sensation: top of head, tingling down spine or warm spreading sensation  in core
• Can be experienced with extrasensory perception...light and colour etc
• Can be experienced as sensing energy around us from other people or things
• Or it can be experienced as being on an emotional roller coaster
• Experiencing this does not make us special, enlightened, wiser than the next...nor does it mean we are going crazy
• It is a normal response to effective meditation practice
• Need to recognize when we experience it...an indication we are opening up

He is a great teacher with a humorous and down to earth approach to meditation.  I am so grateful to the internet for bringing such teachings into my life.

Found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukTaodQfYRQ

All is well!

Letting go of all afflictions

Letting Go

 

Hearing the bell,

I am able to let go of all afflictions.

My heart is calm,

my sorrows ended.

I am no longer bound to anything.

I learn to listen to my suffering

and the suffering of the other person.

When understanding is born in me,

compassion is also born.

-Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Put the Mask on First

 

How many of us attempt to relieve our own sense of pain and turmoil before attempting to relieve someone else's? Not too many of us I suppose. Sometimes, just sometimes,  we may even use the suffering of another as a numbing distraction from our own.   As long as we are focusing on suffering outside of ourselves, attempting to help, fix and control the so called problems of someone else, we do not have to deal with our own core issues... do we? Some call this martyr syndrome.  Buddhists  simply call it an ineffective way towards compassion.

 

Most of you would have heard the saying, "If on an airplane and it is going down put your own oxygen mask on before you help someone else."  Think about it!  How good are you going to be to the people you love if your brain and body are deprived of oxygen.  It only takes a minute to slip the mask on your face, to oxygenate your body so your mind is clear enough to deal with the issues of another.

 

Heal First

 

Albeit healing from deep core issues and perceptions of suffering may take more than a minute.  But if compassion is our goal, than the time spent on recovery is essential. How good are we going to be to someone else if our loving energy is blocked by perceptions of pain and suffering?

 

We want to be kind, giving and loving to others so they can heal but if we do not take the time to be kind, giving and loving to ourselves so we can heal...we will not truly be giving them what they need from us. We will be  giving from a place of bondage and contraction, rather than from a place of freedom and expansion.  Love is all about freedom and expansion.  We have to love ourselves before we can truly love anyone else.

 

Letting Go

 

How do we heal so we can help heal others? We begin in meditation with a willingness to let go of all resistance we have to suffering.  That resistance comes in the form of things like repression, suppression, denial, rationalization, intellectualizing,sublimation and displacement.  We use conscious and subconscious defense mechanisms as human beings  to protect us from feeling and experiencing our suffering.  In other words we stuff, forget, deny, make excuses, stay stuck in our heads, numb with substances or activities or blame and judge ....so we don't have to experience our own emotions. This creates knots within us that prevent the essence of who we really are to shine through.

 

I am dealing with some issues right now and in my attempt to help others in their own recoveries I am finding myself stuck, drained and overwhelmed.  I am gasping.  My lips and nail beds are turning blue.  I am about to faint ( ironically I am having more near fainting episodes lol) .  I need oxygen.  I need to recover from what is perceived to be going on inside me. The love I give is heavily diluted by my mucky pain.  I need to put my mask on first!

 

My Knot

 

I have come so far in this process.  I accept what my body is doing for the most part.  I accept my financial situation, the losses that have occurred in the last little bit because of my health situation but I realize that something is still holding me back.  I have a boulder sized knot in the center of me that I see as my health seeking journey boulder.  There has been so much pain and suffering around that experience, a story of victimization leading to feelings of unworthiness, shame,  doubt, helplessness, hopelessness, guilt, anger, disbelief, a loss of trust in systems, resentment,  and so much fear.  I also visualize past trauma to the side of me breathing life into this knot, allowing it to grow...blocking, restricting, contracting me so I cannot go forward in my life, so that I cannot hep in the true way I wish to help. 

 

There is so much pain there that I don't want to deal with.  So I stuff it good and deep inside me.  Sometimes it seeps out in trickles and  I go from feeling hopeless and ashamed to wanting to make people pay for what they did to me or didn't do for me even if it is just with massive amounts of guilt. Then I beat myself up for feeling the way I do and for allowing this to happen. I either blame others or I blame myself.  Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the fact that I create my own reality so I must have made this happen. I must have made myself sick and I must have made my health seeking experience go the way it did. So much shame! With that shame I curl up in a ball and try to avoid dealing with this situation and the consequences.

 It is all just a story where I play the tragic heroine or the pitiful victim. A story I too often get lost in as a character rather than as a reader of it. The creative part of me takes it into poetry or books I have written but there is yet to be a full release from the knot within or a disentanglement from   the tale of  trauma that still clings to me.  I will not be free until I step out of the  pages to become the person reading them. How can I be truly there for those I love without release and disentanglement?  I need to let go of both. How do I read what I have written instead of feeling lost and tangled up in it?

 

Meditate

Awe! "Meditate" is what comes to me each and every time.

 

Meditation can lead us to a calm heart and in that moment we are mindful and connected to presence...we are freed  from suffering. It can release and disentangle us from the 'mind stuff' that seems so much like a part of us but truly doesn't have to be. In silence and stillness.

 we can see who we are beyond all that mental chatter and perceived suffering
 

In that state we can listen to our suffering...just listen, without judgment or resistance, with acceptance, understanding and yes loving kindness.  We allow suffering. We need to listen to it without the story attached to it. With gentle hands  and loving kindness we welcome it into our moment, we hold it close like a mother would hold a weeping child and  then we gently remove  it from the hold it seems to have on our life. The knots will become undone and the suffering will be heard,  felt, experienced then quietly released if we just let it be. Only then, when we are free of affliction's  contracting weight, can we expand into understanding and compassion for all. It is then we can truly be of  service to the world. It is then we can help others put their masks on.

 

All is well.

 

 

Only when we've been able to relieve our own suffering will we be able to help relieve someone else's.- Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011) peace is every breath. New York; HarperOne

We are what we Seek

I was created as the one thing I seek.  I am the goal the world is searching for.
-ACIM-W-318:1:5-6

Imagine if we knew that, truly knew that we not only already had what we were looking for, we were what we were looking for.  There would be no more need to strive, to grasp, to seek endlessly, to compete, to steal, to attack, to lose and to suffer the way we humans tend to suffer. Would there be?

Hmmm!

All is well in my world.

Connecting

What I am really focused on is connecting people around shared interests, so together they can make good things happen. 
-Pierre Omidyar (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/connecting)

Like a kid in a candy store filling my bag with mixed candy, I joined several groups last evening.  I was just amazed about how many people were actually out there 'waking up' to a different way of approaching life. I wanted all of it lol. It blew me away and it humbled me...reminding me that I am no expert, far from it and I am not 'special' because I think the way I do. At the same time it reminded me I was not alone.   I had to try to see it all.

I ate too much of those candies. lol. I am already overwhelmed by Facebook.  :) So many beautiful posts  exist by beautifully minded individuals and it is like wow!  How does one read all of them? Respond to all of them? One doesn't want to offend or exclude.  And one doesn't want to like what one may not actually like.  I have to regroup a little bit and begin again, I guess. It is amazing though...to see that none of us have to go through this alone.

I have one friend on the Facebook page.  Yeah!!! Thank you Stephen! I am not sure how I will approach my own page or this friend thing but it is there. I do not want this to be about how many friends I get. I want it to be about connecting for a higher purpose.  All good.

All is well in my world.

Facebook anyone?

Social media is not about the exploitation of technology but about service to  community.
Simon Mainwaring (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/social_media)

I just wanted to let you know that I am connecting this blog or at least trying to, to a Facebook page.  Just click on the main photo and it should take you there if you are interested.

I am not overly fond of social media. As I have mentioned before, I am  concerned about 'the buzz' and the unhealthy distraction it can supply. I have stopped Facebooking personally a year ago and feel better for it.

But ...I also  really believe the world might benefit if like-minded  individuals connected and came together with their ideas and their offerings. Facebook does provide a wonderful opportunity to do that. Wouldn't it be nice to have more social media pages  that concentrate solely on finding a way to peace and fulfillment for all? The minutes used for that purpose of creating something positive  would be worthwhile, wouldn't they?

Besides I have been doing all the yapping and the tapping here.  I am sure you are bored of the one sidedness of all this. Maybe you have something to share. I would love to hear what you have to say.

I will put myself out there and try to link up with others doing the same thing.  (I am a bit social media impaired lol but I will try...). I would be interested in knowing how many people are in the same boat...waking up and wondering what the heck to do now. :)

I am not professing that I will bring any more people to a Facebook page than I have to this blog, lol, but I would like to try. I am not concerned about my pride and numbers of friends and likes and hits...if that was the case I would have stopped blogging long ago.  I just want to reach out and see what happens.  I would love to hear about other peoples experiences. Maybe isolation  doesn't have to be a part of the process.  Who knows? We will just open up and  take it as it comes. 

It's all good.

More on the "I" and "Me" ness of Relating

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations.
-The Forth of the Buddhist precepts found in peace is every breath,Thich Nhat Hanh, 2011)

I counted close to 100 "I"s in yesterday's post.  Even in my attempt to get beyond "I", I  end up referring to "I" an awful lot.  There were a lot of "me" and "my" and "mine" as well throughout that entry( my eyes are bothering me too much today to count those). Hmmm! That's a lot eh? So much so I can  barely see after counting them.  And I am in the process of dismantling my attachment to that pronoun.  How many would we count if I wasn't? Scary...but that is how we relate to others.

Its funny, in the Communications class that I used to teach (sigh!) I stressed the importance of using that word "I" to help develop healthy assertive communication.  Now I am saying...maybe we are using it a bit too much.  It is probably important to first become assertive in our relating to others  (rather than non-assertive or worse aggressive) before we can take the next step up and beyond that to selfless. I will rationalize with that. The final  objective is, however, to get beyond the little "I" and the little "me" all together eventually. (Maybe not in this life time for most of us lol).

It is all good...just thought I would share that.  Won't write much today...eyes ( especially the left is aching and blurry...it is hard to write...probs should get that check but honestly believe it is senseless to complain about anything my body is doing with the hope of being taken seriously...yes...I just  sat my sorry butt back down on the pity pot lol...but I will get back up... as soon as the eye pain goes. Rgo promises it will only stick round til then :))

It's all good.

Lonely wolf?

...So every gift I give belongs to me.  Each one allows a past mistake to go, and leave no shadow on the holy mind my Father loves.
ACIM-W-316:1:1-2

Lonely?

Are you feeling lonely as you awaken?

I feel lonely.  As the physical world stressors seem to come crashing down on me and I anticipate even greater stress of that nature in the upcoming future...a life change I can not even comprehend really as I lose the bit of 'stuff' I have left...I feel lonely.  I want to share 'my story' with someone but I am aware of the reality of my situation. Few people would care to be burdened by such a tale of woe.  Few people  know or care about the extent of the physical world stressors coming down on me.  Few people care about me.

Taking accountability

That sounds like pity, I know, and I am sure my remaining big fat ego would love to stir up some more drama right now...I just don't have enough in my life lol...by convincing me of how so few care.   I, however, no longer want to go where ego wants me to...my butt is still red and sore from spending too many years on the pity pot...  but I must accept there is a simple truth behind that statement. I am finding myself, like many in this position often do, somewhat isolated from the pack. Maybe you feel the same way.
We may have a tendency to want to feel sorry for ourselves and blame others for our loneliness but we need to be accountable for what we have done to get us here.

I am finally accepting of that truth without pity or blame.  I know I got me here!  I withdrew.  I sought the companionship of awareness over the companionship of others and I have become very comfortable in solitude.    I take accountability for my pulling away. No one owes me anything, they never did, I realize that. I chose awakening over socializing. And I don't regret what I have done.  I accept the consequences. I do. 

Support from the pack

Are you feeling like a lone wolf, standing off from the pack?  Are you feeling a bit hungry and cold as a result?

I have been very much a lone wolf. I do, however,  long for a certain support in the form of a listening ear or a validating presence from time to time. Someone I can turn to and say, "Look what I am going through! Please tell me it is understandable to feel so 'stressed'?"

Maybe that is just ego wanting that validation  so I get lost in story again...or maybe it is generated by a natural human need for support. I am not sure yet.

I know though I  have  people in my life who love me (and I am sure you have people in your life who love you)  despite this "crazy awakening thing "and the isolating tendencies that go with it. I have one or two that listen attentively  and try their best to understand but it is hard for them, I know, to get past my 'crazy new way of thinking'. 

And the list of life stressors I flash around is a little surreal and hard to believe let alone digest. I have a sense that I am overburdening others, confusing them, expecting too much from them.   I don't want to do that. I also don't want to get buried in story  again and I definitely do not want to bury others in my story.  So I tend not to share too much.

I also have others who feel I left them when I looked towards healing and are angry or resentful because of it. They may be collecting grievances against me.. They may   want me to suffer...just a bit. I am afraid to approach them. :)

And there have been others, in the recent past, who  care but who unintentionally rejected me and my story.  Not meaning to offend or hurt, not even aware possibly of what they were doing, they often shut me down so they could relay their own stories or they shut me out of their minds all together when my story did not involve them. And I, being 'the awakened' and 'enlightened' one lol, felt it was my job to put 'me' aside as well for them. But I wasn't awakened as I thought I was, far from it, because I could never put 'me' away for long. It stung each and every time. So much so I withdrew further away. I still fear that subtle rejection and hold my tongue before I spit out too many "I" and "me"s. I withdrew verbally as well as physically.

'I' and 'me' in the way of human relating

Oh but the learning that came from that withdrawal. I have learned to observe and examine human relating from a less subjective perch. The "I", I notice, is just so prevalent in many people's minds (mine included). Too many of us just don't have time to think beyond that "I" for long enough to be truly present for another person's story.  It is just the way it is.  It was never anything personal or anything I haven't done myself that led to this feeling of loneliness., this perceived isolation..though ego would love to convince me otherwise. It is simply a problem with the over identification of I and me, I believe, that is the problem in human relating today.  That is why so many of us feel lonely.

Finding our way back to the pack

We are social animals though, aren't we?  We need the protection and support of the pack for our survival.  We especially need it as we make the transcension from "I" to "all".

I want to transcend the selfish limitation of "I" and "me''.  To that I have to learn, in some way, to be kind to this self that does the expressing. I need to see that I deserve the pack's support.

I am in the process of reaching out to others.  I have contacted professionals. I know that my external stressors are too plentiful for even the most enlightened mind and my mind, being so far from that enlightenment, needs a little help sorting things out. 

I reached and have been reaching out to D. who does his best to understand me.  He is always so patient and supportive despite.

And I have reached out to a couple of my siblings from time to time.  It is hard though because patterns of relating have been established over the years, labels and ideas about who each of us is in terms of roles have become entrenched in our psyches and forms the basis of our relating. It is hard to let go of that. Many in my family  still see me stuck to the pity pot so if I started talking about my issues there would likely follow the habitual way of responding: diminishing, shutting me down, reprimanding or judging.    I  fear that I can't handle that right now....but I will work on finding a way through it.

I have to accept the fact that though I definitely do not preach  to anyone (other than here...if you call this preaching) my whole personality is different than the one others identified with. I am not the person they believe me to be.  If I ever was that person, I don't know. It is uncomfortable for them to come to terms with that.  It is much easier to think that I am just "crazier than a bag of hammers" lol because I have changed so much. (God knows, I feel that way many times :)) Or it may be easier to shut me out a bit because it is uncomfortable to relate to me this way or think of me at all.

Relating to others

How we relate to others is much more important than how they relate to us. Are you noticing a shift in the way you relate to others?  When you are listening to story are you more open or closed than you were before?

In truth, I don't know how to relate to anyone anymore, if I ever did.  I am impatient with egos, mine and other people's . I don't like small talk and I easily drift off when people are talking about their vehicles or their houses. When I listen to 'real' story I am more present than I ever was but there is a down side  to that. It is physically and emotionally draining. I see so much, I feel so  much beyond the words.  I soak up emotions like a sponge and if there is  pain being expressed  as there often has been...I become saturated with the pain.  It will stick to me.  I will dream about it.  I will walk around heavy for days and I feel 'sick'. This goes beyond healthy compassion and empathy and I have so much to learn here. I have to find a healthy way to settle into this way of relating to others. I will.

It's a Learning Process

Maybe, we should cut ourselves some slack. I suppose relating as well as awakening  is all a big  learning process we need to make our way through.  It will take time to learn to approach and relate to others in a healthier way. It will take time to settle comfortably back into the pack.  Loneliness may be a part of the learning for a while.

So I am lonely and that's okay.  I may and may not find someone to talk to about all this in a way that feels good and that is okay too.  I just want to settle into everything that is going on in Life...to settle into it and just let it be.  I can begin that by settling into my loneliness and just allowing that to be what it is.

All is well.

ACIM-W-316

Awakening

The universe is here to awaken you, not to make you happy but when you do awaken you become happier in a deeper way.
-Eckhart Tolle

That is good to know because I am so confused and not exactly bursting with happiness.  I am more peaceful than I ever was because I embrace the waking up process. I am certainly willing to endure all the bumps and bruises I am experiencing on my way there.  It is just comforting to know it wasn't meant to be easy.  :)

 

The challenges of Life are used in the service of awakening.

-Eckhart Tolle

Future: An Extension of the Present

From new perception of the world there comes a future very different from the past.  The future now is recognized as but extension of the present.  Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being formless, it has no effects.  Death will not claim the future now, for life is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided.  Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?
ACIM-W-314:1:1-5 

A little more on transcending unhappiness from A Course in Miracles

I read that this morning and was swept up by that wisdom.  It relates to what we were talking about yesterday(well what I was writing about lol...sometimes I forget I am no longer  standing in front of a classroom...my apologies): the happiness/unhappiness conundrum as well as previous discussions on time and presence. Let's look at what is so wise about this lesson. We will take it a part bit by bit.

From new perception of the world

Ahhh!  That's the key, right? To create a new perception...a new way of looking at the world.  How we perceive will determine everything we look upon.

there comes a future very different from the past

When we change the way we perceive the world, we change the way we see time. Our view of the future now is going to change.  It is going to be different than the way we viewed it in the past and therefore different than the past itself.

Previous to this new perception, we may have seen the future as an extension of the past.  We expect, anticipate, hope for and worry over the likelihood of things happening based on how we have come to understand life from our past experience.

For example, say in the 'past' I had a lot of issues with authority figures, felt shamed or diminished around them and I came to believe that authority figures were people who shamed and caused fear.  My boss calls and tells me to meet him in his office at the end of the day. He doesn't sound happy. What are the next few hours of my day going to be like, I wonder? I will be worried and anxious over what will happen in the future.  My mind will be full of future thoughts rather than present moment awareness and it will also be full of the past because I am anticipating a repeat of the past in the future.

Well this portion of the lesson is telling us that with a new perception the future will be different than the past.  We won't make that link.

The future now is recognized as an extension of the present.

Instead of connecting the future with the past we will connect it with the present. In fact, the present moment, all there is really in reference to time, will simply be extended.  Instead of having this moment and then the next moment and then the next moment after that...we just have one big long continuous moment. So when we think of the future we think of it in terms of 'now".

Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it

If we perceive this way the future, which is the now, cannot be contaminated by any mistakes we or the world made in the past.  It begins now...clean slate. Past is dead and buried, no where to be found.  We don't drag all those thoughts of our sins, reasons for unworthiness, our stories, our conditioned judgments or the sins of others into this present moment. 

We do not have the shadow of those past memories with other authority figures hanging over us all day as we anticipate the upcoming meeting.

so that fear has lost its idols and its images

Fear manifests in our stories, attachment to ideas and beliefs, identities and the mental pictures we create in our heads. Our thoughts about the past create fear for the future...without that past thinking...fear has nothing to hold onto.

Our memories of past experiences with authority figures are the  idols and images that create this anxiety in us about the upcoming meeting with our boss.  But fear will lose these once we accept the present moment as all there is to time.

and being formless it has no effects

When we are truly present in the here and now instead of ruminating over what happened yesterday or ten years ago, not projecting those awful memories into the future creating worry, anxiety and fear that they will happen again...we see that fear has no form.  We become aware that it has nothing of substance. It cannot effect us. It cannot hurt us

Death will not claim the future now,

The fear of death is said to be the mother fear of all fears because it  manifests in several forms...the fear of loss, the fear of isolation, the fear of the unknown.  Most of our thinking moments before we awaken are consumed in one way or another by the fear of  death, in any of its forms. This fear grows  when we see ourselves the way ego wants us to.  We do not know who we are; we over identify with mind and body, believing that once the body ceases to be so do we. The so called  'future' is an unpredictable and scary place when we think like this, offering little safety and security. It is always dominated by death.

This ending of 'self' does not mean the ending of "Self".  We realize that with this new perception. When we  slip into presence we see that death has no place in the present moment.  Fear has no power, death has no power.

I don't believe it means, that our bodies will never die.  They will but just because they do doesn't mean we do. All things in this world of form, including our bodies, will come and go.  When we truly get that... we don't waste the sacredness of each moment with obsession over the eventuality of death in any of its forms.

for life is now its goal

The only goal for the future, which is just an extension of this moment, is life.  I don't think most of us truly know what it means to 'experience' life....to simply me wholly present in the here and now.  We are so contracted with fear, we tend to avoid it. Without fear we would surely live , wouldn't we? That should be our future goal...to live fearlessly.

and all the needed means are happily provided

Life provides what we need to live fully.  Our minds tend to be everywhere but on this realization.  When we are ego based/fear based we tend to think in terms of scarcity and a need to struggle to survive. We cling, we strive, we seek endlessly, we defend and attack to get what we need.  When we no longer fear we become aware that Life has our back and we are being provided for.  Though these provisions may not always come in the way we expect them to or think they should...Life is happily providing for us each and every moment.  

Who can grieve and suffer when the present has been freed

We free the moment from mental bondage when we put aside our notions of past and future. When we are present moment focused there is no sense of having lost or no fear of losing...so there is no grief. When we are freed from past and future focus...meaning when we are no longer so much consumed by our thinking...we do not suffer. We become 'present' and we and the moment become free.

extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?

We find security and peace in presence, in going beyond thinking to awareness.  We are perfectly safe there.  It is perfectly peaceful there.  And from there we extend this security and presence into a never ending moment.  No big bangs or whistles, maybe, but joy. True happiness!

In a Nutshell

We will experience true happiness: a sense of peace filled security in presence and awareness when we perceive differently, extending the moment into the future.  Awareness and presence exist as they always will  beyond the clouds of fear and time. We can be nothing but happy when we truly realize this truth: All there is is now....one long continuous now.


All is well


Sources

Foundation for Inner Peace. (2007) Work Book. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume. Third Edition. Mill Valley: Foundation for Inner Peace