Enduring Pain With Patience

 It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure the pain with patience.

Juluis Ceasar 

I guess this energetic chaos is going to last until after March...in my version of life anyway lol.  

The Many Forms of Pain

 In my attempt to be there for  a suffering  loved one yesterday,  something I said or did ( not sure what), caused a severe behavorial reaction. And of course, though I automatically put on my Old Psych nurse persona when I feel it is called for and appeared  so calm and distant, I couldn't help but to soak it all in . It was like breathing in a cloud of dark, heavy smoke. It just polluted me. When I was alone, I literally fell to my knees. 

I have been feeling a little less than well physically the last week or so anyway.  This "energy" or emotion...whatever you want to call it that I have been picking up over the last few months is being absorbed, it seems, by the cells of my body.  

My old friend...pelvic pain...started with a vengenance two days ago ...after I noticed the other things that go with it. I am like, "Why? Do I not have enough?" 

It got so bad after the other's reaction I felt like I was in labor. It was excruciating for hours.  Others wanted to take me into ER but as always I resisted that big time.  Not that I should, nor do I recommend anyone with that amount of pain sucking it up...just my fear of past experience induced shaming is always bigger than my fear of pain or being ill...now that I really do not have much of a fear of dying anymore. I have even less desire to go there. Rationally, I know I probably should have went. Anyway...not recommending that avoidance to anyone . 

So this phyiscal pain became all emcompassing in my experience.  I couldn't see beyond it.  I was far from patient. All I could do was think about me in this body.  The pain took me away from thinking about the others who were suffering...any other.  I got lost in it.  I got lost in "me". I found myself "fighting" it, "resisting" it, "closing up" to it etc...my head was full of, "This isn't right!  This shouldn't be happening at this point of my life.  Something is really wrong." etc   

I had to remind myself of a very reassuring dream I had a week ago, before the symptoms even showed up,  that explained what would be happening in my body...and told me not to worry, it was not life threatening. That the removal of a body part would be coming but it was all going to be okay.  (Yes...I have those kinds of dreams). That  memory of the dream removed the "negative story" from the  experience, so there was just the pain and not the worry.

Anyway...the point is that it is so easy to get lost in the habitual way of responding to pain, be it physical or emotional. We can resist it, deny it, react to it with unwanted behaviours, we can close up to it and attempt to push it away or down...but what happens when we do that...the pain gets worse doesn't it?  It becomes all encompassing. This supressed and repressed pain can come out in an explosion of behaviour like the one I witnessed or it can become so intense physically like my pain experience did.

Resistance not the answer.  Patience is.

When I , yesterday, remembered my Tonglen practice of dealing with similar pain, when I decided I was  going to fall and relax into it instead of curl up in resistance to it...when I said out loud that I was going to allow it to be.  Then...I began to feel the pain and watch the pain and know that I was not the only one who ever expereinced this type of pain. I became the witness of the pain, rather than the pain. The pain, rather than being a monster in my life...became a teacher.  I asked "Why?" but not in the resistance tone I did earlier.  It was more of a "Why are you here in my life? What are you here to teach?" 

Then I relaized that pain was directing me back into this body and this idea of "me". It told me to look after this form.  I seen it too as a reminder to release tension and other emotion from my body...  to let go... so I can heal. I physically uncurled my body from the fetal position it was in. I uncurled my fists, relaxed my jaws which were clenched up, released my brow from the furrow it was in. I simply breathed in and out and did my best to follow the breath. I began to watch the nature of pain....it came in waves with a gentle onset thatt quickly rose to a crest or peak before falling back down and away. I breathed with it. ...instead of against it.  I was very, very patient with it. 

Before long my body relaxed into the pain and I fell asleep.  When I woke up I was relatively pain free.  Now I know the "problem" is not resolved.  Pain still creeps back in every now and again but I am using OTCs to keep it from getting too much.  I am seeking medical help for it. My focus is not so much on what is "wrong" or on how much it will hurt but on how much does it have to teach me. Pretty cool.

And then when I went to check what was read today...there was an entry read  on my stats page  from way back where I talked about how I dealt with such pain...how cool is that? 

Hmmm! 

A Little Nudge to Keep Going

 

No work is insignificant. All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaken excellence. 

Martin Luther King

So today my stats reveal that I have had over 60,000 readers (not just for today lol...but so far...since 2017).  It seems like such a big number, more than I ever expected, but I am still not really sure what that means because I am not sure if those registered hits are actually from sources who have read or who even can read. I have been informed that there are plenty of bots out there. (I picture a bunch of R2D2's randomly punching the keys on some computer keyboard...that is how up to date my technological understanding of things is lol)). 

For other vloggers or bloggers who get  well above the 100,000 viewer/reader mark  in a few days or weeks,  60,000/ a five year span is probably such an insignificant number anyway.

But when I allow "Sixty-thousand" to roll off my tongue I get a nice feeling inside me.  Not because I think  "I, in this little typing form, have been 'recognized' but because it "may" mean that this learning that  is so important to me...this internal pull I have to come here everyday so as to pass it on...may actually be received by at least a few. It, my chosen 'work',  may not just be for "nothing". 

I know the more I come here to spit all this stuff onto the page, the more I am learning, the more I am growing, healing, moving forward in a direction  that brings peace.  I don't think I am doing it just  for  me though nor do I want to be. When I come here I sincerely hope I am doing it for a higher purpose I have  yet to completely understand....that I am using the little  I have left to give away  to  serve.   Hmmm!

So for some reason...whether it has to do with some left over ego gratification I am still clinging to or this realization that I may actually be doing my small part to uplift humanity...60,000 readers is like a little pat on the back from the universe, a little gentle nudge to keep going. So I do.  I keep going. 

All is well.

Relieving a little Water

 

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by a little water.

Antoine Rivarol

Still crying off and on.  Man! Once the damn is open the water just keeps flowing, eh? I literally feel lighter.  There was sooo much stuffed inside me.  I think what I am releasing is only the stuff that accumulated from December til now...so much 'crisis' in that time frame. ...so much intense emotion.  Because I was called to "act" on so many occassions, I didn't have the opportunity to process through one crisis before there was another one to deal with. So I had to stuff it, push it down, swallow it so I could act  on the next crisis, so I could be there for yet another...telling myself in some unspoken way that I would process and deal later with the undealt-with emotion I kept accumulating as I went from one event to another.   An opportune later just never seemed to come. Some one constantly needed me.

And my being there, my actions, were seldom  appreciated or valued for the most part.  Not that they had to be, that is petty ego stuff...but at least if it were I would be given the validation that what I was doing was at least helping in some way so I would know all my self-draining was at last serving a beneficial purpose.  Infact, what I gave  was even met with a certain amount of resentment from others, contempt.  I assume some of that resentment and contempt came because what I was able to give  was so limited by the number of demands and the number of people who needed me. Those hurting individuals could not understand my effort or my limitations. And then there were those who just felt "entitled" and/or who blamed me, assumed I was out to get them and  who clung to past conflict in order to rationalize why they had the right to not appreciate my efforts or be angry at me.  Very few expressed concern or awareness  about my own human limitation and need.  They expected and demanded to be served. 

So not only did I pick up the suffering of others ( actually feeling it) , I picked up their anger, that resentment, that blame, that expectation, that lack of consideration for me.   It was all so blasted overwhelmning.  I kept stuffing it down and down and down. 

I want to say as I did yesterday when the flood gates first opened, "It is just 'too' much!  It is too much." but it isn't "too much"...it just is.  It is as it is. 

All is well. 

Conceiving and Believing

 Whatever the mind  can conceive and beleive, it can achieve.

Napoleon Hill

It is after three in the morning. I awoke with the intense need to cry...and I did. The tears actually started last evening. I broke....I cracked...I bawled. I began, without planning on it, to release the flood gate of emotion that was damned inside of me...my emotion, the emotion I absorbed from others around me ( my children's mostly), then the world's. 

Conceiving Suffering

I was holding on to all this emotion...so much stuffed  suffering in this imperfect, broken shell I still call "me". In this very flawed form I can only "do" so much to help relieve it, to make it better for others . I was reminded last evening that I haven't done enough,that  I can never "do" enough and the results if I don't do more  may be be drastic. 

I don't know what to do that will help.  I don't know who to go to. My own experiences accessing a very broken system  have scarred me deeply and I am allowing those scars, that fear and that doubt to get in the way of accessing it for others. I beat myself up for that only to realize...I cannot access it for anyone else anyway.  I cannot fix this for anyone...yet I feel the intense pain of guilt and shame for not trying harder.  

And I am not trying hard enough...I know that.  I am just so burnt out from carrying my own trauma and the trauma of others. I am so tired. I have been seeking moments, shut off from the rest of the world with all its suffering to preserve myself, to rejuvenate and to replenish so that I could altruisticly  be there more fully...and selfishly so I could experience some peace in my life....but Life wouldn't let me have much of  those moments either.  It would constantly interupt me with "Someone needs you."  And I would go...or at least try to offer my presence and my support...a bit of my hard earned wisdom if it was called for....only to get  called away here and then there and then back here...Everyone seemed to need me at once and I just couldn't spread my mind and my body thin enough to be there for everybody...and for each person that did get me... what they got from me, in regards to what they needed and expected,  was just too thin. 

Beleiving Suffering is My Destiny

Eventually this body and mind I call "mine" gets so frustrated with life for asking me to give so much while not giving me the opportunity to replenish between all the crisis'...I stop seeing the goodness in it and start to expect these challenges to keep coming my way.  Then I feel like "Oh my goodness, I am somehow creating this suffering for others because all I expect is suffering."If my mind creates my experience...and my mind conceives and believes suffering...and my deepest suffering now comes from watching others suffer and not being able to help...then this is what life gives me."  Does it really work that way? 

How do I stop it?

 All I can think to do now is pray.  I ask for help from that which cannot be seen with the human eye.

I need your help in this prayer, too. ..if you would be so kind. I believe I need your good intentions, your positive thoughts, your prayers sent in my direction.  I need outside forces to break through this cloud of negativity that binds those loved ones of mine and the people around me in this karmic wheel of suffering.  

Pray Please

Pray for me (that sounds so selfish); pray for my loved ones, and pray for all those who are suffering from anxiety, depresssion, psychosis and addiction; pray for healthy reform and recovery of this system so there is better and more timely access and help provided; pray for all those souls within the system who are trying their best to help with the limited support resources and time they have; pray for the light of hope to weave its way through all of this...growing and glowing so we all can see that suffering is only a small part of this human experience, not all of it, that the 10,000 joys are available to all of us if we would only conceive of them and believe in them ; pray that the human mind can know its own power so that it conceives and believes in light...in its amazing potenial to create a life of peace and happiness, instead of constantly enduring one of suffering. .. And pray that we see our God-given power to  make Life something very much worth holding on to!

Amen

Thank you!

All is well in my world. 

Away From My Desk

There is no trick or cunning, no art or recipe, by which you can have in your writing what you do not possess in yourself.

Walt Whitman

 Truth comes out so easily and without effort in a poem, doesn't it? We come out in our poems...all raw and naked, trembling and exposed. You really cannot hide anything when you write poetry.

 Skipping into Chapter Five : Shards of Memory Poems in my self directed poetry workshop and feel compelled to finish some poems before I come here...great once again for my memoir...possibly lol. I don't know.  I just have to write them.

I will be back.

All is well!

A Little Song of Hope

 Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, -and sings the tunes without the words- and never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson

I am not sure what to write today.  So very tired. I feel like I have been bombarded with challenging life circumstances the last few months...not so much in anything one would call "my" life but in feeling the suffering of others. Sometimes... it just feels so overwhelmning!

It is all good though...it is all good.

Today as I was getting out of the car and the intense light was shining down on me...I heard a robin singing in the not so far distance.  My heart quickened with hope.  Spring is close. Things are going to turn around.  Things will turn around. 

All is well in my world. 

Everything can heal

 You look at me and cry:everything hurts; I hold you and whisper: but everything can heal.

Rupi Kaur

It is lovely out there...I love the light!!! 

I have this strong urge to seek a deeper answer regarding a big issue...after finding out that someone who I feel needs it has been taken off all antipsychotics for a reason I cannot understand! He, I discovered, has actually been without these meds since the time that dark, heavy feeling remerged in me? 

I am like "WTF(rontdoor)?"...I am not even going to try to go to the mental health system...any system  to ask , "Why?" "Why is this happening?  Why is there such a deficiency of  help in this area when the need is so very, very great? "  

The system, I know,  is so overwhelmned.  Individuals within it, as well meaning and caring as they may be, have no choice but to close down and shut off.  Pointing out inadequacies, blaming and judging those who work within this system is not the answer. They, for the most part, are likley doing the best they can!

My gut tells me not to go there for help or to point a finger.   It tells me, instead,  to sit in meditation and ask, "What am I to understand from this and what can I do to help?" 

That is what I did today.  That is what I will keep doing until the answer comes.

So, so ironically, when I finished meditaton today I immediately happened upon a news story about mental health in my province and the call for reform.  They mentioned the need to expose the deficiency.  I get the feeling we need to instead dig for the solutions and implement them. Not just by getting more funding, psychiatrists and other professionals trained in this area...which would be great for sure...but by getting to the root of this "pandemic" of suffeirng that is taking palce in the age group especially between 15-30. 

I have always been big on preventive health...let's teach kids at a young age about life's contrasts ... the 10,000 joys as well as the 10,000 sorrows...  so they are better able to cope with both.  Hmmm! That's what my gut is telling me. 

All is well

Oh, The Words....

 Oh, the words, the words, the achingly inadequate beautiful words.

Terry Hertzler from In the Palm of Your Hand

On Chapter Three of the poetry workshop book,   In the Palm of Your Hand by Steve Kowit. In this chapter the reader is asked to write three prose poems. For some reason he is always trying to dig into childhood trauma as the creative center of these poems. Luckily I have a lot of grist in my writing mill. And it is also helpful that I am doing my memoir in poetic verse. (I know what you are thinking...I better learn the art of poetry before I go in that direction lol...thus the book I am working with now!!) I can maybe...use these poems...in that memoir. 

I wrote the first two quickly within ten-20 minutes each. It was tricky trying to get these memories properly emoted and clearly described in three to four sentences. Try it yourself!

Ultimately, what you need to do is give yourself permission to write poetry-and to have fun doing it.

Steve Kowit

This exercise  made me think of the prose poem...though I format most of my poems ( if someone would dare call what I put here poetry) in verse...they are probably more prose than poetry.  I tend to like full punctuated sentences with a beginning, middle and end.  Anyway....so I am going to try another prose  poem here...maybe about yesterday's topic? ...three to four sentences. Whatever comes out here, stays here, k?  Not edited, not revised...just down. Neither good or bad...just is.  I am going to write it quickly as I have someone waiting for me elsewhere.

Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

I try to settle myself down on this cushion awkwardly  situated  between the background of  a soothing emptiness and the world that dances like intoxicated fireflies in front of me, a world that drags my eyes up and down and all around. I close these hyper orbs of  limited vision and breathe in deeply,  searching as I do for that promised ease,  for a peace so settling it will allow me to slip beneath this cover of  here and now now, to rest a weary mind that so needs the silence and stillness the moment offers. I breathe out releasing the accumulated knots of  tension brought on by the busyness of repressed and supressed living.  My body and mind relax into the breath as if it were a comforting hamoc on a sunny July afternoon and I find the sukha  I have been looking for in this place  where it has always been.

All is well

Steve Kowit (2017) In the Palm of Your Hand. Second Edition. Maine: Tilbury House Publishers

Drsta Dharma Sukha Virharin

 Drsta dharma sukha virharin

-The Buddha

What?

Those lovely Sanskrit words that come from one of the Buddhist sutras  (I am not sure which one), and which I heard in a dharma talk from Thich Nhat Hanh today,  can be translated to mean:  dwelling happily in things as they are or dwelling peacefully and with ease in the here and now. 

I want drsta dharma sukha virhari for you.  I want it for me.  I want it for every being on this planet. Imagine what life would be like if we all had it.

I sit here with that dark heavy and confusing  feeling in the background of my experience, while I watch snow being blown almost ferociously over a cold landscape in the forefront of my experience and I feel a certain happiness with  things just as they are.  I find a certain  peace and an ease in this here and now.  I am indeed finding the capacity for drsta dharma sukha virharin.  Hmm! 

I offer you this video because it reminds me of the need to accept all things, even anxiety or fear, as they are. And please check out the amazing words of Thich Nhat Hanh in the link below.

Namaste

All is well.

Thich Nhat Hanh (October 2020) Sitting, Resting and Not Worrying https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jANxd6YGdAA

Healthy Empathy

 Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.

Roger Ebert

In a new spot, one I have never written in before.  I have moved my writing  desk which was stuffed awkwardly into the hall to make room for L. into my daughter's old room.  I have a window to look out of.  Yeah!!  And from that window I can see that it is beginning to storm out there.  March is coming in like a lion, therefore she will leave like a lamb. 

I am reminded of the energy reading I heard somewhere.  Things will begin to smooth out in March.  That will be nice.

Dark, Heavy Feeling Still Lingering

I do feel better than I did...I mean this dark, heavy feeling comes and goes and I know partially where it is coming from. Why I am picking it up...I don't know ...but I have a good idea where it is coming from. I know it isn't all mine...my reaction to it is mine but the source is enemating from  outside me. I can trust that empathetic or empathic ( whatever you want to call it) ability I have.  I am picking up something from another.  It is a something I cannot read and since I misread it before  it leaves confusion...a sense of mistrust in the other and in me mostly. 

 I know what I am seeing on the surface is not completely authentic...there is something behind appearances yet to be revealed.  Every now and again it will come  out in tiny little outbursts before being quickly sucked back in, and I can see certain behaviours slipping through the effort to restrain them. I am not saying what is beneath the surface is "bad" or "malicious" ...it is just not what I am seeing. 

I Don't Know What It Is

I feel off because I don't know what that emotional energy is. Whatever it is, I know it is very "strong" because of the way it affects me. And because I sense that it is being pushed and held down in order to provide an acceptable appearance, I fear how it will come out if that retsraint for control is weakened or lost.  How draining for the individual to have to hold it all in? I feel that too.

I felt this before. This time it is different, however, because for some strange reason most of the time I feel protected from it....which I didn't feel before.  And I do not feel the need to resist it and its many behavioral manifestations like I did before.  I feel more accepting of it and more empowered maybe.  I made a committment to "help" until this someone is better able to help themself. I see and have no problem with any of  the outer reasons for the person's need for support, the support I am in a position to provide temporarily. I have outward validatons that rationalize some of the behavioral choices, past and present. I genuinely can feel for the most part kindness, genorosity, compassion and love.   

At the same time I sense there is something else hidden under the surface that none of us are 'getting'. It is that unexplained something that leaves this dark heavy feeling in me. 

Regardless, I will do what I can to "help" meet this person's needs.  That is why we are all here. It is important that we  look to the hidden good in all of us and there is so much good in this individual.  He, as is every human being on this planet, worthy of my support, time and effort. 

Yet, I also know my own needs, as a person trying to evolve enough to make a difference in this world are very important too...regardless if others think so or not...and I will assert when the  time comes. 

This is all happening for a reason.  It imust be a part of both are learning curriculums. We are both, in a sense,  learning to see,accept, undersatnd and help meet the needs of others and ourselves.  

As part of meeting my own needs, I need to find a way to protect myself from other people's emotions, to seperate to some degree so I don't get lost in them.  I want to be empathetic and compassionate if it helps to make the world a better place but if it drains the heck out of me or makes me sick ...what kind of a difference will I be able to make? I need help learning to be empathetic in a healthy way. 

All is well. 

Learning How to Suffer.

 

I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more.

Anne Frank  https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/suffering-quotes 

Do you know how to suffer? 

I still don't know how to suffer. I guess, I still don't completely understand the suffering I experience through this little clump of flesh, this mind, this "persona" I call "me". 

I have been feeling so depleted once again.  My own body feels heavy and slow and tired. My thinking is slow.  I am closing up and stepping back again in some Self protective stance. 

Why? 

Depressed? 

I automatically go to and at the same time resist the word "depressed". I am sure this is what feeling "depressed" feels like but I cannot own that word  because this little seemingly seperate entity I appear to be is convinced it has evolved beyond that crisis of seperation. I don't mean that as a statement  of any  mental superiority ...only that I truly see now that I am not my circumstances; I am not what is happening around me or through me; I am not this body.  That realization is a part of my reality now so I don't feel I can be personally depressed in the way society views it.  

At the same time when one thinks of the word depressed from a scientific stand point  rather than a social or mental helath one: a reduction in activity, quality, amount or force;( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/depression)...I can say this :   "Yeah,"little self" or ego feels depressed. It is being squished, weighed down, diminished.  My external self is less active, offering less quality to the world, and it does not feel very powerful or forceful right now." Hmm! 

That's a good thing right? As we evolve we want to see less and less of our egos and more and more of who we really are.

Then what is the issue? 

Exposed

The shells we wear around who we really are, the inner Self, the  higher Self...also serve a protective purpose.  They offer a "space suit"like protection for us to manuever our way though this human experience in.  Sure, over identifying with the external covering, seeing it as all there is to us poses a great obstacle in our understanding of Truth...but the control system for our  active sensory antennae and our egos  are there for a reason. When they begin to wear away we may become momentarily unprotected. 

I have very strong sensory atennae...the roots of which extend deep within this version of humanity I call "me". I have always, ever since I can remember , been like a sponge soaking up other people's emotions.  Without ever understanding it, I could become completely physically and emotionally depleted after only a few moments of talking to certain individuals. If I am in a  room where there is anger or stress...I feel angry or stressed. I feel people's grief and sometimes even physical pain.   The same person who is happy one day can "make" my day and the next day I can absorb all their anger or despair. 

And I usually do not know how much I have been affected by encounters  until after I am away from that person. Though there are a few people out there that I can name who I actually and consistently feel more energetic and happy around or people who do not affect me either way ...most of the time dealing with others is an up and down ride for me. My emotional regulation is somehow affected by theirs.  Even just talking to someone on the phone I seem to pick up and soak up emotional energy. It is so bizarre. 

It is just lately that I am looking back and realizing all this.  I was called "overly sensitive"..."too emotional"..."neurotic"...for as long as I can remember.  I never liked  being in crowds or mingling.  I much prefer to be with animals.  It seems "safer". And the sad thing is that my daughters seem to have this "sensitive nature" too and it seems to be much harder on them than it is on me. It breaks my heart.

So now that I am "evolving" ( and I use that word loosely) and the thin shell of protection I had is getting even thinner  and more depressed....I seem to have less protection from the feelings of others.  I am soaking up all the emotions, the experience of suffering others around me are having and sometimes it feels like I am drowning in ego suffering...ego suffering that is not all my own.  (And again...there really is no "own" or seperate suffering but you know what I mean) . 

Whose Feeling is This? 

I have really come so far in so many ways. I still, however,  have an ego that is reactive and inflamed and I know that some of this "stuff" I am experiencing is coming from "my" mind.  I truely know that it is not  circumstances that cause suffering  but "my"  mind. It  still likes to own it all and add story, drama, judgement , bias, preference and detail, right? When I "feel" something intensely it wants to know why.  It pulls me back into its chaos and asks, "Okay what thought stream of yours brought this on? What reaction to circumstance did you choose that caused this emotional crisis?" 

And so often lately it is like, "I don't know.  I have no idea why I am feeling this way.  I was feeling so good a second ago until this person walked past me or until I talked to that person. There is like a heavy, dark weight over me in this environment and I can't explain it.  My stomache gets all knotted up when I go near that person.  I can feel the hairs on the back of my neck go up when that person walks by. I know this person truly cares and wants to hear my "story" and I know that other person doesn't."

 And it doesn't matter what these people are saying or how they are acting.  They may be loved by all and seem to be nothing but kind and loving towards me.  I can still get that feeling leaving  me confused and guilty. So I will spend a great deal of time and energy creating story and deatil to rationalize the emotional experience.  It is exhausting!

Sigh!

Thank God, I still have a lot of "Oh I just love being near that person.  I always feel more energetic and alive. This person seems to make me feel better just by being near me.Yeah, there is absolutely no harm meant from this person. This person is safe!" 

Anyway... if I look at myself  as a seperate entitiy here and now I guess I can say that I feel "depressed.  I feel depressed in a good way...my sense of "me-ness" is depressed.  Yeah!! That is what I was going for. 

 But unfortunately for "little me" or fortunately for "Greater Self" that also means that emotionally and physically I am feeling depressed because of the emotional energy I am picking up from the world around me.  There is so much suffering and I do not know how to diminish it nor do I know how to protect this little clump of flesh I am in from it so that I can stay healthy enough to serve, to help make a difference.

Hmmm!  That is my dilemna.   

All is well in my world. 

Taming the Mind to Be a Friend

 Who is your enemy?  Mind is your enemy. No one can harm you more than your own mind untamed. And who is your friend? Mind is your friend. No one can help you more than your own mind wisely trained-not even your own mother or father. 

The Buddha? Obtained from Jack Kornfield in the below video.

It has been debated if these words actually came from the Buddha as such or if it is a paraphrased form of his teachings.https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/who-is-your-enemy-mind-is-your-enemy-who-is-your-friend-mind-is-your-friend/  It doesn't really matter I suppose...I can see it as something the Buddha would say...what any enlightened master would say. The importance is the truth in those words. 

Mind, untamed,  can be the enemy

Our unconscious minds are the problem not what is going on around us.  Our reactivity, our anger, our fear, our despair all are products of an untamed mind. It is this that causes our experience of suffering.  And if we learn to tame the mind, train it so we are not being used by it...so it becomes instead  a tool used by us...suffering will subside. 

Jack Kornfield, in Levels of Liberation explains there is three levels to becoming more mindful and thusly more free. We need to become more aware of content, process and then consciousness.  

Content

In regards to the content of our experiences...we need to be able to "feel" what is happening in our bodies and minds...what the senses are picking up.  Whenever I begin meditation I close my eyes and do a quick body scan, noticing without judgment what is going on in my body.  Am I experiencing any pain anywhere?  Any heaviness? Numbness? Coolness? tingling? Warmth? etc.  I just notice where in my body I am having these sensations and I sit with those.  I make it a point not to resist...but to allow and accept and examine almost.  

Then I go to my surroundings.  What am I hearing? Smelling? Feeling? as I sit where I am.  I do my best not to look at any "noise" or environmental sensation as an interuption.  I just notice, allow and investigate it a bit. 

Then I go to my emotions?  What am I feeling and where in the body am I feeling it?  What does it feel like? Again I do my best not to resist but to name it briefly, accept, allow and even embrace the emotion I might typically want to run from. 

So I become aware of the content of my moment, of my life.

Process

Then I become mindful of the process.  I watch how the sensations in the body come and go.  I might have a pain in my shoulder and as I breathe into it I might notice it subsides.  Then suddenly I have a cramp in my foot.  I watch that as it comes into my awareness, as it peeks, and as it leaves me.  I go to my surroundings...noticing how the sounds get louder maybe or come in and then they are gone.  I go to my feelings and watch as I allow one emotion to be...it fills me, then it leaves.  Behind it is another emotion.  

The thing about examining the coming and going of all form is that it connects us to the coming and going of life.  All things come , stay for a while then go.  Everything is constantly changing, switching, moving, fading.  Everything that is, except our awareness, our consciousness. When I watch the process I am distancing myself from it.  I am watching a movie being projected onto a screen...interested in the technology and how it is doen but knowing taht what I am being shown is not me.  All the pics that flash before my eyes...come and go...they are in constant transition.

Consciousness

That brings me to the final level...awareness of consciousness.  We suddenly become aware then that we are not the movie being played but the watchers of the movie. We become aware of the deeper demension of Self and all the external tings:  feelings, pictures, thoughts, stories, roles, the body, the personality become almost insignificant.  I mean we know that we need all those things as part of our human experience but we do not have to be overly attached to any of them.  We can enjoy watching them without being lost in them or overwhelmned by them. 

This awareness brings freedom, peace, joy and well being. 

  There is a reason why we want to tame our minds.  We can't necessarily change all the things going on in the world around us but we can change our minds, our attitudes, ourt view points...our responses to Life. 

Hmm! Someting to think about.

All is well.

Jack Kornfield ( Nov, 2017) Episode 66-Levels of Liberation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZADtWxZ1vFM

Reunion Vulnerability

 

Reunion at the Diner

A tight smile and a hyervigalent  posture 

offer a flimsy shield within  which I hide

the rawness, the bits of residue sadness, 

and the deep unrelenting sense of unworthiness 

that has been steeping inside this body

for longer than  they have known me.

But like the cover of the little metal tea pot 

the masked waitress has just placed in front of me

it doesn't shut completely,

letting my brokenness slip out like wisps of  steam,

leaving my insides  cold.

My eyes, which  pay too much attention to  

the wrinkled fingers around my cup, 

and  the hestiation in my voice 

betray me like they always do. 

Wanting to run, wanting to stay 

I listen because it is easier

and look up every now and again 

to their beautiful animated  faces 

as they speak with a confident knowing 

that what they say  is important.

I don't know what is important anymore.

My life..I fear will bore them 

or make them uncomfortable...

so I make a mental pledge to share only the joys.

Like pictures of plump smiling baby faces 

captured on a cell phone screen

 I will  pass them around

when asked...

if asked...

Of course they ask...

but before I can tap on the picture button

the 10,000 sorrows,

stuffed  inside for other occassions,

push their way past the neatly lined up joys 

and come pouring unceromoniously out of my mouth 

in garbled broken speech,

that leaves awkward and inappropriate punctuation 

in the middle of our sentences, 

interupting the smoothness of each transition of 

fork from plate to mouth.

I wish I could herd those disbehaving details  up

and pull them back in.

 I wish I could swallow what just came out 

of my imperfect form

as I gulp on the cold tea 

but I can't.

I sigh in relief when the conversation 

quickly gets rerouted

to the stories their confident voices tell. 

I nod my head 

and I find comfort in the listening. 

As I watch my fingers

now trembling ever so slightly

I settle into being there. 

 

In the pauses, 

I look out the window

at passer bys and

I think about this being human thing...

how awkward and  complicated it can be sometimes. 

Dale-Lyn  February 2021

Lovely reunion with old friends but I felt vulnerable for some reason...a little bruised up from the last few months of circumstances and I didn't quite know how to "be" there at first.  Kind of lost my center...and felt very, very human.  I am not sure if they picked that up but it is all good.  It was so good to see them.

All is well! 

Serenity and Coming Home

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Tao Te Ching, Verse Sixteen as transalted by S. Mitchell from http://thetaoteching.com/taoteching16.html

I love this and it applies so beautifully when we are talking about training our minds...so beautiful  and poetic.

I love the word "serenity"...I love the way it sounds, I love what it means, I love the way it makes me feel to say it.  It is just a word but it hits me in the same way "Namaste" does.

I prefer Mitchell's translation to James Legge's.  It is more relevant I suppose to this era. 

This verse speaks to the power and joy of mindfulness, of embracing teh now, of meditation...of going beyond thought to peace...beyond mind to heart...beyond the turmoil of running off to the coming back to the Source.  This coming back is serenity. 

Serenity is a coming home, a returning to that place or no place from which we came.  It is a remembering who we are beyond these bodies and minds. 

How important is it to remember where we came from?

We often feel "confusion and sorrow" because we do not realize from where and from Whom we came. So busy, are we, stressing,  seeking, straining, fighting, grabbing, clinging for things that are external to "home" and that do not satisfy this longing for home because we do not know that it is home we are longing for. When we "remember" we naturally and so easily become more tolerant of life and others...we are in awe of Life but not attached to the "things" it provides.  We are kind and giving without a thought for self ( like a grandmother).  Yet we are "dignified like a king" because we know our worthiness...becasue we know who we are...expressions of God or the Tao.

When we are immersed in the wonder of our spiritual beingness, our presence, our essence we can deal with what external life brings us.  We do not need the outside world to change...to be anything it isn't.  We accept what is.

And we are not afraid of death as we know. it  We are not afraid to shed the physical form because we know it is just a well used outfit we were wearing that no longer is needed.

Sigh!  How beautiful, is that?

All is well in my world. 

Observing and Training the Mind

 The Unobserved Mind creates the unhappiness.

Eckhart Tolle

Running After Thought

I often say that, don't I? That it is not the circumstance that causes our suffering but what our mind does with it.  As long as we are lost in story we are not observing what the mind is doing...if you are not watching the dog you have taken off leash...it might run off ...chasing one thought form after the other.  When we are unhappy, confused, angry and reactive we have not only taken our mind off its leash, we have let it run off.  It is so important to recognize that it has run off and call it back before it gets too far. Just call it back.

Awareness: Knowing You are Thinking

As soon as you recognize that you are lost in a thought stream, you are becoming more aware.  As soon as you realize what you are feeling and see that as a "result" of your thinking...you are getting even more aware. When you become aware of specific thoughts...awareness is increasing...when you see the unhelpful effect of those thoughts on you,  you are even more aware.  

When you can say, "Man this thought I had about the bills that was causing me to worry and go off on a mental tangent is not useful at all.  In fact it is counterproductive and destructive to my peace of mind." ...you are almost there. 

Training the Mind to "Come Back"

Before you can get to the depth of spaciousness on the other side of thinking, the presence on which the thought emerges, you do have to deal possibly with a resistant mind.  The thoughts in the mind create a momentum effect...like the dog who begins to run away...getting faster and faster...it may be resistant to your call to "Come back".  

Resistance and Momentum 

The mind  is often caught up in the momentum effect. You know what that is like right?  When you are on a worry or anger or self pity trip, the mind keeps adding one thought, one story after another to rationalize your spiral downward...and if someone tries to offer evidence to the contrary or reassurance to bring you out of it...what do you want to do to them? Not always nice, eh? You are caught up in this downward thought spiral and it almost feels "comforting"in its discomfort  or "Pleasant"in its unpleasantness. 

The quicker the thought comes, the farther you get away from presence...the harder it is to come back.  Have you ever tried to put a yet-to -be-trained  dog back on a leash when it has been freed and running off? Not always easy, is it...to get them to come back?  So expect to meet some resistance when you begin training your mind to come back from thought streams.  But commit to the training!

Reward, Don't Punish

And by no means scold yourself for going off.  If the mind thinks it is going to get reprimended and punished everytime it comes back...it will resist coming back even more.  Rule number one when trying to get a dog to come back to you...do not growl or punish them when you do manage to get them back on that leash. Make coming back something it wants to do...reward it. Reward your mind with understanding and compassion. 

Understand that Thinking is Natural for the Mind

And understand that the mind, like the dog,  is just doing what minds and dogs naturally do.  Chasing and running are what dogs do.  It is not doing anything "wrong" or "bad". Thinking is what the mind does...thoughts come naturally to the mind.  We do not want to train that natural instinct out of the dog nor do we want to train it out of the mind.  We just want to "tame" it...that's all. 

A tamed mind will still run off but if you are a vigilant owner you will recognize it when it goes off and you will call it back automatically...and the mind, once tamed, will gladly come back to presence. So stay observant!  

An observed mind, is a conscious one.

All is well.

Eclhart Tolle (February, 2021) School of Awakening: Become Free of the Overthinking Mind. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_0ICsolRcU

Revealing Circumstances

 Circumstances don't make a man, they reveal him...

James Allan 

Hmm! I am hoping that isn't true lol.  What would the circumstances of my life say about me?  

I have amazingly wonderful circumstances in my life:...I am surrounded by beings I love...both the furry kind and the skinned, I live two minutes form my beloved woods where I can go everyday if I need to surround myself with the healing presence of nature. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. I get to do what I love to do everyday...write...and it doesn't matter if I make a cent doing it. I have a big family and good friends ....I have my yoga and my meditation practice....I have my morning  tea and the opportunity to go inward everyday. I am learning and growing everyday. The more I see myself as something beyond this body...the more its limitations do not hold me back. I really am waking up to a new understanding that is freeing me in ways I never thought possible.  I love this process! I have so much.

Yet... I also have circumstances that challenge me and they have to do, I suppose, with being surrounded by the reality  that suffering exists.  I see the suffering of loved ones all around me.  I want to help.  I often don't know how...it leaves this knot in my core when I cannot take away another's pain. And sometimes when circumstance comes raining down on me like a storm...I don't see clearly...I don't see the learning in it, the "grace" in it and I perceive that Life just wants to drown me.  I get lost in those moments, and I have been feeling lost lately.  I have been feeling a certain "stuckness" and when I look around at "circumstances" I say they are manifesting my "stuckness".  

There was a quote in Wayne Dyer's The Power of Awakening that kind of reinforced this idea that I was stuck and manifesting stuckness:

You got to trust that you'll know it's time to make a change.  If you don't the universe will tell you-you'll get the signal in some way, and you indeed will move along.  If you continue to stay where you don't belong, the universe will start making you deteriorate. 

I felt like I was deteriorating...I found myself closing down, feeling sick again, not there enough for others. I have also  been looking about me and everyone seemed to be deteriorating... so "stuck" in an unhealthy way. I thought a change was required and I ws teh one to direct it.

So, I was about to make some very major changes in my life less than a month ago...was in the process of orchestrating what I thought was best for all...they were even in the works...but ....Life  had other plans.  She threw another couple of  curve balls in my direction and the changes went 360. She brought me and others right back to where we were before the change.  There is no doubt in my mind, she did so for a reason.  So instead of fighting and resisting like I was...I am recognizing, accepting, allowing and trying to figure out what I am meant to learn from all this. I am finding a certian peace in letting her decide what she wants for me and others.  It was never up to me to make that decision.  

Hmmm.

So what do my circumstances reveal about me?  I am a student of Life...a student who is finally recognizing that she is not here to tell the teacher what to do or how to teach...but to simply be open to the learning provided, trusting in the process.  Yeah...the lessons are pretty complicated and seemingly imcomprehensible but I will catch on eventually.  When the teacher wants me to to "do" something she will tell me.  For now, I just have to sit back, listen, watch, and appreciate the learning. 

All is well. 

Wayne Dyer (2020...Post humously) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition

Climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances

Climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances

 I took a step toward the mountain that seemed so very steep.

My goal and intention  was to climb it, to sit upon its peek

so I could, upon its  craggy perch, look out and truly see

all that was real and perfect in the world, and all that was in me.

The sky was pure and clear around me as I began the tall ascent;

 I could see where I was heading, and the purpose I was meant.

The path, however, was quite bumpy  and it seemed so very, very long.

But I, determined, took one step upon the other and promised to be strong.

Hindrance One: Sensual Desire

And just when   my breath was heavy and the thirst burned  within my throat

I spotted a caravan along the path in a place so deceptively remote.

 Its ownwer dressed in finest silk came out to greet me and kindly sit me down

in amongst the beautiful people who gathered all around.

He offered me the finest food and drink and everything my heart desired

and I found myself so pleasured, I forgot that I was tired. 

"That road to the top  is very hard" he cried, " full of sweat and agony

stay with me instead and surround yourself in perfect luxury." 

I  wanted what he had to offer,  all the pleasure he wanted me to share

but remembering my promise politely I declined  and left with pockets bare.

Hindrance Two: Ill Will

I began once  again up the mountain, intent on getting to the top

but a dark cloud filled the sky, pouring  down its fury until I had to stop.

There squatting on the side of the path, gasping and in pain 

I saw a fellow travellor cursing and crying out  at the rain.

I stopped to see what was happening , to make sure he was okay

but he just swore at me with hissing breath and  swatted me away.

Yet when I walked past he  grabbed me and pulled me to the ground

he kept me a victim in his hold and I couldn't make a sound

until he had the opportunity to pour on me all his negativity and despair. 

When he was done he spat at me and released me from his snare.

Hindrance Three: Sloth and Torpor

When I walked away his dark cloud followed, hiding away the light

and my mind so full of darkness seemed to take away my fight

but I remembered my promise and  I travelled on, dragging  heavy feet

along the path to nowhere ,a path I wasn't sure I would conplete.

Though I kept on moving, with every step  I was pushing through a wall

How I despareatly just wanted to lie down somewhere and curl up in a ball.

The promise I made did haunt me though and I could not give up right then

so I continued to walk  up  the twisted  path that never seemed to end.

Hindrance Four: Resltlessnes and Worry 

Suddenly  I felt my step quicken and my heart become more free 

as the heavy weight of  torpor released its debilitating  hold on me.

It wasn't long however, before other  travellors came to block my way

worry and its restless forms had a million things to say.

 They jumped back and forth like monkeys, pulling me here and there;

they  listed all the things that could go wrong and told me to beware.

Chattering, spinning and pulling at my mind  they left me in a knot,

It took my promise and determination to fight them off with everything I got.

Hindrance Five: Doubt and Skepticism

Pushing past their grabbing hands, I carried on and headed up the hill

until another traveller got my attention and played havoc with my will.

In a voice all too familiar she listed the many reasons why I would surely fail

in getting to the summit at the end of this long and dusty trail.

"You are just  not good enough." she wailed. "You do not have what it takes to succeed

Besides what awaits at the top is just fantasy, it won't give you what you need."

Her words were so convincing they broke me, they dropped me to my knee

and I was about to give up on the journey and my desire to truly see

until I felt the sun break through the cloud, shining faith down on my head

and I was reminded of the promise I made and what the wise teachers said.

I got back up and walked past the doubts that were noisy and unkind

and followed the trail that before me began to so gracioulsy unwind.

Finally, I reached  the top of this mountain with its glorious scenic  ledge,

there I released the pressure of promise  I held within me and put away my pledge 

I sat down on its craggy edge and looked out before my inner eyes

to see the world clearly in all its amazing beauty without the mind's disquise.

I said a prayer of gratitude for all the hindrance that tempted and taunted me

and bowed my head and thanked it all for helping to set me free. 

Dale-Lyn February, 2021

Another poem that ego is screaming at me not to put up here but that I  feel compelled to put up anyway. I may or may not work on it to make it at least tolerable to ego ...but something tells me to put it up despite its glaring imperfections...to get past that need for things to be "perfect" and just let them be.  This poem just is.

Anyway...came from watching the below TedX talk on the climb to Clarity and the Five Hindrances.

Ted x (February 2020) Master Shi Heng Yi-5 hindrances to self mastery. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-079YIasck

 Life circumstance pulled me away again...I will be back soon enough. Though definitely challenging...

All is well. 

February Light

 

The February sunshine steeps your  boughs and tints the buds and swells the leaves within.

William Cullen Bryant

It is lovely out there.  I love the light in February especially over a world covered in the reflective white of snow.  Everything seems so bright...the sky seems so blue in contrast....the world so crisp and alive. February  offers many photo ops.  

I have not been shooting.  I did not lose interest in photograpaphy...just found myself having to reprioritize what I do.  It is challenging to shoot right now...I am having some issues with my favorite lens and with one of my camera's.  If I took a couple of hours(or maybe a day)  I could probably figure it out and fix it up or at least learn how to work around it,  but those hours seem so unavailable to me for some reason.  That  doesn't make sense because I am not as active in my doing as I used to be.  Some would probably question, "What does she do with her day, anyway?" 

My mornings, I allot to my spiritual/healing work. That is my priority...(figure I need that to get through everything else) Then I try to come here for an hour.  Following that, I have the busy work of caring for others...cleaning ( yuck!), cooking, driving, walking, talking, listening, helping in some way and I, of course,  have my yoga practice. I am so exhausted by the time I am done.  I rationalize by saying that I  have knitting and Netflix to do in my down time lol. 

It seems, compared to life before, I do so very little. I am not even doing the "other" writing I wanted to be able to do.  I am stuck on old stuff and though so many ideas come to me ...I just cannot seem to go there. It is like, "When? When do I write? When do I get my cameras fixed up so I can shoot again? " I tell myself, when Life settles down a bit, when everyone and everything is sorted out, when I am not so darned tired, I will shoot again.  I will write again. I cannot remember the last time I took  my camera down and shot despite the bugs? 

So though I have come a long way from my need for checking off items on "To-Do" lists...I still feel this gnawing in my gut when my mind takes me to the proverbial list and whispers, "You have soooo many things left to check off".  Sigh! 

Writing is important to me, shooting is important to me...but so are the people I love.  As a compartmentalizer I have learned how to deal with life situations.  I critically think through the things that come my way and say "Okay...that needs my attention now!  That can wait! I will go there...I will put that aside until after this is dealt with etc" It just seems like I have been constantly doing that lately because so many things have been coming my way. And photography is not in the "priority compartment". 

Anyway...it is all good.  It is as it is.  I can still enjoy that light even when I am not behind the glass.

Shot four February's  ago... sigh!

All is well.

Quotes

 For in truth, it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deems yourself a giver, are but a witness.

Kahlil Gibran

I came across two quotes today that touched me deeply.  There is the one above that reminds us that we are merely witnesses of Life, not the givers of it.  We really need to stop trying to control it and settle into sitting back and watching it unravel before us...all its beauty, all its pain.  Trying to "resist" it or "fix" it is such a waste of time. 

Do not carry a rose to our beloved because in it is already embodied a message, which unlike our language of words cannot be analyzed.

Tagore

And I love this one! Life in all its complexies cannot be reduced to words and concepts that the mind analyzes. There is so much intense meaning in all that Life provides...like a rose...that the mind cannot comprehend.  So stop trying to analyze your way through life, to "narrate" your experiences with mere words...instead just watch and appreciate Life as it does its amazing dance before your eyes. It just is.

All is well

Wayne Syer (2020) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition.

Returning to the Root

 

Become  totally empty.

Let your heart be at peace.

Amidst the rush of worldly comings

and goings,

observe how endings become

beginnings.

Things flourish, each by each,

only to return to the source...

to what is and what is to be.

To return to the root is to find peace.

To find peace is to fulfill one's destiny.

Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, translator?

from Wayne Dyer's :The Power of Awakening

Witnessing Self-ishness

Can you learn to witness your life, rather than idenitfy with it? 

Wayne Dyer

Sticky Emotions

I sit with the emotions of "overwhem, worry and grief.  And like sticky tape these emotions attract and trap all kinds of other emotions lingering around.  I am feeling guilt for not not driving L. certain places even though I had the discussion with others months ago about what I would and would not do for his sake as well as mine.  Yet I feel guilty for protecting anything that has a "my" attached to it...my time, my space, my health, my peace of mind, my self care, my autonomy. ...even if I see my assertiveness and follow through  as something that will promote his autonomy, his independence, his self care and his peace of mind in the long run. So I am feeling guilt right now as well. I am feeling helpless and powerless in helping another who needs so much more than my help. I am feeling so very sad when I think of the situation she is in.  I also feel anger and resentment when I allow this sticky emotional tape to sweep the environment.  And the worry just triples and quadruples when I look at others whom I  know or love that are suffering. Man...it sucks.  

Everything feels so heavy around me, a bit dark and my body responds to that with aches and pains, fatigue and a desire to do nothing. I am closing down, more than I am opening up.

Though I am committed to my practice of sitting with "what is", it is challenging to feel so many negative emotions all at once. And I use the term, "negative", with some hesitation.

Negative?  

Why is an emotion that brings less than a pleasurable feeling considered "negative"? 

If we were to step back from our attachment to the judgment of " good" or "bad", "negative" or "positive", "pleasure" or "pain"... would we not see as the Buddhists do...that there really is no dichotomy in emotions?  They just are.  Like all things and non-things they are just energy forms passing through our experience of Life.  They just are....both the same and different.

It is the mind that makes the dichotomy. 

Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

The Mind Decides What is Good or Bad

It is the mind that judges what is "pleasant "for me.  It is the mind that judges what is unpleasant.  The well meaning mind is just trying to protect me , to protect "form" which includes body and mind from harm and to make me happy in the way it was taught to do through centuries of collective conditioning . It will therefore deflect, push away, squish down or numb from what it has judged as "unpleasant" and it will reach out and grab, cling to, hang on to, wait for...anything it deems as "pleasant". 

And I, in my unconscious foolishness , have come to believe the mind is "me"...that it knows best...so I allow it to carry me away. 

Witnessing the Body

Thank Goodness I have evolved enough to truly realize the body is not me...and I can sit through physical pain now...I can go on doing what I feel called to do without my perceived " disability" and "limitation" getting in the way.  I totally forget both most of the time until the body gets good and loud with its own messages it needs me to hear. I really have come to see that the body is just a suit of clothing I am temporarily wearing...a "space suit" that allows me to experience life.  I want to protect it and take care of it but I am so far from being consumed by it. I "witness" it.

Witnessing the Mind

The mind, however, I am still obviously much too identified with.  I still get lost in thinking/story/mental chatter and therefore at times become overwhelmed with "emotions" and "feelings".  I am working on witnessing the mind in action and I have definitely come quite far in that regard.  I, for the most part, am aware of what it is doing.  Still...I have not mastered it.  Sometimes I forget that I am not the character on the screen but the person watching the character on the screen...especially when I notice how so many people around her are suffering and she does not seem to have the power to help ease that suffering or worse...somehow responsible for it. The acting and the writing is just too darn good...it draws me in. Thus my feeling of "overwhelm". 

I am working on it.  Peace of mind is still my biggest goal.  I honestly, honestly feel that if I truly want to "help" others ...I must start with learning to detach from the drama in my own  head. I do that when I become the "compassionate witness" rather than the main character in this drama.  My meditation practice is essential to me and to the world. So that is why I say "No" to certain things in my care of others, in my care of Self. I still "do" alot...don't get me wrong.  I physically serve in this world as much as I can...but I am learning to say "no" to certain things and am prioritizing my healing practice of learning to witness. If that makes me selfish, well, I guess I can learn to accept that too. 

All is well.  

Wayne Dyer (2020/Post humously) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition

Acknowledging the Suffering in "Namaste"

 Namaste

means that my soul

acknowledges yours -

not just your light,

your wisdom,

your goodness,

but also your darkness,

your suffering,

your imperfections.

It is a recognition

and acceptance of

the inexplicable

divine absurdity,

the miraculous woven

into the ordinary,

light and darkness

intimately entwined

in magical, messy

humanity.

It means that I honor

all that you are

with all that I am.

So, namaste,

my fellow travelers.

I'm so glad we're on

this trek through

the universe together.”

― L.R. Knost

                                                        https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/namaste#:

 

 

 I think of this today as I read the wise words of Wayne Dyer and as I meditate over everything I have been experiencing.  I sit with suffering, the suffering of others mostly, and I hold it in my mind and in my heart .  I mean, my "self-protective" mind wants me to do the opposite of sit with it...it wants me to run as far from it as I can.  It wants to squish it down and shut it out because it makes me feel so powerless, ashamed, guilty, sad and uncomfortable.  

My wise Self knows better. I sit then, when I do,  with my resistance to the reality that others suffer, that suffering exists. As that resistance softens somewhat I can tap into suffering in a healing way.

So as I sat for a good forty minutes today ( pretty good for a resistant monkey mind) the word Namaste kept coming up repeatedly.  It is a perfect word for this...if we have to reduce all this down into a mere word, that is.  

And the quote above is a perfect quote.When I sit with the suffering of others, I am remembering our connection at a deeper level. My soul recognizes their soul...and seperate souls become one soul. I see the light in them as well as the darkness and suffering...seeing all as fibers woven together to create the Life we know as our "messy humanity". I  acknowledge our connection (not just on the familial level...most of those I think about are my children and family) but on a global level...I move from them to others and to the world at large in my confrontation of suffering. To bow to the light in others is to bow to and honor the "all" in others, the "all" in Life. Hmm!

What a beautiful word Namaste is. 

All is well.

Wayne Dyer (post humously) (2020) The Power of Awakening. Hay House. Kindle Edition