I Take a Breath Today

I’ve found myself being too attached to the outcome of a project I’m working on. I’m feeling anxious, unnerved, fearful, angry.

I stopped today and realized that I wasn’t in my desired state of mind and body, and I felt constricted, alone, bored and confused for a couple of days.

Thank Goodness for Wayne Dyer, who in his chapters on Willingess and Passion in his new book, "Excuses Begone!", helped set me straight. Or, in another sense, I was able to both attract the right teachings from reading his book, as well as be able to have enough awareness of my Self to apply his teachings to my current situation almost immediately.

So, first I’m breathing on purpose, deeply, into my belly. Feeling the breath come in and go out, and feeling the relaxation that comes from this practice.

Secondly, I’m allowing my body to relax, which relaxes my mind and so my emotions. I feel more content, and able to see this project for what it is: a part of the path, something I can see and feel but isn’t a life or death aspect of my life, and I can relax and Let It Go. It will be what it will be, in it’s own time.

So thirdly, I take a breath, I relax, I see this project and it’s unfolding timeline as perfect in every way. I can feel the sense of Perfection flowing over me as I type these words, relaxing even more as this sense becomes more real for me.

As I relax, I enjoy the project already more. It’s harder for me to enjoy such a project when I feel so tensed up about it. Maybe you have that struggle too?

And I smile. I’m content with what I’ve done, my contribution, my place in the project and in the Universe–not to be too dramatic–but as others have said that "The personal is political", so I say, "The personal is Universal". What we experience in every moment is how we hold ourselves in the Universe.

I choose to hold myself in peace, satisfaction, contentment and ease in the Universe.

I take a breath today.

Speaking to Your Heart

I’m speaking to your heart right now.

Let your intellect rest for just a moment.

Your heart is calling you to listen deeper. I’m asking you to listen to It.

Your heart is where the richest, thickest qualities of your life will be felt. I want you to feel It.

Your heart is asking of you to live your life at the front of the wave of your life. I ask you to learn to surf that wave.

Your intentions are not enough. We know which road is paved with good intentions.

Your desires are not enough. Desires need fine tuning.

Your intellect is not enough. It’s a good tool, but falls short of satisfaction and intimacy.

Your heart is calling you, and I’m listening. I can hear it asking you the one big question that you’ve longed to answer, and for some reason, keeps escaping your attention:

Where is my heart leading me today?

There is no religion, or savior, or guru, or master who can answer that question for you. No one else’s opinion matters but your own.

Where is my heart leading me today?

Take a moment, and sit with that question. Let your Self feel your heart beating, calling, asking for you.

This isn’t a game, or a silly personal growth exercise. This is the Essence of You asking you to listen.

I ask you the question I ask my Self: Who am I to not listen to my Heart?

Ask for patience if it’s hard to listen to your Heart. Ask for guidance if you’re not sure where It’s leading you. Ask for wisdom if the inklings are unclear. Ask for courage if your Heart is calling you in a direction you find challenging.

But above all, listen to your Heart. Today.

Top 10 Ideas for Creating a Peaceful Heart

1. Laughing at yourself.

2. Laughing at the absurdity of it all.

3. Smiling practice.

4. Being enthusiastic.

5. Refusing boredom.

6. Taking time.

7. Watching & Listening.

8. Contemplating action.

9. Refusing to hate.

10. Only kindness, always.

The Peace You Seek

Here’s a twist:

You’ll never find peace of mind outside of you.

And you’ll never find peace of mind focusing only on you.

Weird but true.

Peace of mind comes from four directions, in my experience:

    1. Health

    2. Wealth, as you define it ( I have a new definition, which I’ll share with you later!)

    3. Love–the greatest of these.

    4. Perfect Self Expression

These four directions fulfill a matrix for peace of mind. That peace that we all seek won’t be found in someone else, laying your expectations on another person fulfilling you by loving you or being your object of love, or by being the One that makes you whole.

It doesn’t work like that. The peace you seek, that we all seek, comes from within. You have to BE that peace, that love, that sense of your potential that you’ve felt for so long and have wondered why you haven’t reached it as yet. It’s not enough to seek it, to desire it, to long for it, to project it, to expect it.

You have to BE PEACE, itself. Or, rather, BE PEACE IT SELF.

That means that when someone does something and you feel upset, you have to be peace it self.

When someone cuts you off in traffic, you have to be peace it self.

When your love of your life does something that irritates you, you have to be peace it self.

That ‘SELF’ that you have to be in order to have peace of mind includes those four directions: Health, Wealth, Love and Perfect Self Expression.

So, here’s how it could go for you, in say, an example where the one you love does something that you find irritiating:

    1. A healthy way to look at her or his behavior is to disengage from your own reactions. Those feelings are yours, and most likely stem from some expectation that you have about how the ‘correct’ way to act is for someone you’re in relationship with. Those expectations are mostly what get in the way of relationship happiness and fulfillment. I’d suggest you drop them, continuously.

    2. Coming from a place of wealth, a person you love doing something you find irritating could be seen from a thousand different angles. So, that’s a wealth-y way of looking at it, first off, in that you have an infinite number of ways to look at any situation. Secondly, if you are full as a person, and thus wealthy, whole and complete as you are, then someone’s behavior doesn’t detract from your wholeness one iota. Thus, coming from a place of wealth, you stay whole and complete, not threatened by their behavior, and thus, not irritatted.

    3. Love is of course the greatest path. If you come from Love, absolute Love, then you can see the other person as a reflection of your own inner patterns manifesting, and thus a carrier of the message you need in order to evolve to the next level of your life. You could cultivate Love for your beloved, and find the good in their irritating behavior. You could send Love to them, rather than get snagged by your own controlling patterns. The path is Love, the result is peace of mind along this path. You get to choose, so choose Love.

    4. A part of this path of peace of mind is Perfect Self Expression. PSE is a way of saying what is going on with you that totally takes responsibility for your own thoughts, emotions, reactions, communication and results. There is no mis-communication within a path of Perfect Self Expression. There’s only the constant searching for how to speak so the other person ‘gets’ you, and you ‘get’ them as well. You can always say, "You know, I’m having a bit of a reaction to what you’re doing there, and it’s my reaction I know. I’d like to slow down, and not react, so I’m going to take a moment and get myself together so I don’t go off the hook here." Your reactions are yours, and yours alone. They exist within your own experience, not someone else’s. Dumping them on someone else, especially someone you supposedly love, is silly and counter productive to being close with that person. That is what you want, right, to be close with them? Then choose Perfect Self Expression, take responsibility for everything that you feel and think, and make your life your own.

So peace of mind as a path takes you to places that may seem unfamiliar. Places of self-responsibility, of self-examination, of self-love and loving others deeply. These are good places to be, they’ll lead you to where you want to go if you let them. But you have to let them, and not be so set on being self-determined, not so goal-oriented, not so controlling.

You have to let go a bit in order to find peace of mind. You can’t find it by trying to control all the people and episodes of your life. Doing that will actually create more trouble for you, rather than finding your path to peace.

I know. I’ve tried the other way. It doesn’t lead anywhere worthwhile. Actually, it doesn’t lead anywhere at all.

Find your path to peace throught the four directions we’ve talked about. Make it be yours. Email me if you’d like some help getting your Self onto that path. I’ll show you how.

Namaste’.

 

What it Takes to Contribute Meaningfully to the World

What it takes to contribute meaningfully to the world:

Heart-felt sharing

Being your best

Being the change you wish to see in the world

Starting from your own feelings

Owning your own wisdom

Loving bigger than you thought you ever could

Loving bigger than that!

Extending your Self to others

Watching for the Numinous showing up everywhere

Forgiving your Self first

Seeing others as a mirror for your own consciousness

Sharing as part of the Universe, like all things do

Becoming more, accepting who you are now

Living with paradox

Loving your Self

Forgiving those who trespass against you

Forgiving your parents

Letting it all be okay

Giving yourself permission to cry when it hurts

No excuses:There is either do, or do not.

Accepting mentoring and coaching

Visioning your biggest game, and playing it

Allowing the unfoldment of who you can be in this lifetime

Enjoying children, sunsets, kittens, puppies, beautiful moths and butterflies, and politics

Making love with all your heart and soul

Holding your kids, in your arms, and in your heart

Never, ever giving up

Declare meaning when you feel it–don’t be silent about what you value

Giving others space to be different than you, and still loving and liking them

Finding your own way, as opposed to following a religion

Taking care of your body temple

And in these ways, you’ll contribute meaningfully to the world. And the world will be better for you having been here.

Namaste’

Finding Love Within–then Out to Others

I was thinking about Love the other day, and I had a visceral experience of Love flowing out of me and toward my Love, Sarah. It was really tangible, like an energy flowing out of me. I liked that feeling a lot!

So it got me thinking–where did that feeling of energy, of Love, come from that I could feel it flowing out of me and toward Sarah? I had to admit something that I’ve heard all my life, but especially since studying Mahatma Gandhi’s life story: this powerful Love comes from within me.

Not like its from my spleen or some organ like that, but from the energetic that powers my being, that lifts my spirit every day, that wakes me up and inspires me, helps me breathe and run and cry and sleep, and wake up every morning. This energetic, the Numinous of who I am, seems to have an energy that is Itself within me.

If this is true, and my experience for myself is that it is real and true, then this Love dwells within me. Maybe within you, too, if your experience is similar to mine.  Perhaps this is what the Master Jesus meant when he was quoted as saying, "The Kingdom of Heaven is within you." Maybe. If so, then I like that, too.

So Love might just live within each of us. That would then make us Love in our essence, and so the Numinous, that which is the expression of the spiritual nature of who we are, is Love.  So when the Master Jesus was also quoted as saying, "You must love your neighbor as yourself", then to me that could now mean that loving me comes first, and then loving all others follows.

I’ve often wondered what teachers meant by ‘loving yourself’. Maybe it’s just letting ourselves feel this Love flowing from us to another, or out into Nature. Maybe it’s like putting our hands into a fountain of water, feeling the water shooting up into our hands, flowing down through them, sensually feeling this flow of beautiful water all through our being.

Maybe Love is like that, flowing out from us, back within us, moving in and out as our awareness moves from within our Selves out to another, and then back again. Maybe, we are this Love, in our essence, our Numinous.

Maybe we can become Fountains of Love!

Let’s try it, shall we?!!

Happy Loving!