Sorting

Sometimes things roll along smoothly, letting us progress at a pace that keeps us moving naturally.  Other times we can get bogged down, or the challenges we face pile up, and the flow gets interrupted.  I have been experiencing some of these challenges.  They have taken my time and energy and have caused me to put some things on hold, even everyday home tasks.  Coming out of this time has meant that I have needed to do some sorting.  I have had to prioritize my most important or time-sensitive tasks.  After completing those, I then sort the next layer of things I need to accomplish.  In addition, a new batch of physical items may have piled up while i was catching up on earlier priorities.  The snowball effect may well be on its way.  Then I see that I may need to do some inner self sorting to manage this whole process.  

I find myself in this predicament at the present time.  I have been taking some time to figure out what has caused this backlog, and to discern what needs to happen to untangle it.  For me, step one is, "Stop playing catch-up."  I just need to find and connect with my center.  My place of peace and rest.  Only then can I make best choices about next steps.  All other efforts are just busy-ness.  True action comes from this place of personal heart connection.  This reminder is in perfect timing for me.  I wish you well as you sort through your own challenges and actions.

"The abillity to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak."

                           --Hans Hofmann 

The Spark of Joy

Joy comes when we are able to turn our attention to the things that matter most in our hearts.  These are the things that brought us here to our Earth journey.  They are the things that lift us up, that allow us to breathe with new life, and that let our hearts sing.  They nurture us into being ourselves. 

Joy has an ephemeral quality.  It is experienced in the moment, then it moves on, like a butterfly or a hummingbird.  But joy doesn't leave for good.  It travels, and it will return.  When we notice a lack of joy we can then do things to invite it back into our lives,  We can pay attention to the moments of joy that we have experienced, and listen for the best ways to make space for those moments to happen again.  This may take some practice and dedication, like strengthening our muscles.  But the more we focus on loving ourselves and following our truest desires of the heart, the more joy visits us.  By doing our own work of connecting with ourselves, we create a path for joy to find us, and to develop a regular rhythm for making its way back to us.  Sometimes this path toward loving ourselves can present challenges. For me, they are always worth it, because joy makes a fine foundation for the work of our hearts and lives.

"The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives, and everything to do with the focus of our lives."

          --Russell M. Nelson

Easy-going

I feel like life was meant to be easy.  I believe the world was created with the potential for all living beings to live fully, abundantly, and in harmony with each other, receiving all the gifts that the lands and climates offer us.  Too many years of trouble, toil and strife have left us with the world we now have today.  It's not a great success story for a myriad of complex reasons.  But now I feel like we have an opportunity to say "no" to what we experience as not beneficial to our survival, and to say "yes" to a way of living that puts equanimity at the forefront, and moves us toward the potential for harmonious co-habitation. 

Quite a few years ago I was browsing through a local art fair on a sunny summer day.  At that time, I had a full-time job working within the gallery community of a large city.  While this work suited me, there were lots of pressures and deadlines to meet.  I felt like my job should have been more fun, rather than pressured and hectic.  At the fair, I strolled past a booth belonging to a man of Asian heritage.  His watercolors were lovely-- light, colorful, and flowing.  I found myself captivated by one image of a bright, telescope goldfish with flowing fins.  I bought it and asked what the Asian inscription on it meant.  He said, "Easy-going."  I loved that!  It felt like a message to my heart.  Something about backing off of the "strive to survive" mindset I had adopted toward work and life, and opening up to a whole new way of living that was more focused on "being" than "doing."  After many years of deep growth and life changes, I can now say that this is the life I am living.  My life is a wonderful experience of Being, where this being dictates to my "doing," not the other way around.  I would call it "easy-going," and it is joy-filled.

So, I shared this story to say that I wish for everyone a life that is "easy-going."  I think each person has to find the path on their own journey that leads to easy-going, but I strongly believe that this is the way we were intended to live as humans on this Earth.  Sending you all Love, and Joy, and Light.

"May all beings be peaceful.

May all beings be happy.

May all beings be safe.

May all beings awaken to the light of their true nature.

May all beings be free."

        --Metta prayer, from the Buddhist tradition of loving-kindness

             

 

Going Forward

This has been a powerful time of looking back and releasing stored pockets of old energy that have been held faithfully in the cells of my body.   I say faithfully because our bodies hold some stuck pieces of our lives in stasis until the time comes for us to attend to and release them.  If that time never comes, then those life stories go with us to the ends of our lives.  If that time does come, then we are invited to let go of burdensome thoughts and memories.  Each stored pocket that we release is something that was never intended to be taken with us into the unfolding of our best selves.  As we let go of each of these stories and experiences, a weight is taken off of what we carry.  Eventually, we become lighter and we only carry the version of our personal lives that is the most true and authentic.  In my experience of this consistent letting-go process my spirit has become lighter with the release of each piece of stored energy.  By now I feel like a butterfly floating in the sunshine on a light breeze.  I feel so grateful to be lifted up in this way.

And so, now, I feel like I am being invited into a time of looking forward, not backward.  My best way to do this is by staying present in my life.  When I think about what is coming, it just feels like a lot of uncertainty.  I have never felt comfortable with uncertainty.  For me, the best way to become comfortable with uncertainty is to stay present so that I can savor the moments of my life.  I do believe that we create in each present moment the things that will become our experience of going forward.  The other vital piece of this process is to trust that "what is coming" will be perfectly suited for the authentic self that I have uncovered and restored.  Trust is coming so much more easily since I feel lighter and less encumbered.  Again, I feel grateful for this new life experience.

"Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars.  You have to let go at some point in order to move forward."

             --C. S. Lewis

"Happiness is letting go of what you think your life is supposed to look like and celebrating it for everything that it is."

             --Mandy Hale  

  

Seeing With an Open Heart

I am feeling a lot of Love and positive energy coming into my life.  Amazing energies are flowing.  Yes, even in the simple movements of my day.   I feel like this positive flow is the result of years of opening my heart.  I have peeled back layer after layer of the heart wall that was constructed in my early life.  This letting go and releasing of each layer has opened my heart a little more each time.  After my lifetime of diligence and staying the course, my heart is now light, free, and open.  Yay!!

An open heart leads me to feel connection with others, with nature, and with the true work of my life and soul.  By clearing out the protective layers of my walled heart I have been able to receive and to be open to Love.  This open-hearted connection to Love has allowed me to transform and to step into my New Life with its new forms.  I have moved into the energy of Love, and that gives me the power to move forward.  My actions are now able to radiate this Love out toward others and into the larger world.

I am seeing with my heart.  I am seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and experiencing with my open heart.  It's a lovely world we are living in.  :)

"We often think of seeing as something the eyes do.  Vision, in common understanding, is about light, shape, form -- about things 'out there.'  But on the path of inner growth, I've come to realize that the act of seeing goes far beyond what the eyes perceive.  In the spiritual tradition I come from, true seeing is not visual -- it's relational, experiential, and deeply interior."

                        --Senai Demirci, MD

 

Just BE

To just BE means I have to let go of doing.  We are in such a culture of doing, of performing, of making things happen.  BE-ing is something we have little experience with.  So much of my doing has been a distraction, a filling of time.  This "making things happen" is so ingrained in us that we feel like we are supposed to fill up our time with doing.  This task performance and doing feels unrelated to my true self.  It feels disconnected from my core energy, my life force energy.
If I spend my time just Being, then I am able to attend to each moment.  Time takes care of itself; my life takes care of itself.   That's such a reversal of our conditioning.  If I attend to each moment as it comes, I won't know anything about how my day is meant to unfold, and that's okay.  I will just connect with each moment that leads to the next, and the next -- until I see, by looking back, what the day has been about.  I am then able to see what things wanted to be accomplished.  Our first thought is:  "Wait, I'll never get anything done!"  And yet, I have had the experience of Being, of following the moments, and then observing all of the things that I got done without any pressure or a fixed schedule.  Just Being seems like a strange way to approach life.  And yet it feels very freeing, effortless, and perfect.  When I did let the day unfold naturally, organically, without a plan, it gave me the freedom to complete important activities in their own time, and it even led to some extra surprise visits that were not on my radar.  I believe it can be a true and constructive way to live.  And any lesser or greater amount of Being can be integrated into our current life structures as a way of practicing this approach.

"When you learn to flow with Life, you discover the way to just be.  When you simply are, you are happy."

                               --Avis Viswanathan

"Be resolutely and faithfully what you are; be humbly what you aspire to be."

                               --Henry David Thoreau

    

Butter-Fly

There are many unknowns in all of Life.  It feels important to stay in tune with what fits and what doesn't, as a way of being in alignment with the Unknown.  Sometimes the right situation comes along.  All you can do is say "yes."  Even with a lot of unknowns.  I have quietly waited for some time, doing lots of inner prep work.  It has felt a little like being in a chrysalis.  It has all felt right to surrender to this transition mode.  And then recently, along came a suggestion, an opportunity.  It also felt right to say "yes."   So now I am having the great sensation of beginning my new Life.  Like a butterfly sitting on the edge of a leaf--preparing to fly for the first time.  It's monumental.  It's also just the next step in a long series of ordinary steps. It's an event in a string of events that I experience as my Life.  I am leaving the cocoon.  I am ready to fly!

"Open your wings and let your dreams fly for every thought counts."

                    --Debatrayee Banerjee