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Like falling snow…

I was watching the snow falling last week and was struck by its silence and gentleness. I remembered having the same impression watching a snow storm in New York in 1996 that practically shut the city down.  Last week I was struck again by how this gently falling snow, so silent and light, could have such huge effects and how force is often not necessary to make a big change.  In fact, as humans we often use much more force than is necessary, since we’ve come to believe that strenuous effort, even struggle, is necessary to get results. 

As I watched the snow last week, I also recognized the effect of the falling snow on my body and my psyche.  There is a spacious, expansive quality to falling snow – the snowflakes suspended in the air as they gently float to the ground.  There is freedom in their surrender, and as I watched I could feel expansiveness, silence, and a sense of surrender.  Something inside me settled and I felt lighter and more at ease. 

Nature reflects the qualities that also exist in us – since we are Nature as well.  As Nature hibernates and moves into low gear, might we also be encouraged to find time for stillness and quiet?  Like the quality of the falling snow, perhaps we might take time to check in and acknowledge the spaciousness, expansiveness, silence and surrender that live within our own minds and bodies. 

I’ve been listening to some wonderful guided meditations by Jeddah Mali.  In one of these she invites us to notice the lightness that is here now.  Thinking of the snow automatically (for me) brings that sense of lightness.  Noticing the movement of my breath also helps me feel that lightness & expansiveness as physical sensation. 

Sometimes when you’re struggling with day-to-day living, it is hard to imagine that there could be any relief because you’re focused on the struggle.  But right here in your breath and in your body is the possibility of relief.  It only takes a momentary shift of focus.

Notice how you feel now, notice body, breath and mind. What image brings a sense of lightness, expansiveness or ease for you?  Perhaps something from Nature?  Pick any image that resonates with you and notice how your body and breath might change as you hold that image in your mind.  As you go about your day-to-day activities, you might want to check in with this feeling again and again.

May you experience lightness and ease of wellbeing this holiday season.

The peace that is always here…

So the holidays are here and maybe the stress is starting to settle in a little deeper.  For me there is the hustle and bustle of the gift-buying and preparations and the general collective stress that sets in, there is the excitement and anticipation of the kids hoping for wonderful presents, the holiday lights and the darkness of winter and Nature’s stillness that underlies all of this activity.  All this is available right now in this minute – all at the same time.  So, since I get to choose where I place my focus, I choose to place it on the peace – the stillness and silence – and sometimes I’ll chose to focus on the excitement and anticipation. 

Even though I’ve had a sense of this underlying peacefulness, to focus on it is a big departure for me this year. Usually I just get stressed worrying about travel plans, what to get for whom, whether the receivers of gifts would like their gifts, and on and on.  This year, everybody gets tie-dye (my kids’ idea) and the kids and I are excited to get started on this make-at-home project.  They’re already picking out which designs for whom and which colors.  It’s fun.  Hopefully people will appreciate their gifts, and the love with which they were made and offered.  But none of us can control what others think or feel.  All we can really control is that we do our best to love, we place our focus on what nurtures us and those around us, and we give ourselves a break, every so often, to check in with the peace that is always here.

Not sure how to check in?  Try this:  Notice that you have a body, and that your body is breathing.  Begin to follow the flow of your breath.  Notice that each time you inhale and exhale, the breath comes from stillness and goes back to stillness.  You may also feel that it arises from silence and goes back to silence.  Just notice the rising and falling of the breath, from stillness and back to stillness, from silence and back to silence.  Now instead of focusing on the breath, focus on the stillness, or the silence.  You might begin to feel that it is always there, and that your body begins to feel more peaceful as you focus your attention on the stillness or the silence – the peace that is always here.  Doesn’t take long to check in, but it feels pretty good, and you can even do it in line at the mall!

Happy holidays!

Taking Responsibility…

One of the teachings of A Course In Miracles is that, like a hologram, our external world is the reflection of our inner world.  Said another way:  the challenges you face in your external world are essentially the externalization of your inner world.  This outer experience gives us the opportunity to take responsibility for our world.  It gives us a mirror with which to look at ourselves more deeply and begin to welcome and work with the parts of ourselves that we have hidden from the world and even from ourselves.

So, as an example, there is someone at work who is so arrogant that you can’t even stand to be around them.  Yet it seems you can’t avoid them no matter how hard you try.  This is an opportunity for you to look inside to see whether there is some arrogance or intolerance in you that you’re not admitting to.  This is an opportunity to take that out, look at it, stop resisting or hiding it and maybe even come to terms with it or let it go.  But this will only happen when you stop blaming the other person, and take responsibility for your own part in the creation of your world.

It is easy to blame our behavior as a reaction to other people, “society,” the economy, or even as caused by Satan.  It is not so easy to look at the parts of ourselves we most despise.  The truth is that until we look at those parts, they will keep visiting us through other people, and we will continue to be revolted or angered by them. When we take responsibility for what is being triggered in us we have an opportunity to stop being victims and actually make a change – since it is really only possible for any of us to change ourselves.

Of course, it might be difficult to see the seemingly ugly parts of ourselves, and this is where it is helpful to proceed with patience and gentleness.  Cultivating loving-kindness towards ourselves helps us to see ourselves honestly.  The Metta practice is one way of cultivating gentleness and kindness towards ourselves and others.

The Metta practice uses 4 phrases.:  May ___ be free from suffering; May ____ be healthy; May ____ be happy; May ____ live with ease.   You start off repeating these phrases for yourself (May I be free from suffering… etc.), then you do them for a loved one, then for a friend, then for a neutral person or a stranger and then for a difficult person.  In this way we begin to soften towards the difficult people in our lives and also toward ourselves.  We do not say these phrases with artificially contrived emotion, we just offer them as they are – no strings attached. 

As we soften towards ourselves we do not need to run away.  As we soften towards others we can see that they are us, and we can begin to take responsibility for our own part in this play we call Life.

May you be free from suffering.  May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you live with ease.

Namaste.

Making friends with yourself

What would you do if a friend confessed to you that she felt really badly about something she had recently done, or really didn’t like something about herself?  You would probably feel some compassion for your friend and try to think of something to say to help her feel better, right?  And yet what do you do to yourself when you feel badly about something you’ve done?  What thoughts come about when you think of the things about yourself that you don’t like?  For most of us those thoughts aren’t about being compassionate! 

It’s not a secret that we tend to treat others better than we treat ourselves, often to the point where we can offer compassion to others, but have difficulty offering it to ourselves, or even receiving it from others.  How much we are able to love ourselves, I think, is directly related to how much we can allow others to love us.  If we beat up on ourselves, on some level we begin to think of ourselves as inherently flawed and unlovable.  This breeds suspicion and disbelief when others see us differently. We might even back away from people or relationships because we aren’t used to allowing the light of love and compassion into our hearts.  To be loved or lovable is unfamiliar.

A few months ago I told someone that I felt I had made friends with my mind.  The person responded first with surprise and then with disappointment. “I wish I could do that,” she said.  In our culture we tend to think it unlikely that this could ever be possible.  Instead we believe that we need to control, cover up, pretend, medicate and distract.  And yet, it is possible.  In Buddhism, this acceptance of self is called ‘maitri.’  Pema Chodron, a wonderful Buddhist teacher describes maitri on this youtube video as “unconditional friendliness toward oneself.”  She describes maitri as “the basis of compassion.” 

Think of it, what if you were able to just think of yourself as being okay?  What would your life be like if you were able to cut yourself some slack and just love yourself as you are without trying to be more perfect, more knowledgeable, more attractive…  How much stress do we put on ourselves trying to be more or ‘better’ because we are so dissatisfied, so averse to what we are now?  And yet, have we even looked to see what is actually here or is it just an assumption that what we are couldn’t possibly be enough?

So, how to go about cultivating this self-compassion?  I think the first step is really to welcome the possibility that you could be unconditionally friendly towards yourself, that you could be worthy of loving.  From there, I’ve found that the universe is only too happy to lead you into more and more lessons and revelations.  Sometimes the lessons are easy and sometimes not.  It is not that life suddenly becomes a bed of roses, but that you begin to see the difficulties as more ways of deepening in relationship with yourself and with others.  Any relationship takes effort and most relationships work better if the focus is on the other person’s positive qualities vs. judging their flaws.

In my experience, a simple way to begin to cultivate self-compassion is to spend some time acknowledging the aspects of yourself that you actually do appreciate.  Since we have such a tendency to judge things as good or bad, let me be clear that the other aspects aren’t bad per se.  It is just easier at first to love ourselves based on those things we perceive as ‘positive’ qualities.  It might take some time (it took me days the first time I tried to come up with one thing), but just finding one thing you appreciate about yourself is like clearing a little hole on the grimy window of our past perception so that the light can begin to shine through.

Make a phrase with your one ‘positive’ quality (or more if you have more than one).  For me it was “I am compassionate.” Notice how your body feels when you say this phrase.  And when you find your mind going into the place of self-judgment or self-criticism, let this phrase be your ray of light. Once that tiny ray of light is experienced, the shadows become less dense and the darkness begins to give way.  Repeat your phrase whenever you think of it.  Eventually you might find it pops up on its own! 

In the next few blog entries I’ll be offering more tools that have helped me to bring light into my shadows.  If you have other tips, comments or experiences to offer, please feel free to share those as well by clicking on the Comments link below.

Until next time, may you live with ease ☺

Is there such a thing as “negative energy?”

Realizing this topic can rub people the wrong way, I offer the disclaimer that this post, like any other I might write is simply meant to cast a few ripples and see where they settle.  I’m not preaching or saying it is definitely so, just offering my ponderings on the subject and hoping to clarify as I learn from others.

That said, years ago I attended a lovely talk at Unity in Chicago with Katerina Pellegrino.  She is a spirit medium who works with John of God in Brazil.  Someone asked a question about how to deal with evil and she presented the notion that what we call evil is actually just a separation from God.  As a Reiki practitioner for many years, I was taught to clear “negative” energy from the person I was working on before sending Reiki to them.  It always seemed a little awkward to me, all this clearing and containing and disposing of other people’s negative energy.  Then I heard Eric Pearl speak and read his book and he had the opposite view.  He said all this avoidance of ‘negative energy’ was fear-based and unnecessary. I came to the conclusion that he thought there was no such thing.

So now that begs the question.  What is it that you feel when you walk into a room where someone has just had an argument?  What is it that people feel when they go to former sites of epic battles or mass human suffering?   What is that icky vibe you get from people sometimes? Isn’t that negative energy?  As humans we like to categorize and simplify.  So light and dark become associated with good and bad, positive and negative.  It’s also very convenient to label someone as being “negative” or having ‘negative energy.’  Then we can feel very positive and separate and good.

But what if we looked at it a different way?  What if we thought of energy according to the principles of expansion and contraction, as the yogis have?  When we are afraid, we tend to contract – physically, emotionally, energetically.  The more fear, the more density and darkness.  When we are feeling joyful, we feel expansive, connected, light and free.  So what if all that ‘darkness’ and ‘negativity’ is really just fear that we are unwilling to face.  We avoid the fear within ourselves, we are repulsed when it appears in others.  Yet if we could connect with our own fear compassionately, maybe we could see that contraction in others with the same compassion, rather than with aversion.  Then, instead of feeding the fear with more fear, we could allow the possibility of light and love.

Whaddya think?

Are you a karma buster?

I know its been a while since I’ve posted!  2010 has so far been a fascinating year of insights, observances, wonderful experiences and deep internal struggles.  Sometimes I’m not even sure what part of the mix to write about.  So, this possibility of “karma busters” peaked my curiosity recently and seemed just “light” enough that I won’t use too many words 🙂  Lemme know what you think…

It’s no secret that we’re influenced by generations past.  Even on a purely scientific level, there’s the issue of hereditary transmission of genetic conditions and disease tendencies. So when I learned the concept of ‘family karma’ years ago, it had a ring of truth to it.  I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that many of us are on the planet right now to be karma busters – breaking the chain of reactivity that has characterized much of our individual family histories.

If you think of karma, not this “eye for an eye” concept that it has become in the popular culture, but as a simple system of cause and effect, generational transmission of behavioral or even disease tendencies is not so strange.  One generation’s parenting affects the choices of the next and often leads to reactive swings in parenting strategies from one extreme to the next.  A family with a history of trauma or addiction (or both) might be able to trace the manifestation of that traumatic effect through generations.  Sometimes the original cause of the seeming disfunction is lost in time, and yet the effects remain.

I had a fascinating Reiki Therapy session last year where an ancestor from generations past spoke about the legacy of fear that she had unwittingly released into my maternal line.  She said we were at a point in time when this legacy could be let go.  During that time I felt energetic ‘chains’ being released from my spine.  I realized after communicating with her that I had been working for years to break up that legacy – to “bust up” and transform that karma.

I am blessed to be surrounded by wonderfully mindful and present individuals.  Talking to people, I’ve realized that many of us seem to be involved in this karma busting process.  Not satisfied with just reacting to the family history, we are mindfully creating a different way – whether it be through parenting, spiritual work or ways of thinking about ourselves and the world.  We seem to have come to the planet with a mission to make a change, not just “in society,” but in ourselves.  It feels as if we are releasing those bonds so that we can move forward into a different type of future.  There is a sense that going forward our children should not have to carry the burden of the past.  This is all pretty exciting to me.   I wonder, how will this affect the future of our planet?

Are you a karma buster?

Celebrating Gran

I’m writing this post in honor of my grandmother, Alice McKenzie who transitioned last week at the ripe old age of 90.  I’m not much for grieving, as strange as that might sound, maybe because I believe that this life is just a stop along the journey of our souls.  Or maybe I just need therapy!  Sometimes a person’s life can be really sad, and we mourn the circumstances that they had to endure.  Sometimes we just miss the person who has passed and we wish to have them still with us.  My Gran lived a long and full life, and instead of grieving her passing, I feel more inclined to celebrate her life and give gratitude for her amazing contribution to the world as I know it.

Many years ago, I heard Carolyn Myss talking about living your purpose.  She said (to paraphrase – as I remember it) that we always imagine our purpose to be something big, but for many of us, our purpose is simply to live our lives as we are, being a shining light for those around us.  My grandmother was such a light.

Gran didn’t have a fancy degree or an impressive resume.  She raised cows and sold milk in Jamaica to support the education of her children.  When the last one graduated from University, she got on a plane – alone – and moved to Brooklyn to start a new life on her own terms. It was a spunky move, she was a spunky lady.  She got a job as a domestic worker with a family in Westchester and worked for them for decades.  When they retired to Florida she got a job delivering lunches to partners in a law practice.  She retired when she was 80.  My Gran’s life was difficult at times.  Yet, she had a strong faith in God and wasn’t one to feel sorry for herself.  She was a woman of action.  As a single woman working a simple job when she first arrived in the US, she often sent us barrels containing goods that were not available in Jamaica at the time, or were too expensive there.  Eventually, she made it possible for all of us (her children and grandchildren) to join her here in the United States to have the opportunities we might not have had in a small island nation. 

There was never a doubt in my grandmother’s mind that we would all “make something of ourselves.”  She was strong in her conviction – tenacious if you will, and her tenacity fueled our family.  She died leaving 5 children, 22 grandchildren, 11 great grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren (as well as the many in-laws whom she welcomed with open arms).  We have a collection among us of various fancy degrees and impressive resumes, but my grandmother left us the gift of seeing beyond all that to our shared humanity. She celebrated our accomplishments, but I think she was always more concerned that we be happy, responsible, able to care for ourselves, and willing to care for each other and those who needed our help.  My grandmother suffered in her life at the hands of another.  Her response to her suffering has always been a great lesson to me.  First, she took action.  She made a plan and as soon as the time was right, she left the situation.  Then, instead of becoming bitter, she became more compassionate and understanding of the suffering of others.  Instead of hating the one who hurt her, she turned her energy to loving us all and to helping us become the best we could be.

My grandmother taught me that strength is not hard or uncompromising.  She taught me that strength is knowing right from wrong, loving fiercely, and making the hard choices to always follow what you think is right.  Though sometimes firmness is required, she taught me that a woman can be strong and still compassionate, loving and kind.  She taught me that a legacy is more than large gestures and public acclaim.  A true legacy is born of living your life in truth and in love.  This simple and uncomplicated woman, barely 5 ft tall, affected the lives of so many with her tenacity, spunk, kindness, generosity and open heart.  Hers was surely a life well lived.

My you fly on the wings of the angels, Gran.  I love you now, as always.

Fear as opportunity

After the last blog entry I had a question from someone I love dearly that touched me deeply.  To paraphrase her question:  What if when you start to bring your fears to the surface it seems that there is nothing but more and more fear, and you realize that you’re living your entire life from a place of fear?

I wish I had a quick and easy answer to that question, but fear is such a huge issue.  One thought that kept coming up for me was the judgment of fear as being pathological. I was reminded of this by a comment to my last post.  Rather than being a black hole of despair, the recognition of fear can be an opening into a place of seemingly deep mystery – your own mind, heart and soul.  It can be opportunity to see the ways we have taken on other people’s ideals and judgments and made them our own without questioning their validity.  Recognition of fear gives the opportunity to question the fears themselves and chose whether to continue to live with them, or just let them be.  It gives us the opportunity to love & be compassionate toward ourselves because we are fearful, not in spite of it.  At the same time we are able to cultivate compassion for all those in the world who also feel overwhelmed by fear.  And rather than becoming caught in our fear, we can recognize it as part of the tapestry of life that also includes success, joy, courage, compassion, love and expansiveness.

Of course frightening things do happen and fear arises as a natural response.  Many people – maybe even a neighbor or a friend – live with a real threat of physical harm, sometimes from the very people who are supposed to care for them.  For them, vigilance is necessary until a safer environment is possible. Recognizing our own fear and feeling compassion for the fear of others we might see opportunities to help those who suffer from the constant threat of physical harm.  From the yogic perspective, the body is not the totality of who we are, and its destruction does not mean our annihilation.  But even from this perspective, death or harm of the physical body is one of the last & most difficult fears to be released – and for the sake of human survival, I’d say thankfully so.

For many of us who have the blessing of living in physically safe circumstances, however, this fear of harm still exists – though perhaps on an unconscious level.  Often, regardless of contradictory evidence, there is the fear that we are unable to handle life’s challenges as they arise.  At a deep level there is the fear that the threat will lead to death of some kind: “Oh my God, if that happened, I’d just die!”  or “It would kill me to not get everything done.”  Though we might express it casually in words, this is often not a conscious fear, and yogis would say that what is actually threatened is the “I” or the “ego” – our own perception of who we are, or how we think other people see us:  If I don’t succeed, other people will think I’m a failure – or even worse, I might think that of myself; if I loose this job, maybe I’m not good enough to get another one; if I let go of blaming someone else for my fears, I’ll have to take responsibility for my life…

Years ago I got really tired of being afraid all the time.  I was tired of always feeling powerless in the face of life’s challenges.  Though fear or itself isn’t “bad,” I doubt anyone would claim it as their favorite emotion!  Living from a place of fear can feel like being in prison, knowing you have the key, but still unable to leave.  So I sat down and made a list of all my fears and prioritized the list based on level of difficulty.  Just the act of naming the fears and making the choice to do something about them diffused some of their power over me.  Putting them on paper gave me a chance to question their validity.  Deciding to be rid of them offered the possibility that they could be temporary. 

Yoga and meditation continue to help with this effort. Strengthening my body, working with the chakras, noticing the ways that I hold fear in my body and learning tools to work with this held energy have also been very helpful. Meditation helped me recognize the difference between presence and avoidance and acknowledge the fleeting nature of emotions.  It has also helped to cultivate a witness consciousness – the willingness to view the rise and fall of emotions from a place of stillness and choose whether to stay “caught up” in them or let them go.

I believe that once you decide to go on an adventure like this, the Universe (God, Source, Higher Self, whatever words you use) supports your intention and the help comes in ways you might not have expected – a chance word, an article in the paper, a book suggestion from a friend or an ad that jumps off the page.  Of course it takes courage to acknowledge your fears, and sometimes your hands will shake and your heart will pound as you decide to “just do it.”  Fear arises, but since we’re here (on the planet in these bodies), why not explore the possibility that just as a smile passes, fears could pass too – if we let them?

May you be healthy.  May you be happy.  May you live with ease.

Bringing the shadows into the light

I’ve been scared of the dark ever since I was a child.   As an adult I used to be embarrassed to talk about it – a childhood fear that should have long been overcome.  Yet, bringing this fear into the open was less embarrassing that I thought – actually nobody seemed to really care.  Exposing the fear to the light of day also gave me a chance to explore it rather than hiding it away.  What I discovered was that I actually wasn’t afraid of the darkness itself, but of what might be lurking in it.  I imagined strange and threatening creatures – monsters against whom I would be powerless.  Discussing this fear with others and working on it through various means I’ve come to realize that the shadow, the demon that I was most afraid of discovering in the dark, was myself.

I was gifted recently with a link to a wonderful excerpt from Osho (The Spiritually Incorrect Mystic) called Greatest Fear of All.  Osho’s words always stir up for me some uncomfortable but simple truth.  In this excerpt he says: “The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others. And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion. A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. Buddha has actually called it the lion’s roar. When a man reaches an absolutely silent state he roars like a lion.”

As I read the article I began to wonder.  What is it that we’re really afraid of?  Through my own work and working with others, it’s clear to me that there is always the deeper fear beneath the one we’re willing to admit to.  I wondered – is it that we actually fear discovering our own selves?  

Sakyong Mipham pointed out in “Turning the Mind Into an Ally” that we spend most of our time thinking about ourselves.  Yet the thoughts we’re thinking about ourselves are not usually compassionate, complimentary or generous.  Even the habitual ways we react to our own behavior can be so hateful.  We get into the habit of scolding ourselves for minor ‘failures.’  Off-handed statements like “I’m such an idiot” or “I’m such a clutz” become unconscious habits that create impressions in the shadows of our minds.  Then in our interactions with others, a fear arises.  Maybe on some level we know the imprint is there, and maybe we’re afraid that it will be brought into the light of day and confirmed as truth.  Maybe our greatest fear is actually of meeting ourselves and not liking who we are. 

But what if meeting yourself could be liberating instead of terrifying?  In yoga we frequently talk about samskaras – latent impressions that influence the way we think and behave.  It is sometimes described like spinning on a wheel – you can’t get off the wheel because you’re controlled by these unconscious impressions.  So you relive the same story over and over again, not knowing how to change it.  And still these impressions, these habits are constantly being reinforced through lack of mindful awareness and, I think, through the fear of seeing ourselves clearly. To get off the wheel we have to see these habits for what they are – our own shadows in the darkness.  Brought to the light of day they have very little substance.  Left in the darkness they are monsters keeping us on the wheel and away from a full appreciation of ourselves.