Our Inner World is Reflected in Our Outer World

People who live in nearly identical circumstances often see the world differently. One places his attention on the things that are wrong, focusing on corruption and violence, agonizing over how the world is a dangerous place. The other person places his attention on the beauty this world offers. He sees through eyes of love and greets each day with hope and curiosity about the wonderful gifts that the universe will present. This person smiles easily and we are drawn to their sunny disposition. Their joy is contagious. These two people are choosing to see the same world through different lenses.

The world is only a reflection of what is in each person's heart and mind. If they hold anger and resentment in their heart, they will repeatedly play the story in their head of how unfair life has been to them. The world will appear to be a damaged place full of violent, hateful people. They will experience an oppressive heaviness in their heart and transmit that dark energy to others. If they release those feelings, and make the choice to focus on the beauty in each person, they will begin to live with love, understanding, and compassion. They will begin to see each soul as a person who is trying to do their best in this lifetime.  By doing this, their heart will remain light. They can go about the day, expecting to receive love and compassion from others. Amazingly, that is exactly what they will receive.

The energy we put out into the world is precisely the energy that is reflected back to us.

Heartstroke - A Stroke of the Heart

When we hear of someone who has had a stroke, we traditionally think of the person's brain either drowned in blood from a burst vessel or a blockage that caused a portion of the brain to become starved of blood. The effected area of the brain dies if it doesn't receive nourishing oxygen quickly.

I believe that a person can also experience a stroke of the heart. This can happen when the heart is flooded with overwhelming emotion. The heart begins to shut itself off as a matter of survival.

Intense grief after losing a loved one can overwhelm the heart with emotion. Women who have lost a child often describe their grief as being heartbreaking or heart shattering. It's as though the heart has been torn apart. It feels like it will never heal again, like part of the heart has been suffocated of life-giving energy and has died. Women speak of part of themselves dying along with their child.

When my son passed away, my heart felt as though someone had wrenched it from my body, stomped on it until it was completely crushed, and then tossed it aside. I thought it died along with my son. I thought my heart would never be capable of loving again. I had had a stroke of the heart.

Thankfully, there were people in my life who loved me and gave me life-sustaining support. My heart was able to slowly recover until it functioned on its own again. It will never be the whole heart it once was, but it is a heart that can love again.

Losing My Grip

The phrase "Losing My Grip" has caught my attention lately. I keep turning it over and over in my mind. To me, losing my grip used to mean losing touch with life or reality. It meant losing the ability to control or deal with a situation. There are counseling services for those who feel they must "get a grip." Doctors have medications to help an individual regain control of their reality. Young people tell each other to "get a grip" meaning to keep or regain self-control.

But losing my grip has a different meaning for me as I get older and a little wiser. Now I believe that losing or at least loosening my grip is desirable. Do I really want to hang on tightly to control myself or situations? Control implies effort to restrain myself, my views on life, or to change a situation. I ask myself why I would want to expend the effort to maintain a narrow view of life or life situations. Why would I want to continue to maintain a tight grip on the past or my views of what is right and acceptable?

Couldn't it be beneficial to relax the grip we have on what we think is reality.  And what exactly is reality? Everyone has a different reality based on their experiences and perceptions. Loosening my grip allows me to accept others and their views as possible realities. This broadens my own view of life. It allows me to accept whatever is happening now as being perfect as it is with perfect timing. It allows me to relax and not be so uptight about how things "should" be.

In the poem, "Warning (When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple)," 29 year old Jenny Joseph dreams of an age when she can loosen her grip, when she doesn't have to worry about being an example for the children, and when she no longer must conform to society's expectations. I believe I am approaching the age when I can "begin wearing purple, go out in my slippers in the rain, pick flowers in other people's gardens and learn to spit." I shall lose my grip!

Welcoming Change

Sometimes change happens because you want it and sometimes change happens because you have no choice. Both can motivate you to greatness.

Change is inevitable. Unhappiness happens when you cling to what is, fearing the loss of what is, or wishing that things were different. Your life will change. You can be certain of that. We age, we change jobs, our loved ones pass on, our health eventually deteriorates. These experiences can be dreaded or anticipated with curiosity. 

Viewing change as an opportunity for growth, looking for the experience that the universe is providing, allows us to perceive life as an adventure. We don't have to dread change. We can welcome it. Even when the unthinkable happens, we can allow the changes to take place in us, so we can evolve into the highest expression of ourselves.

My Karma is My Dharma

Ram Dass talks about karma and suffering in many of his talks. He uses the expression "my karma is my dharma. He goes on to explain that life serves us the answers to the questions we are seeking through the experiences we encounter.

On this plane where we are living out this lifetime, there is suffering. That is the first thing Buddha explained when he became awakened. It is true that we all suffer. The nature of our existence here on this earth plane is to learn from our experiences and the most important lessons are learned from experiences that cause us the greatest suffering, such as heartbreak, loss, and illness.

If my karma is my dharma, the teachings (dharma) or experiences that I encounter repeatedly in this lifetime come about because I have yet to learn from them. My suffering (karma) is not a result of transgressions but simply the experiences I need in order to evolve into an expression of  my highest self.

If I am a person who tends to judge others, I will be presented with experiences in which I will suffer from judging others until I internalize the lesson that by judging I am denying the humanness of others and myself. I am pushing people away and avoiding the connection with them. If I am a person who goes about my life in a mindless way, I will experience situations in which my careless unconsciousness causes me physical and/or mental suffering until I learn to be more mindful and deliberate in my actions. 

Life will present me with the experiences that afford the greatest growth. If I view these experiences as an opportunity for growth and learn from them, not just intellectually but at the heart level, I can achieve my potential in this lifetime.

We Are Greater Than Our Story

One of my pet peeves is hearing someone say "I can't" even before they make an honest effort to do something. I've tried to banish that phrase from my own vocabulary, although I'd be the first to tell you I can't carry a tune. The "can'ts" we hang on to are just stories from our past that we keep telling ourselves. We believe the stories, even though they may not be true. These stories limit us. They prevent us from being our authentic self.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to enter the story that plays repeatedly in your head? It's like watching reruns of Seinfeld that just keep playing over and over again. We know the ending but we watch it anyway. We've watched it so many times we can recite the dialogue.

The stories we tell ourselves play over and over again - for years sometimes. These dialogues that go on in our head are the same thoughts we had yesterday...last week...last year...and probably for many years. These may be statements that we make to ourselves that sound like the voices from our childhood. Maybe your mother or father said you were too short to play basketball, so you keep telling yourself you're not big enough or smart enough or good-looking enough. We believe the significant adults in our childhood, even though they may have been wrong or misguided in their comments.

Pay attention to the dialogue that plays in your head, and begin to ask yourself the question, "Is what I'm telling myself really true or is it just a story?" What stories do you tell yourself that aren't true? Then try to interrupt the story before you get completely immersed in it. You are capable of being so much more than what your mind tells you.

Attention, Here and Now

I'm reading Aldous Huxley's book Island that was written in the early 1960s. The book is about a man who is shipwrecked on an island named Pala where mynah birds have been trained to repeatedly say "Attention" and "Here and now." It is a reminder to the citizens of Pala to be mindful and live in the present. This reminder is needed even more today.

Living mindfully is a way of paying attention to the people and task at hand, rather than being lost in thought. When I'm speaking to a person, it is far more enjoyable for both of us if I'm genuinely engaged in the conversation. This means listening to the other person's ideas and giving feedback that is directly related to what the other person has just said, rather than thinking about what I'm going to say next or judging the other person's ideas. If I'm doing a task mindfully, I'm less apt to make mistakes, and I find that I enjoy the task more, even if it's a routine task such as washing dishes or making the bed. I'm focused on what I am doing rather than thinking about all the other things I need to do. It also means NOT multi-tasking. Doing tasks mindfully and one at a time allows me to feel less stressed and chances are I won't have to redo the task because of errors.

Living in the present requires us to put aside our thoughts about the past and our worries about the future. Thinking about the past is not productive unless we are reviewing an experience we've had in order to learn from it and then move on, only remembering the lesson and not rehashing the incident. When we are thinking about the future, we are either looking ahead with dread or with hope. More often than not, the event we are dreading turns out much better than we thought, and our hopes for the future turn out to be not as great as we had hoped which sets us up for more disappointment. This isn't to say that we never plan ahead. We need to set aside some time to set up our budget or plan a trip, but once the plan is made we can return to enjoying the here and now. As Eckhart Tolle says, Nothing happens in the past or in the future. Everything happens in the present.

So, let's make our lives better by paying attention and living in the here and now as they did on Pala in Huxley's Island.

A Sacred Moment

Yesterday I was walking through the forest here in this beautiful Pacific Northwest when I came upon an especially beautiful spot that made me stop.

The feeling was as if someone had tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I am with you." There was a feeling of overwhelming love coming from the canopy of the trees.

I looked up to see layers of maple and cedar branches with necklaces of hanging moss all interwoven to create a roof of variegated green.  Ferns carpeted the floor of this quiet sacred space. The only sounds were that of the birds and insects in the surrounding vegetation.

I stood there for several minutes looking up, not into the canopy, but into my own grateful heart, feeling peace and love pass through me and out into the world.

It's moments such as this that remind me that I am not alone, but guided and protected every step of the way through this lifetime.

An Authentic Life

Authentic means genuine or true to the original. If you are living an authentic life, you're living a genuine life, a life that reflects your true self, that part of you that resides deep inside. Some people call it intuition at soul-level or where ego doesn't influence decisions.

In order to live from that part of you, first you need to become acquainted with it by becoming still and listening to that small voice within. The true self makes decisions that come from the heart ... decisions that are born from love.

Living authentically entails asking yourself "Is this the best decision for all concerned? Is this decision coming from love or fear? Am I making this decision to avoid something, or am I making this decision to bring myself and others closer to our best selves?"

When you live authentically you are making decisions that may be difficult but you know they are right. These are the decisions that require you to take action that you may want to shy away from. Following through on these decisions allows your spirit to become stronger. It brings you peace and the assurance that you have acted from love.