All I need to do is listen carefully enough to hear.
February 11, 2009 at 6:08 pm | In General Thoughts, being guided | 2 CommentsTags: being guided, blocks, creating your world, faith, magic, path, way, wise self
I’m finally back from the Ether. I spent the weekend at a certification course for Energy Coaching. Coming from the space/life-view of an Energy Healer, it was a 3-day immersion into energy-speak and energy-centering. Tremendous, really.
We did an activity in which we were blind-folded, and a partner was guiding us verbally toward a goal…but couldn’t give real directions.
With that in mind, here’s what happened behind that blindfold of mine:
Right away I have a sense of which way I’m meant to go. So I strike out in that direction (it’s exactly opposite from where I’m starting…so true for my life).
So off I go. After a handful of tentative steps, I bump into a block. I say, “Hmmm…just bumped into a block,” to which my guide responds, “That’s okay, it just shows you that you’re moving.”
Wow. Wow.
Okay, so I shift direction a bit. And my guide quickly, but gently, asks if that is really the right direction for me. This is, of course, a signal that I’m not going the right way. So I change course again, and again my guide wonders aloud if there is perhaps another path for me to be on.
And it occurs to me, “wow, this is so very much the way I go through the world…I just kind of zig-zag back and forth, never in a direct line.”
It’s a sad realization, because it feels so inefficient, and I think about how much time and energy I’m wasting on an indirect route. If only I could know my direction, rather than having to move blindly, I would be there already.
Then, as if on cue, my guide once again softly suggests that there might be a better way for me.
And then the big Aha!-moment happens.
I realize that I am being guided,
every step of the way,
and all I need to do is listen carefully enough to hear.
And now, each new direction I turn, I hardly take a step at all before I understand – from my guide – whether or not it is my right way.
And suddenly, in what feels like a heartbeat, I’m there.
I’ve reached my goal.
This teaching had nothing to do with the original intent of the exercise.
But then, that’s the whole point of Energy Coaching: to guide a person as they discover for themselves exactly what it is they need to know.
Again, I say wow.
We are forever growing and expanding.
February 5, 2009 at 2:57 pm | In General Thoughts, faith, meditation, spirituality | Leave a CommentTags: faith, healing, journey, light, meditation, path, soul, spirituality, stillness, way
I have a confession to make: I tend to be a bit judgmental of people in the healing world who move from one modality to another, in an endless procession of new classes and certifications. Today they’re a massage therapist, next year they’ve added Reiki and tapping to their list of credentials.
Enough, I always think. Just practice your trade and stop getting, getting, getting!
But now I have another confession to make: I’ve begun to do the same thing.
I can’t speak for others about their motives. All I know is that for me, it just feels right.
I never thought I’d be doing Shamanic Journeying. Never. Not once. No way. Not me. (In fact, I have a dear friend who’s spent the past 5 years making a film on the injustices to native people by the commercialization of their spiritual practices!)
And now I’m doing it?
Well, yes. I am.
And the changes that have taken place within me – and within my work as a Healer – are stunning.
So what’s this all about, this thing that seems like an endless search for the “one right modality?”
Here’s the deal: In the end, we are all looking for the same thing.
Love.
“Love that casts a widening pool of light.”
I might find it today through journey work, yesterday through Reiki, and tomorrow through sitting in stillness. You might find it through Christianity, while the next guy finds it through whirling dervish-ing. That lady over there? Past-life-regression. And this one? Transcendental meditation.
The list is endless.
And that is a good thing.
It’s a testament to the fact that no two people are alike – and no one person remains the same from one moment to the next.
We are forever growing and expanding. We cannot expect our spiritual practice to remain the same.
But through this web of differences – between people, and within the ever-evolving nature of Self – the one constant is Love.
It doesn’t matter how we connect to it – this Love, this light.
It only matters that we be with it in a way that feels fully right to us.
Deeply, genuinely, peacefully.
light, love
February 4, 2009 at 4:28 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, General Thoughts, Source, meditation | Leave a CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, energy, light, love, meditation, stillness, way
This, from today’s practice:
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
light and love
love and light
light. light. light.
curled in light, in warmth, in love
nowhere, just here
just everywhere
stay, always
if i could
i can
i will
i will be
i am
soft
light, love
love, light.
Forward ever
February 3, 2009 at 3:06 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, General Thoughts, meditation | 1 CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, meditation, path, stillness, way
I have no idea what “day” of meditation this is.
What I do know is that this blog helps me keep up with my practice.
Not that I love the idea of my inner world being made public. But the accountability is good for me.
Don’t get me wrong – I have come to love meditation – or whatever form of stillness and connecting it may be on a given day. It feels very, very good, and I know it’s initiating beautiful, wonderful, spectacular things in my life.
It’s just that I’m still “me” in many ways – one being that I’m not great at sticking to self-made routines. I trust that someday the meditation will become so natural that it doesn’t take conscious effort. But in the meantime, I want very much to keep meditating…so I will keep blogging.
Whether or not anyone reads the blog is immaterial. I began this journey of meditating for me, so I will continue it in the same vein. Along those lines, I’m letting go of posting about the day’s meditation. Instead, I’ll write about whatever comes into my heart.
And I’ll trust that it is exactly as it’s meant to be.
So, welcome back to me! On we go – forward ever, on this amazing path…
This is your message. This is your way.
January 30, 2009 at 2:43 pm | In General Thoughts, meditation, wise self | Leave a CommentTags: energy, journey, meditation, path, space, stillness, way, wise self
I haven’t posted in a few days – but the meditation is still going strong. Shifting and morphing, but more powerful than ever.
I did an exercise with my Creative Healing class last night. I led them through a brief relaxation: grounding through their root chakra, opening through their crown chakra, and feeling light/love/peace flowing straight down through their core.
Then I asked them to envision the person they hope to be, the Wise Self that they’re aiming for. I had them ask this Self to write a letter to their current Being, explaining how to become the Wise Self. Here’s what my Wise Self had to say:
The more time you spend here, the more you get to know me, to know this space…this is not just where you hope to be; it is also your path to get there.
I know I keep saying this to you – and it’s because you keep asking. You keep asking for guidance, for expansion, for signs.
All of it – all the beauty and magic and wonder – it’s all here. Right here, in this very space you’re in right now.
This space is not the end; it is the path. It is itself. This is what they mean that it’s not the destination, but the journey.
In a very real way, the time you spend in this space is the precise joy that you are seeking. It does not just lead you to the joy; it is the joy.
That’s why I keep telling you to “stay with this,” – to keep coming to this space – because this is your key. It is your answer.
It is all you need to know, and all you need to do.
This is your message.
This is your way.
Ode to meditation – Day 21
January 28, 2009 at 4:40 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, meditation | Leave a CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, joy, meditation
It seems as though I skipped a day of blogging.
But rather than worrying about it, or making up an extra day, or applying any other left-brained thoughts to it, I’m simply going to let it go. The 28th of January was meant to be my 21st Day, and so it shall be.
It feels like I should be writing a farewell speech, a thank-you speech, a eulogy…something, anything, to signify the passing of these 21 Days. But while it has indeed been a special and note-worthy time – I’m just not feeling that it’s over. So to say goodbye to it, or act like it’s wrapping up, is a bit silly.
No, this meditation thing isn’t going away any time soon. It’s been good to me, and I plan to keep it around.
While I may not continue counting days (than again, I might), I will keep carving 21 minutes each day for inner stillness. And I will keep blogging (as often as it feels right) because that too has been good for me.
But as much as anything, I simply know that this time in stillness has shifted things for me – things that I’m already feeling and things that are yet to manifest.
And I am deeply grateful for all of it.
So I will keep it going. And will keep a joyful eye out for where it all leads me.
A Matter of Time – Day 19
January 27, 2009 at 4:00 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, General Thoughts, meditation, soul | Leave a CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, creating your world, energy, habit, meditation, soul, stillness
I’ve come to realize that I have indeed formed a new habit.
This 21 Day thing worked.
I’m not really interested anymore in writing about the 21 Minutes themselves. That’s not the point.
And that comment, right there, is the biggest signal that a change has occurred. When I began the 21 Days it was all about what happened during the 21 Minutes. Now, it’s about a stillness that happens many times throughout the day.
That there is another signal – the fact that I’m remembering to connect at random points in the day – to center my energy with a greater stillness, a deeper understanding, a broader trust.
I have wanted, for so many years, to have the gift of remembering to center frequently. It’s one thing to center when I’m reading a spiritual book, or writing, or having a deep conversation, but to remember to do it when I’m driving down the street or doing dishes – well, that’s a new, and very welcomed, change for me.
So yes, the stillness I sought from the meditation practice…it has become a habit. I won’t pretend that it’s an ever-present stillness. But it’s certainly a place I visit far more often than I ever have before.
And while nothing strikingly obvious has changed in my outer world, I can feel that things have shifted within.
The outer stuff -which, after all, is merely a reflection of what’s going on internally – is only a matter of time.
The Sensation of Joy – Day 18
January 25, 2009 at 8:35 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, General Thoughts, choosing happiness, meditation | Leave a CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, choice, choosing happiness, joy, meditation, soul
The idea of Joy keeps coming to me – first through my meditations, then through books, and then just in my everyday consciousness.
I’m beginning to fully understand that the real task is not so much the pursuit of Joy as it is the sensation of Joy.
What’s the difference, you ask?
The first – the Joy we pursue – by definition resides outside of ourselves. It is found in things, activities, people, conversations.
The sensation of Joy, on the other hand, resides within us. It is found in the simplest of fashions: by feeling the feeling of Joy.
One is about bringing Joy to us, the other is about enlivening Joy inside of us.
I go back to this thing that I call the Falling Asleep game (named as such because it’s easy to remember to do when you’re lying down to sleep). It involves nothing other than filling yourself with the sensation of Joy. Just feel it, from your toes to your head.
(If you want to give it a try, and find that you have trouble eliciting the sensation of Joy, try this: imagine you have a giant watering can filled with liquid Joy, and your body is an empty vessel. Start filling, and as you do, visualize this liquid Joy filling you up from your feet to your legs, and so on.
And please, don’t knock it ‘til you try it.
The other piece of Joy that’s been coming to me lately is the understanding that it is really nothing more than a choice we make countless times each day. Doing my daily activities, do I choose to hold a sense of Drudgery or Joy? At work, do I choose to view each interaction as a Power-play or an Open Opportunity to relate to another human being? Making dinner…I’m typically exhausted by that point in the day, but it doesn’t mean I can’t summon an internal sense of Joy – for no reason at all other than that it feels good.
I’ll be the first to admit that it takes vigilance. We have some re-patterning to do before it gets easy. This moment and the next – today, tomorrow, and onward – we must choose Joy as often as we can remember to do so. Each moment, we must move through our lives holding Joy in the forefront of our experience.
For those of us who are looking to make a shift, to enter our beings into something warmer, wiser, and more fulfilling, it’s more than worth the effort. For it’s both the task and the path – both the challenge and the reward itself.
Thoughts – Day 16
January 23, 2009 at 2:53 pm | In 21 Days to 21 Minutes, General Thoughts, Source, living your dream, meditation, soul | Leave a CommentTags: 21 Days to 21 Minutes, creating your world, dream, meditation, soul, Source, stillness
I have to admit that I have some pretty high aspirations. They have to do with saving the world – not single-handedly (I’m not quite that…um, I don’t have a word for it) – but certainly I plan to play a significant role in turning this ship around.
At least, that’s how it is when I’m feeling aligned with something greater than myself…when I’m feeling my connection to that thing that made the Amazon River, and Saturn, and endless forms of snowflakes and sunsets and waves, and…well, the list goes on to the most mind-boggling things imaginable. When I’m aligned with that, then I don’t have an iota of doubt that I can live my dreams.
In fact, those things make my dreams seem pretty humble.
“No one can deny you anything. Only you deny it through your vibrational contradiction.” From Abraham.
In other words, as long as my vibration – my internal energy and mental/emotional focus – is on what I can do, then the sky is the limit.
Not even – there is no limit.
I want to end with a teaching that my Coach, Stephanie Marisca Straight, received when she sat down for her 21 Minutes:
Stillness is the Source of your origin
Stillness is the place where you have been birthed
Stillness is your original nature
Stillness is the remembering of the self
Stillness is the grandness of all Beingness
Stillness is within you all that is complete and Divine.
Stillness is your source of all life.
There is no way really in your language or stream of understanding to explain this in it’s magnitude – it is vast, broad, exciting – filled with love and joy. It is the merging of oneness.
The merging of oneness. That’s what my 21 Minutes does – regardless of how the actual 21 Minutes go. Speaking of which, it’s early and I haven’t done them yet today. But I will – and I have no doubt it will be good.
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