Several decades ago, a 5-year-old boy named Mikey taught me a very important lesson about emotions. It is one of those lessons, which keeps being brought back to me. I have been reminded of it a number of books that I have read and then again today as I was reading my selection in Denise Linn’s Soul Coaching. The lesson is to lean into the experience, not lean away from it.
See all too often when we are going through a challenging time, or a situation that is difficult or causing us discomfort, we tend to lean away from our feelings and emotions. We try to move away from what we are feeling. We try to move away from the pain, the anger, the fear, the discomfort. So rather then feel these emotions, we try to move away from them into a place of constructed neutrality and calm
Read moreBeing a Sacred Observer
Yesterday, I was challenged to do something I had not done in a while and that was to be mindful of what I said and what I thought. Denise Linn calls this being a sacred observer. Miguel don Ruiz uses a similar exercise in which he has you write down all those thoughts that float through your head. So often, we are not aware of the language of our thoughts. Even when we do not speak language that is disempowering, we may think it. It is a humbling experience when you observe your speech and thought patterns.
One of the things I wrote about in my process journal about being a sacred observer yesterday was how even others conversations can bring up disempowering and negative thoughts in our minds, especially when they trigger unhealed wounds.
Read moreWhy I love Pat Parker
Pat Parker was an African American lesbian poet who died in 1989. While Pat and I never met, her poetry has been this powerful influence in my life. like so many poets she wrote about the world around her. However, it was through her poetry that she found the place to give voice to her life and her realities as an African American lesbian feminist. She wrote about things that were personal and political. She wrote truth in her poems in a way that touched peoples lives and continues to touch people’s lives today. Perhaps the poem that has made the most significant impact on my life is called “For the white person who wants to know how to be my friend.” While I can appreciate the entire poem, it is the first two lines that continue to resonate with me today and I can continue to use in my teaching. She wrote: “the first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black. Second, you must never forget that i'm Black.”
Read moreYour Tire Is On How?
One of the things I suggest people do is to maintain a gratitude journal. It is something I do on a daily basis. I write down five things every day that I am grateful for and they can not be the same things I was grateful for the day before. Sometimes I write them down throughout the day as I find myself being grateful and other times, like today, they come at the end of the day when I have time to just sit and reflect. Usually, they are things that I am aware of. Things that I know the Creator has done in my life. Like a friend who calls just when you need to hear their voice or the way you can feel loved when your cat curls up on your shoulder and purrs.
But sometimes, I am reminded of how the Creator is working in my life when I am not even aware of it
Read moreIf God is love, then _____
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. One of the things I learned growing up in the temple was that God’s ways are not our ways and God’s understandings are not our understandings. Lately, I have been wondering if we put God in a box because it is what we have been taught to think about God. I guess what brought me to this place was the scripture from 1 John 4:8 that says God is love. ok, so what is love and how does it shape how I think about God.
A while back I wrote a piece called Mastering Love. One of the things I wrote about there was that love has no obligations. As I have learned to embody love without obligations in my life, I have come to realize that what I do or do not do is out of my free will; it is because I want to do whatever I have done or said. When I have felt pressured or obligated to do something for someone, it has come from a sense of fear of what might happen or what others might think if I do not do X. In thinking about this in terms of God who is love, I have come to the understanding that God is not obligated to do anything for any of us. If God does anything for us in our lives, it is because God wants to, not because God has to. What I do in my life for God is because I want to, not because I have to.
Read moreLove thyself!
It really doesn’t matter what faith tradition you explore. When I look across ancient wisdom writings and contemporary writings on spirituality, I find myself coming across some very basic and simple teachings about loving one’s self. Over the last few years, I have been making notes about things I have learned to do and am working on doing in my life to bring myself to that place of unconditional self-love. The other day, I started organizing some of my notes, part of my spring cleaning ritual, and realized I had a whole list of lessons I had learned about how to be more loving of myself. I could probably write a whole book on this, so I thought I would share a few of the highlights J
Read moreNo More Casting Calls
Each of us in our own ways, consciously or unconsciously, has voluntarily played roles in our lives. Some of us have gotten so good at playing our roles that we no longer hear the Infinite Presence calling us to step out of the roles the world has cast us in, and step into the role of the true and authentic self. Some of us have chosen to conform to this world, not be transformed in it.
Some of us have been performing our roles for so long; we no longer realize we are still in character. It is as though in many respects the world has tamed us, domesticated us, and taught us how to conform to the ways of the world. We do so many things without even thinking about them, just because that is how we have been taught to do them
Read moreClearing out your inventory!
Teaching courses, such as the one I do at SUNY Brockport, means that I have the opportunity to interact with people from a wide diversity of belief systems. It is always amazing to me how a group of people can have such diverse perspectives and beliefs on everything. One of the things we have been discussing all semester is how beliefs and knowledge are socially constructed and so deeply embedded in our culture and our way of life that rarely do we think about or acknowledge that these are belief systems or that there are other ways of being in the world. One of the things a few of my students were discussing recently were those things they lost and unlearned as they have grown up. Don Miguel Ruiz talks about this as the domestication of the planet in his book The Four Agreements.
Read moreWant to lose weight?
There is hardly a person I talk to these days who does not think about their weight. How can you not? On the one hand, we have all these food shows (which I love btw) that tell you to stay hungry and keep cooking and diet commercials that try to sell you THE diet to follow to maintain that perfect figure while they even cook for you. As a result the diet industry in our country is growing at an exponential rate even in what we have been told is a struggling economy.
Yet, how many of us are carrying around excess emotional and spiritual poundage and do not ever consider taking some of that weight off.
Read moreBreathe before speaking.
Last week, I talked about how the simple act of breathing can put the emotional brakes on our shenpa. Dr. Andrew Weil, a physician specializing in integrative medicine, said the “The single most effective relaxation technique I know is conscious regulation of breath.” Breathing is not just a sign that we are still alive and functioning. Breathing is a spiritual act, which bridges the mind and the body. If you pay close attention to your breathing, you will notice that there is this gap between your inhale and your exhale. This gap is said to be the movement of spirit within and through us. In many early languages, the words for spirit and breath are the same. Thus, breathing is not just necessary for our health and wellness, but it is the process through which we stay connected to the Creator.
Remembering to breathe allows us to relax, align our responses to anything out of love, and not fear. When we learn how to breathe, just breathe, we can begin to improve our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. When we work at being conscious of our breathing, we can begin to take advantage of the blessings and gifts that come with the simple act of breathing. Just breathe.
Read morePutting the Emotional Brakes On.
Have you have ever had an experience where someone says something mean to you or something negative happens to you and then something in you gets stressed and emotionally you get worked up? The Tibetans call this feeling shenpa. While it is literally translated as the word “attachment,” that does not capture essence of this feeling of the effect that it has on us.
Shenpa is this area deep inside us that gets triggered and irritated by the words and actions of others. When someone says or does something that touches your shenpa, it hooks you, draws you in, and starts this emotional spiral. Before we know it, we can find ourselves blaming ourselves, blaming them, getting angry with them or putting ourselves down.
Read moreIt’s not a luxury.
When I was doing my doctoral studies, I was blessed with the opportunity to read an essay by Audre Lorde, called Poetry is not luxury. It was one of those pieces that lives with me to this day. It helped me to understand why I love writing so much. It is not even that I love it, it is essential to my well being. Through my writing, I am able to give voice to feelings and ideas that I cannot seem to express any other way. Perhaps that is why the last nine weeks have been so special for me. I have given myself time every day to journal to my soul and write to the voice of wisdom buried deep within me.
One of the things I came to realize was that depending on my mood, different things inspired me and helped me tap into my creative energy.
Read moreDo I love me?
When I was in seminary, I remember taking a class called Intro to Preaching with Dr. Gail Ricciuti. Gail is one of my favorite professors and now a dear friend. In the early weeks of this class, she laid out this multi step rigorous plan for writing a well-constructed sermon. I remember the first time I wrote a sermon using her steps, I was able to get through the first few steps, and then I had to lie down and take a nap. What I realized is that each time I woke up I had my sermon in my head. To this day, whether I am writing a sermon, which I rarely do any more, or writing a reflection, which I now do quite often, I follow the same steps that I followed back then; when in doubt take a nap. Unsure of what I was to write about this week, feeling tired, stiff, and whiny (sure sign I am tired or sick),
Read moreJames Taylor, The Beatles, and Beethoven
Normally, sometime on Monday, I sit down and write my Inspiritual Reflection for the week. That was the plan for this week as well. however, a few things had happened that were weighing heavy in my spirit and I was praying my way through, I found myself hearing the words of James Taylor singing :
”When your down and troubled And you need a helping hand And nothing, whoa nothing is going right. Close your eyes and think of me And soon I will be there To brighten up even your darkest nights. You just call out my name, And you know where ever I am I'll come running, oh yeah baby To see you again. Winter, spring, summer, or fall, All you have to do is call And I'll be there, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got a friend.”
Read moreCommercials, Wolves, and The Four Agreements.
A week or so ago, I got an email from someone who asked me if I really practiced what I teach. Yes! So I thought I would share one of those moments with you. If you have been around me for any length of time, you know there are a few things I ask or say. One phrase is make it a commercial, not a documentary. Another is which wolf are you feeding? Does this fit with the four agreements?
For those of you who are wondering what I am talking about, here is my cheat sheet. The Four Agreements is a book by Don Miguel Ruiz and the agreements in a nutshell are this:
1. be impeccable with your words – do not say anything negative about yourself or others
2. Don't take anything personally. – It’s only about you if you make it about you.
3. Don't make assumptions. – seek clarification and make sure you both understand each other.
4. Always do your best. YOUR best, not what I think is your best, but your best at any moment, knowing your best can change from moment to moment.
Read moreI do more then get by with a little help for my friends.
Recently someone asked me if I had a favorite scripture in the Old or New Testament. I remember feeling this smile creep on my face because I do. It is from Romans 12:2 – “do not conform to the ways of this world, but be transformed in it through the renewing of your mind.” It is so easy to conform to the ways of this world. It seems like everything we are taught from the moment we are born is about helping us to conform to the ways of this world. However, all the ancient wisdom texts I have read, including the New Testament have told me to be counter cultural. The message that has come to me repeatedly is transform; do not conform.
This is so much easier said then done.
Read moreLeaping Into Love
For the last few weeks, I have been reading Pema Chodron’s book Taking the Leap. It is about releasing old habits and fears. There is a section in her book when she talks about unconditional friendliness with ourselves. it is about changing the way we think about things. rather then seeing things as a burden, we need to see them as a gift. Rather then punishing ourselves for something that has happened in our lives, we can begin to focus on the lessons learned. Are we looking at the negative aspect of a situation or the positive. it is amazing how we keep ourselves living in a state of suffering and drama rather then choosing a mindset that allows us to live in a state of evolution and grace.
Her reflection on developing a deeper relationship with one’s self reminded me of an epiphany I had once while reading Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements.
Read moreLove Lessons from My Father
For the last three weeks, I have been taking myself through a nine-week spiritual journaling intensive to help myself develop a deeper connection with the Creator and myself. In doing so, I came to realize that much of what I was journaling about had to do with lessons I learned from my parents about patience, love, commitment, grace, wisdom and so many other positive qualities. I miss them both dearly. My mother passed away my first semester in seminary and my father passed away my last semester in seminary. I miss them both dearly. One of the wisdoms I inherited from them was some valuable lessons about love.
A few years before I entered seminary my mother’s micro-infarct dementia began to take increased control over her life. By the time, I began seminary, I knew she had very little time left with us. One of the things I remember most was a conversation I had with my father about love. The last few years of my mother’s life were not easy. She had lost the ability to control her bowels and bladder. She no longer knew who most of us were. She didn’t remember who my father was. There were days my father struggled to get her to eat or drink
Read moreStaying Conscious
The other day, someone said “this spiritual evolution stuff is hard work. Sometimes I just want to go back to the way I was, it was so much easier.” I had to giggle because I totally agreed with her. It is so easy to just go through life and not think about what we say or do or why. I remember the days when I did not worry about what I did or said and didn’t think about what I really meant by that or the message I was giving off. Or the days when I was not thinking about what emotion was ruling my response? Or whether I was responding or reacting? But then I stop and think about how unhappy I was, how messed up my life appeared to be, how I felt as if I were on an emotional roller coaster. There were times I felt as if I was trapped on one of those revolving doors. No matter how much I said things were going to be different, I found myself doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results. Oh wait, isn’t that what Einstein called insanityJ.
Evolving spiritually means that we cannot zone out through life. We cannot hit the snooze alarm on our lives. We have to remain awake and conscious. When we are conscious, we can listen to our intuition.
Read moreRe-Design
A few weeks ago, I reflected on Ghandi’s message to “be the change you want to see in the world” and HGTV’s slogan, “change the world, start at home.” I was reminded of these messages again when posting the Inspiritual Thought for the Day “my life is my message” by Ghandi. It got me thinking, if my life is my message, what does it look like. When someone walks into my emotional and spiritual house what do they see. Are you greeted with a sofa of fear, a loveseat of anger, and a couple of chairs of hatred or do you settle into a sofa of love, a loveseat of joy, and a couple of chairs of peace?
To borrow the name of an old show from HGTV, sometimes we need a re-design.
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