by admin | Sep 20, 2019 | Uncategorized
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about empathy and that my limited experience with health problems makes me technically incapable of empathy. I can’t know what someone who is facing major surgery feels like. I have no way of understanding the emotions of failing health. What do I know about how it feels to have a spouse cheat? I can only imagine. I doesn’t mean I don’t care deeply.
How do I support the people I love and convey caring in a meaningful way that isn’t trite or positive? I really can only confirm that their feelings are natural and understandable and that I care that they are suffering.
Why wouldn’t that be my automatic response when someone shares a hardship with me? Instead, I’ll say something like “yes, that’s bad, but it is bound to get better, things always do” or “trials have a way of becoming blessings when they are behind us.” Later I think to myself that I was not-at-all helpful.
While it may be true that things will change, it doesn’t recognize the real pain now being experienced. Instead, it encourages stuffing rather than feeling the feelings, it invalidates the person’s pain. Even though that is how I often treat myself and my own difficult emotions, it isn’t helpful.
Validating painful feelings and sitting with them in understanding is the healthy, spiritual practice of mindfulness and acceptance.
by admin | Sep 15, 2019 | Letting Go
Krishnamurti offered that truth. In ending my attachments to people, places and things both those that I love and those I dislike or fear, I have nothing to face, no ego I’m feeding, no fear of insecurity. Seeking security in the people and things of this world traps me in a dance of fear, a dance of constant motion and posturing, exhausting me of energy and joy. My fragile ego yearns to feel secure, yet tells me I need more, I am not enough, I may loose what I have. Funny how getting more only makes me realize that I need more. What!?! True and lasting joy and peace will be mine to the extent that I can let go of my ego’s cravings, my runaway thoughts and the desire to control what I cannot control. In severing my ties to the things and dramas of this world and diving under the surface of life, I make a beginning. I begin to understand my true nature and my oneness with all that I perceive.
by admin | Sep 12, 2019 | Letting Go
If I examine my growth in mindfulness, I think I can point to slowing down as an important contributing factor. Consciously slowing down involves deciding what I really need or want to do and letting go of the rest. I have always had problems “multi-tasking” and having too much to do causes anxiety. I can control the stress associated with my “to do” list my writing everything down. It doesn’t seem as insurmountable when it is down on paper, and I realize that some anxiety is fear of forgetting to do something I think is important. Slowing down means letting go of some of the compulsivity that drives me, the ingrained sense that I need to be doing something all the time or I am “wasting” time. It took some time to retrain my mind, but fear of wasting time is mostly gone now. What a relief it is, too.
Now I work towards planning to arrive places several minutes before I need to. The fear of wasting time had me planning just enough time to get there. I would do one more thing before starting out and then leave just a bit later than I needed to get there just on time and arriving a tad late and anxious for being late too. Not only does leaving more time allow me to arrive in a leisurely state of mind, it allows me a few minutes to do nothing—an art I’ve discovered. It has an additional benefit of showing respect for the people I’m meeting.
by admin | Sep 11, 2019 | Affirming our Divinity
I can’t be reminded often enough that the world as I see it is a creation of my own mind. Some days my world is rosy and feels at equilibrium. That is a function of how I am choosing to look at the world. Other days, like today, I feel some anxiety in my world, that I need to watch my back, to protect myself defensively. That, too, is a product of the internal workings of my mind.
I can stop, take a look at how my world appears and remind myself that the pure divinity within me is untouched by the thoughts in my mind, doesn’t answer to others’ perceptions of me and is always OK. I can remember that I control almost nothing when it comes to other people’s thoughts and actions but they don’t touch the real me, the truth of my nature as a child of God.
I can rest in the truth of that reality, pause to give compassion to those who reject, demean, or judge me. I can actively work towards recognizing each being as an aspect of our shared creator and in so doing, realize my oneness with all that is.
by admin | Sep 11, 2019 | The Daily Compliment
I have been very happy with my hair stylist over the past decade and I will miss him very much, but he said that you cut his hair and do an excellent job. That’s a big compliment coming from him as he is very persnickety. It is what makes him so good at my hair!
