by admin | Mar 2, 2020 | Acceptance
If patience weren’t so easily tried, it wouldn’t be a virtue. Those were the wise words of a grandmother to her grandson in a novel I am reading and it tickled me so much that it has returned to my mind again and again. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth having.
My impatience is judgment of others (or myself, if I’m, to be honest about it). Regardless of the object of my impatience, my feelings always sprout from my perceptions that things aren’t as I would have them. My impatience is a telltale sign of my lack of acceptance of the way things are.
I’m working on developing patience in impersonal things like other drivers, discourteous strangers, irksome personalities. It starts with my awareness of disquiet in my mind, and when I identify that, I consciously work on self-forgiveness for my patterns of learned behavior that I would like to rid myself of.
by admin | Feb 14, 2020 | Acceptance
Is it possible to be free of fear? If so, what does it feel like? I think that I have been free of fear for moments at a time. I’ve at least felt contented, comfortable, safe, loving and peaceful. Fears erode all of those freedoms, the freedom to feel satisfied with what is, peaceful and worthy. When I pray for freedom from particular fear-based thoughts, I believe that I am willing to let go of that fear. On closer examination, I sometimes glimpse that while I am willing to be rid of a fear, I am not willing to accept my human experience of uncomfortable emotions and look at the underlying cause.
I have not accepted the painful feelings of betrayal in a friendship that ended abruptly when a close friend lied about me to protect herself. I play retribution scenarios in my head, wanting to hurt her back, but knowing that it won’t help. I just want her to hurt as I do and I don’t want to hurt anymore. I really want to get to neutral about it, yet I pray to develop loving kindness thoughts about her, to rise above it and be unconcerned what anyone else thinks. I want to escape the fear, not discover the reasons for it and feel the feelings.
by admin | Feb 10, 2020 | Acceptance
A body in motion remains in motion while a body at rest remains at rest until acted upon by an external force. Isn’t that how it goes? How do I avail myself of the external force required to get my morning exercise program back on track? I am close to 3 weeks without any right now. It feels like the new norm to sleep in on workdays and go to work without exercise. At the close of the workday, I feel unenthused about doing anything other than crawling under the covers and remaining motionless while watching TV, reading or just lounging. This is not what I want. It leads to apathy about other things in my life, too.
It’s really worse than that, though. Each day I plan to get up and work out and each day I find it easy to say, “what’s another day.” I am listless and uncaring that I’m not accomplishing the things I plan for my day. At work, I long for the day to end so I can go home and go to bed early. I look forward to Friday when I don’t have to get up the next morning. It is a pitiful existence.
This is an illustration of one of the 7 deadly sins: Sloth. It is a great word, sloth. It words sounds expressive of its meaning.
I have got to break the cycle. I do know what to do about it. I need to pray for willingness.
by admin | Dec 23, 2019 | Acceptance
Often in the course of a day, I find my mind entertaining negative thoughts about situations or people. It happens more some days than others, and sometimes I wallow in it for a time before I get tired of my sour attitude. I get aggravated with myself and remember that my negative reaction only lessens my ability to live as I desire—in joyful harmony with all God’s creation. I am a cog in the wheel of the world, imbued with infinite love that I can access with practice and patience.
When I catch myself resisting a situation or person, I try to notice my thoughts and feelings and first validate them with self-compassion, “anyone in my position would feel this way.” I look at how I am judging others and judging my thoughts and behavior. I purposefully acknowledge that I am doing that, that it is not coming from a place of love. Although it is a habit from my early nurturing, it doesn’t serve me or the world.
Finally, I remind myself that I want to develop a pattern of accepting my thoughts for what they are–thoughts. I want to actively work to view each person as a child of God doing the best he can and each objectionable situation as a growth opportunity lovingly offered by my creator for my good. One day, with practice, I will arrive at my destination.
by admin | Jun 5, 2019 | Acceptance, Self-kindness
The question of the day is why don’t I see that I treat others so much better than I treat myself? I understand now that the negative self-talk is deeply entrenched and damaging to my spiritual growth. The funny thing is that when I am able to identify it, I get down on myself for having no self-compassion!! Ha!
I nearly always have the idea that I could have done better. Though I don’t go through life doing things half-heartedly, it is still exceedingly rare that I feel entirely good about a performance or interaction of some type. My norm is to pick out what wasn’t perfect and then go over and over it in my mind. I am full of “should haves.” I don’t ever feel like I did the best I could, although I agree with the thought that people do the best they can at the time.
This question of the day comes from my feeling a failure for having anxiety about a situation that I would expect anyone else to have anxiety about. When my friend chided me about my despair that I was having some discomfort and dreams about the situation I am going back into, saying “why is it you think you should be better than everyone else? Anyone in your shoes would be anxious!” My response is that I’ve been working so hard on acceptance and letting go that I should be at peace and relaxed about the situation.
It seems that spiritual growth does not happen on my timetable. It works as it is supposed to. It is quite possible that I have made terrific progress and that it is time for me to take a look at my negative self-talk.
My friend also reminded me that the dread of a situation is always, always, always far worse that the actual experience turns out to be. I know that to be true. My willingness to accept what is may be present one moment and the next I’m trying to plan and control what the universe has in mind for my journey. I believe I may be a human being. I must remind myself that I am worthy of compassion. I likely do the best I can, even if my mind tells me different.
by admin | Apr 4, 2019 | Acceptance
I feel lighter when I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. Probably because it happens infrequently, so it feels like winning.
I am a procrastinator at heart. It goes back a long way. Though I am better than I used to be, I often plan a productive day with a list of projects I am going to do and then not start the first item on the list. I see the projects done in my mind’s eye. It is satisfying to think of them accomplished, but they don’t get done because they don’t get started. When they don’t get started they tend to grow in enormity and become overwhelming work that I cannot start. I need a deadline and most things I want to do don’t have deadlines–like writing a sharingden.com post.
‘I’ll empty the smelly compost collector under the counter today,’ I’ll think. It doesn’t take long and it pleases me to feed the worms, see them wriggling. Why don’t I get it done for days after I initially know it needs doing? I have time to do it, but I do other things to fill that time. Then I berate myself for failing to accomplish what I set out to do. It’s a vicious and nonproductive cycle.
Yesterday I got started on a few little things I wanted to do–compost bin emptying amongst them–and accomplished several things on my list. It felt really good to be responsible, to be disciplined in my personal life like I am in my professional life. I am rewarded with a sense of having cared for myself. Perhaps I will remember this success the next time I am feeling down on myself for taking it easy instead of being productive. Perhaps I will think that I a don’t always fail to do what I want to do. I will try to have that self-compassion.
