by admin | Feb 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
Today started out feeling like a red-letter day, but as it progressed, I got further and further from practicing the presence of God and found my mind is a simmering cesspool of negativity. The hours are crawling by, and I feel out of sorts for no reason I can name. Nothing is right, and I want to go home and go to bed. I guess human beings have days like this from time to time, but I feel like I’ve wasted time, work and personal time, just being unhappy.
I could write a gratitude list. It would probably help change my attitude, but I don’t feel like it. Maybe I just don’t want to be positive and grateful today. Maybe today serves to remind me of how I could be all of the time if I don’t use the spiritual tools that bring me back to the journey my soul desires.
I have an opportunity to change things today, but I won’t take it. I’m going to wallow in self-pity because I seem to want to. Tomorrow, though, is a new day.
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 6, 2019 | Uncategorized
How well I know and even understand in my very core that suffering is a result of lack of acceptance! Why is it that I continue to resist? When I judge, I’m resisting. When I feel jealousy, I’m resisting. When I am anxious, I am resisting. When I am comfortable with myself, I am comfortable with my world too. The same world that I was experiencing discomfort in becomes my contentment when I let go of resistance and let what is be.
It is no coincidence that when I focus on the positive and feel gratitude and humility, I am free of suffering. When I see that as a reality, I can embrace acceptance. I become willing to suspend my desire to control things that I cannot control. I understand how simple it is to be simply happy. I’m happiest when my trust that all is well is deep and genuine.
by | Jun 6, 2018 | Uncategorized
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by | Jun 6, 2018 | Uncategorized
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by | Jun 6, 2018 | Uncategorized
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