A Day

Sunrise, sunset
solitude in those moments of beginning and end
needing the quiet break with earth and sky
the view, expanding the infinite; revealing the unlimited
vibrancy washes over all that is
without a need to be seen
nothing to hear
inner thoughts quieted by the knowing, the witness of
life
consuming it all
with fire

In Pursuit of Happiness...

I discovered a great site today: The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin's blog recounting her daily adventures in pursuit of happiness.

What brought me to the site was her post on personal commandments. Rubin developed a set of 12 personal commandments, overarching principles by which she tries to live her life. Taking months to assemble, Rubin reveals the depth of thought that went into compiling this list. The post includes her list as well as her insight on how best to create one for yourself.

Happiness is a choice. It has been my own personal commitment to discover the true meaning of happiness over the past few months. What I have found through my own meditations and readings is that happiness is not something you hope to achieve through any accumulation of things, arrival at a predetermined station in life, or relationship. Happiness is an inward journey. I've realized that happiness is always there for you to choose no matter your circumstance.

Having a set of individual commandments is a wonderful way to keep you on track, however. The key is to dig deep and really personalize this set of commitments to yourself to avoid falling into the old habits that have kept you from happiness in the past.

My first inclination is to compile my list in this moment and publish it with this post. I am fighting that urge in favor of allowing myself the proper time, meditation, and thought to truly come up with a set of life-enhancing, happiness-driven principles to apply to my life. I will be working on this and will share it at the right time. I wrote about patience not too long ago. Learning how to be patient in a process is challenging but much more rewarding. Being patient with yourself, allowing yourself the proper time to achieve a goal, is directly correlated to your success in that goal. I can't imagine any goal more important than happiness. I choose to live my life happy. I want to spread happiness in all that I do. I want my children to see me happy and I want them to be happy.

"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances." - Martha Washington 

  

Whole in One

On this journey of self-discovery I am realizing I have been living as half a person. It is the common, trite and misconceived notion that we should all look for another to complete us (thank you very much Jerry Maguire). It is a notion to which I subscribed.

As I delve deep into my heart, my mind, my spirit, I realize that true completeness is only achieved when you can see yourself as already whole. When you discover that your soulmate is within, it will blow the top right off your head. And then you will see yourself as you truly are: a whole, complete and perfect energy. Beautiful. You are filled with a light so bright it can not be extinguished or dimmed.

That is not to say I don't believe that companionship, relationship and love are essential . . . I do. I believe that love is why we are here. My mission is to love better. It seems the better I become at giving love, the more I receive it. 

When we already come to love knowing we are complete-- not looking for another to fill a void or to make up where we are lacking-- we then can offer true companionship. If we are still existing as incomplete, it is likely that the relationships we keep are troubled. No other can complete YOU . . . you must do that work within yourself. Relying on another for that will never be satisfying or even possible. 

If you are already in a relationship, I challenge you as I am challenging myself to immediately release your partner from the impossible task of trying to complete you. You will probably find a rapid decline of frustration, upset and disappointment felt by you and your significant other. 

When we look to another to make us feel whole, we hold them to an impossible task and therefore will always feel dissatisfied with their performance. True love is found when there is no expectation or need. True love happens when we are simply left to offer another compassion, support, a respite from all the demands outside. 

Say, "Come and be with me. Come rest. Come laugh. Come play. Come share life with me." This is much different than a demanding, needy and selfish love most of us are programmed to accept and give. Think about the love you are giving. Is it conditional? Do you withhold your love if you feel your requirements and needs are not being met? Do you only match the level of compassion, emotion, energy another is showing you at any given moment-- never giving more or first? Do you wait for another to be kind, or give you what you need before offering kindness or meeting a need in someone you love? Why? 

These are hard questions I've asked myself recently. Getting honest answers was a struggle. But once I shed the act of loving in search of real love in action, it was a discovery like no other. My focus is to offer myself in my relationships and to this life as a whole person. I am aware that no other can meet my needs. I am not seeking fulfillment. I am no longer armed with expectations. I am here to love unconditionally. 

The Power of Touch

I just returned from a much-needed massage. The hour I spent in the experienced hands of a woman I have never met left me feeling relaxed, helped ease my pain throughout my neck and shoulders and dulled the persistent headache I have been plagued with for weeks. 


Beyond the physical benefits of this massage, I am also aware and astounded by the more positive state of being I am now experiencing. The simple act of her touch . . . her hands in constant contact with my body . . . nourished more than just my aching, tight and knotted muscles. It helped to fill one of my basic needs-- the need to be touched. 


Since reading Gary Chapman's The Five Love Languages several years ago, I have known that my personal love language is Physical Touch. I don't know if this means my need for touch is greater than the next person, I just know that when I'm touched-- whether that is a hug, kiss, embrace or simple caress-- I feel loved. Conversely, when I am not touched for a period of time I start to feel unloved, ignored, and abandoned.

"Whatever there is of me resides in my body. To touch my body is to touch me. To withdraw from my body is to distance yourself from me emotionally." -The Five Love Languages

There is myriad research in the area of touch. I remember learning about Harry Harlow's classic, although controversial, isolation and maternal-separation experiments on rhesus monkeys in my high school AP Psychology class (many, many years ago). The experiment was pivotal in that it proved the need for contact comfort  in a time when it was common advice to limit and avoid bodily contact in an attempt to avoid spoiling children. 

And now we have the recent emergence of healing touch. Healing touch is "an energy (biofield) therapy that encompasses a group of non-invasive techniques that utilize the hands to clear, energize, and balance the human and environmental energy fields" (http://www.healingtouch.net/). Forms of healing touch include energy therapy, Energy Field Disturbance and Reiki, a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes healing. My sister, a student of Reiki, has performed this touch technique on me and from it I've experienced amazing benefits.

It is administered by laying on hands and is based on the idea that an unseen life force energy flows through us and is what causes us to be alive. If one's life force energy is low, then we are more likely to get sick or feel stress, and if it is high, we are more capable of being happy and healthy.

The concept of laying on hands is not new. It is ancient and part of many spiritual paths, perhaps best known in Christianity. 

“They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18)

Healing Touch is used to energize, restore, and balance an energy field disturbance, or harm of the body, mind, and spirit.  The detected energy can be equalized by therapists who pass their hands over the patient’s body.  It is as if the practitioners take over as the human energy support system until the person’s own system can function.  Ultimately, when energy flows freely throughout the body, the person is healthy.  Typically, healing touch involves meditation, aromatherapy, sounds, and spiritual journeys.     

So the next time you have a chance to offer a positive touch to your loved ones, whether it is your friend, child, parent, sibling, or spouse/mate . . . do it with intent and with the understanding that your touch might be just what they need to overcome a negative feeling, pain or hurt. Just as our  words are powerful, so is our touch.

Success and Failure: The Lies We Believe

Do you ever feel like the whole world is against you? Do you feel like everyone and everything is conspiring to make certain you fail at whatever it is you are wanting to accomplish, become, attain?

I have felt this way countless times and become slave to the story I tell myself about how I can't . . . I convince myself easily of this nonsense and absurdity as if it were the ultimate truth. This amazing discovery was completed for me last night in an interaction I had with my oldest daughter. A mirror was held in front of my face as she reflected an exact behavior I have worked hard at overcoming.

Teetering on the precipice of that wonderful age of adolescence, my 11-year-old is entering into a time of new feelings, of confusion, of discovery-- she is experiencing an awakening. She is realizing that she is no longer child and not yet adult. She is learning how to accept success and failure-- both with grace.

My daughter has an amazing voice. She sings beautifully with an innate sense for tone and pitch. Her dream is to pursue her talent professionally and has taken the first step toward this goal by auditioning for the school of the arts vocal magnet program where we live. Soon she will find out whether she is accepted. The problem is acceptance is not purely audition-based. There is a complicated lottery system that also prioritizes applicants.

Last night we discussed all of the factors that could possibly prevent her from being accepted, assuring her that even though we think she has an amazing talent, she still needs to prepare herself for the possibility of not being accepted.

She promptly burst into tears. What did she hear?

-We think she won't be accepted
-We don't believe in her
-We don't think she's good enough
-We aren't encouraging her

This is actually what she said she heard. How did the communication get so twisted?

Wow! This was not what we said AT ALL! How did she hear something completely different then what we said?

My theory is she already had a story in her head about herself, about her audition, about what we thought. It really didn't matter what we said. She had already made up her mind about what she was going to hear before we said it. When we said she might not get into the school, she heard that the reason was because she wasn't good enough. What we actually said was that she might not get in because although she has tremendous talent, unfortunately admissions are also decided by non-talent related factors.

And then I realized that I am guilty of this exact tendency. The truth is we can all twist, obstruct, deny, confuse, and taint truth and fact with our own stories that are not based on anything but emotion, feeling and, to be quite frank, the lies we readily tell ourselves and easily believe.

Lately I've questioned why it is so easy for me to accept negative thoughts about who I am and why I am so reluctant to accept the positive affirmations I could tell myself or even hear from others. I've arrived at this: it's a lot more comfortable to stay stuck in wanting something then actually doing it. The difference between success and failure is action! Yes, there may be obstacles along the way but what great thing is not met without resistance?  So, I tell myself I can't, I am not good enough, I will never make it and then I believe it and I'm off the hook. 


It is much easier to stay put and never try whatever it is that is your dream or goal because then you are guaranteed not to fail. Right?

WRONG!


If you never try you ALWAYS fail. You are guaranteed to fail. So my commitment to myself is to dismiss the negative, self-depracating jargon in my head as lies. I, instead, choose to believe that I am gifted, capable and ready to achieve my personal goals, desires and dreams. I just have to act and do and begin. 


The truth is this life, this existence is on your side . . . conspiring on your behalf . . . giving you opportunities to succeed at whatever it is you are on this earth to do. We are all necessary. We all have abilities and talents and gifts that work together to make this life, this earth, this time, amazing.  If you never begin to pursue your uniqueness and offer it to the world, the world misses out on YOU.

"You are not accidental. Existence needs you. Without you something will be missing in existence and nobody can replace it. . . everything in the universe will feel a small place is vacant, which cannot be filled by anybody except you. This gives you a tremendous joy, a fulfillment that you are related to existence, and existence cares for you. Once you are clean and clear, you can see tremendous love falling on you from all dimensions." Osho

So the next time you are seeking validation from others on all the negative lies you are telling yourself about how you are not good enough and that the whole world is conspiring against you and your ability to achieve, remember who you are. You know that you are wonderful, powerful and specifically created . . . start acting like it.

"If you've been feeling like the world is out to get you, it's time to take a break. Go outside tonight and look at the stars." Osho