The Peace Core

The Peace Core

So, I’m going to make a confession. Ready?

I used to think that being emotionally healthy would be boring. I thought that if I didn’t have a lot of drama in my life, it would feel mundane and tedious. I thought that if I weren’t in the throes of some intense negative emotion, I would succumb to a moist, grey ennui.

I kind of thought that part of why there were so few enlightened folks walking around was because no one really wanted to give up the excitement.

I was scared to let go of my crazy behavior.

Boy howdy, was I wrong.

How have I changed from thinking crazy to taking responsibility for my own life?

Just because I have reached my peaceful core doesn’t mean I have a boring life.

Really.

I have more fun having fun than I ever did before. Maybe it’s because there is way less junk between me and fun.

Why do I have fun?

At some point, I realized that I like to have fun. That sounds ridiculous, but it was true. For many years what I enjoyed was drama and misery. It was enjoyable to me, in that particular mindset, but it was so not fun.  

I love not having relationship drama. I love not having work drama. I love not having problem drama. I love not feeling crazy. I love not having suicidal thoughts drifting through my head.

How have I changed from choosing drama to choosing peace?

I love having found my core of infinite peace and stillness and mirth and bliss and cosmic hooha. I enjoy how much fun I can have just being present, getting out of my own way.

The more responsibility I take, the more fun I have. Who ever set that up has to have a wicked sense of humor.

Because I am not all wrapped up in how my life isn’t going the way I want it to, I get to enjoy how it’s unfolding. As I enjoy it unfolding, I notice more opportunities for fun. They were always there, I just didn’t see them. When I am focused on crap, I find crap. When I focus on fun, I find a thousand thousand opportunities to have fun.

It really has so much to do with how I am looking at it. It really is that easy. I could wake up tomorrow morning, catalog my aches and pains, anticipate how much X will suck, how so and so is going to be annoying, how the walk from the bus stop will be cold, etc, and have a crappy day. Or not. Frankly, I’d rather have a good day. So I choose my peaceful core, my happy filters, my being present, and taking responsibility for me.

How have I changed from crappy days to enjoying days wrapped around a core of peace?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11132013

Everyday Bliss

Everyday Bliss

I love being aware. When I am aware, life is a gazillion times more fun.

Before Times, I was so stuck in my stinky thoughts, or so obsessed with my physical misery that the best fun ever could barely penetrate my self-absorption.  Poor me.

Before Times, I thought I was having fun. I couldn’t understand the big deal. Fun wasn’t all that fun. Mostly it was a little distraction from my self-absorbed occupations. At best, I was about 55% there. Drinking, for example,  wasn’t all that fun; by the time I got drunk enough to stop worrying, I was too drunk to remember what I was doing. Jeez.

Now that I have learned how to be aware, well, get back, Hannah! I find myself having fun in the most unlikely places. And the likely ones, too.

I have fun At. The. Dentist. I am quite serious. I have changed from being so terrified of the dentist that I just didn’t go for eight years, to looking forward to my visits. After a car accident, I had to have two teeth extracted and, using Creative Questions and awareness, I had almost no bleeding, no swelling or bruising or pain. They were healed in three days.

That was fun.

So if that sort of thing can be fun, can you imagine how much fun I have just in a regular day? Oh, yeah.

Being aware is one of those remarkable things that happens effortlessly when we relax.

Trying to be aware is like trying to be spiritual. The harder we try, the less we have. So I practice the six rules for qigong:

Don’t Worry. Don’t Intellectualize. Enjoy. Relax. Relax. Relax.

Why is it so easy? Why am I relaxed? Why do I enjoy myself? Why do I love to breathe?

When I soften the tension out from my muscles, my emotions, my mind, and my spirit, I can see that I live in a place of wonder beyond imagining. I don’t need magic mushrooms, or  lysergic acid diethylamide to appreciate it. All I need is to relax into awareness.

When I soften into awareness, I can see your good heart. I appreciate how hard we all work, for so many reasons, to make things better, and I am naturally more patient.

When I soften into awareness, I can see my  own childish behavior and stinky thoughts, and I can gently and lovingly correct them, feeling love and compassion for myself.

When I soften into awareness, bliss is in reach. I can find myself feeling bliss at the song of my little house finches eating breakfast and jibber-jabbering like crazy nuts, or the color of my boxelder maple against the sky, or a tiny snail looking at me. My heart is open, my body relaxed. I have infinite room within to love, to understand, to be.

How have I changed from clenching out the world, to opening to the joy and majesty of it all?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11022013