Stepping Out From the Looking Glass

Stepping Out From the Looking Glass

Next to the power of choice in our arsenal of life-improving tools is the power of awareness. Two little tiny things, miniscule shifts in what we do, and the quality of our day-to-day can improve so much.

Awareness is a very subtle shift in attention that we can make easily, instantly. By shifting our focus from the doing of the thing to the experience of doing, we step into awareness.

There is another subtlety. We can never do enough, but we can always be more.

Enough is a tricky thing, a slippery slope. Problem with enough? It’s always just out of reach.  Enough power, enough money, enough misery.

Enough gets tricky because we are so adaptable. Talk about irony. We think, “It’s not all that bad. I will leave when it gets bad enough.” And it gets a little worse, and we get used to it, that worse becomes familiar, it becomes normal. And we say, “It’s not all that bad, I will leave when it gets bad enough.” Ooh, bad loop. Dangerous loop. The nice stuff in our lives starts to drop away, and we get smaller and smaller, bringing our focus in tighter and tighter until our life is pencil thin, and we feel lost and maybe crazy.

It’s the same thing striving for power, or money, the bigger house, the nicer car.

It also happens when we try to atone for our guilt by doing for others. Bottom line on that one? There is one of me, and over seven billion youse. No matter how much I do, how hard I work, I will never be able to do enough to abrogate my guilt. Not until I choose to let it go will I be free.

But back to awareness.

How do I feel when I am aware? What makes me notice my experience? How do I know what I’m feeling?

When I am aware, I am in my body, I know where I am, I am tuned in to what I’m doing, I experience my experience.

And that’s where the magic happens.

Why would I choose awareness? What makes me present? How do I experience?

When we step into our experiences with awareness, we will naturally find satisfaction. We will naturally find enjoyment. We will naturally feel contentment as we complete our experiences.

When we step into our experiences with awareness, we are creating a sacred space. Awareness is food for our spirit. Owning our experience feeds our spirit, helps us grow up, brings us more deeply into our natural life. As we get used to experiencing our experiences, even difficult things bring an enjoyment because we are experiencing them fully. As we get used to this, we find that we have more joy, more courage, more solutions, and peace. I like peace.

How have I changed from stumbling in the dark to becoming aware of my experience?

(c) 2014 Pam Guthrie all rights reserved 02082014

Lightening the Load

Lightening the Load

As a philosopher, I think about stuff. I thought about stuff before that, too, but I think I enjoy it more, now.

One of the topics I was thinking about recently is the difference between truth and Truth, being right and Right, and enlightenment. I have some notions to share with you.

Having been blessed with a number of mystical experiences throughout my life, it has been my experience that Truth with a capital T is really interesting, but not particularly useful.

Experiencing the oneness of existence doesn’t help when the washer is flooding the laundry room.

Becoming aware of my infinite divinity doesn’t help me decide what to wear to work tomorrow.

Flowing through the vastness of time and space is somewhat useless when I am trying to reconcile a financial document.

I am right when I know what I believe, and those beliefs support me and help me support you. I am Right when I hold an opinion with an iron fist regardless of the damage it might do. Hating stuff, or groups, is an example of this.

Feeling Right, does nothing for my spiritual development, especially if I make that little slip from right to righteous, in the sense of inflicting my sense of right onto you. I am of the opinion that if my sense of right hurts or harms you, I might wanna rethink it.

Feeling right, however, is really nice for my sense of confidence, sense of purpose, and sense of direction.

Feeling Right, is something I need to be aware of if it is causing me to steep in resentment, something I consider a gross waste of personal resources.

What I do find useful is enlightenment. Now, I will tell you that I used to think that enlightenment was something akin to flipping a switch and *bam* on came a light bulb that stayed on for ever and ever. Then, I thought that it was more like a flashlight that I could shine into the dark corners of my mind and ego, to deal with my emo junk.

When I stop worrying, when I don’t intellectualize, when I enjoy what I’m doing, and relax all the way through I feel light.

When I let go of my resentments, of wanting you, and me, to be different, and love and accept both you and me as we are, I feel light.

When I step out of my insulated cocoon of daily life, and see the world seething in all it’s weird gloriousness, I feel light.

When I release back into the stream all the stuff, of whatever kind, that leaves me feeling heavy, sad, afraid, or angry, I feel light.

Feeling light lets all sorts of lovely things happen. When I feel light, it is easy to be happy, to find bliss all around me, to have satisfaction in what I do, to love lightly, and deeply, and without judgment.

How have I changed from living a life of heavy darkness to laughing my head off in the light?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved 11072013