SunAgape's Spot

Friday, August 09, 2013

Free Gifts With Acceptance

You know how I love old saws. One of my many favorites is, “When you feel like you are at the end of your rope, let go.” Ahhh.

I had one of those moments in my kung fu lesson last night. It was a two-point letting go. I wasn’t getting the flow right and it was feeling effortful. I got the thinky part of my brain to focus on the blue sky and clouds, and *bam!* there was the flow. But there was still something amiss, until I thought of my little pet snails, so strong and so soft. I relaxed, and that was the solution. Strong like a snail, open like the sky.

Internal space.

When we are in the middle of stuff, and we all get there from time to time, we often feel like we are the stuff, or we are the feelings, or we are the thoughts. But, there is an added layer that makes everything suck: We fight it.

We identify with our suffering, and we hate it. Do you see what’s happening there?

When we fight what is, we suffer. When we want what is to be what isn’t, we suffer. When we try to deny the current moment, we suffer. We hate suffering, and we are suffering, and so we hate our own selves, too.

Poor we.

Clenched and angry and sad and despising our own sweet selves, and no internal space.

I have three main body parts that I clench. Shoulders, belly, and jaw. When I notice that I’m moving toward suffering, I check those parts and relax ‘em. Clenched often hurts a lot more than relaxed. I check my thoughts. My clenched thoughts are often resentful thoughts. Why is this happening to me? (Bad creative question, by the way.) What’s wrong with me? (Another bad creative question.) Why don’t things go my way? (And there’s a trifecta of bad questions.) There are, sadly, a gazillion variations on these bad creative questions. I know you have your own, uh, “favorites.”

When I accept this moment as it is, letting go of the judgmental thoughts, letting go of the clench in my body and in my feelings, I create space. Like unclenching a fist to make an open hand, soft and receptive.

I am not my pain, or my emotions, or my thoughts.

When I accept this moment as it is, my peaceful core gets stronger. The moment may be really exciting, or very sad, or super boring, but if I accept it, there is now space around it. That space gives me the room I need to respond, not react. That space gives me room to remember that I’m the boss of my thoughts. That space liberates me from the Pain-body that Eckhart Tolle talks about.

How have I changed from fighting my moments to accepting them with all the free gifts that come with that act?

Thursday, August 08, 2013

A Patchworked Purpose

For most living things, purpose is simple: Procreate.

For many of us, there are other things we’d like to have a shot at. I don’t know if all of us have that one, overriding passion. I didn’t seem to. There are a bunch of places where I get that “flow” feeling. On the one hand, that’s really fun for me. On the other hand, it sure made it challenging to find the place where I felt like I was meant to be.

How do I know my purpose?

As I stumbled through my life, I would think I had found “the thing.” It would be so compelling for a little while, then really not at all anymore.

I felt like there was something wrong with me. So many of my friends knew what they wanted to be when they were grown ups. There was a specific path for them to follow. I was more concerned with surviving at that time. There was no path for me, only one step at a time, and avoid the edge of the cliff.

My friends would talk about the careers they wanted, the industries they were drawn to. The idea of a career felt suffocating to me at that time. And I held the belief that there was nothing I could pour my heart into at which I wouldn’t fail. That was definitely an unsupportive belief.

So I weaved and bobbed, and swerved and staggered. I took trainings in lots of healing modalities always looking for the answers.

My job training took a couple decades. Tens of thousands of dollars. Gathering so many different experience. Cobbling it all the bits together into a mishmash. My mishmash.

It looks really funny from the outside, but it produces these daily thoughts for us to think about, so it clearly worked.

We don’t always fit neatly into a category. That isn’t about our not fitting, it’s about the category not accommodating. We don’t always know what we want to be when we grow up. Sometimes we end up serving in roles that seem strange, because they are not roles in which we usually see most of the people we know.

How do I know I am on my path?

There is something powerful and liberating about accepting the roles we are actually performing, rather than feeling like we are failing somehow. There is something powerful and liberating about allowing our purpose to unfold to our awareness, like the blossoming of a rare and precious flower. There is something powerful and liberating about trusting that all our weird experiences, our rather aberrant thoughts, our feeling misfit, is part of a much bigger tapestry that will come into focus and bring both joy and satisfaction to us in ways we could barely imagine.

Why do I trust my place and purpose at this time? If asking that question gets you a negative response, add in “would” or “could” Why could I trust.... If you continue to get a negative response, perhaps you want to make some changes in the way you are spending your time.

How have I changed from feeling adrift to feeling aligned with my purpose?

Wednesday, August 07, 2013

Me to We

Oh, relationships. They nourish us, connect us, soothe us, challenge us, tax us, test us, and move us forward. Or not.

Undeniably, we are in relationships of one kind or another all over the place. We have the very casual ones with the people we’ve never seen before, or the ones we see often; clerks, cashiers, baristas, bus drivers, neighbors from across the way: people whose names we may not even know, all the way to the person or people with whom we cherish and with whom we are most deeply intimate.

Some of us are really good at relationships. We have them easily, comfortably. We seem to always know what to say or do, we never seem to stumble, we seem to stay settled into our core.

And then there’s the rest of us.

I wouldn’t have any issues at all if it weren’t for relationships. Oh, except one: I would be utterly desolate.

For all the interesting stuff they bring to us, all the broken hearts and twisted guts, all the tears and numbness, and stuff, without relationships we could hardly exist.

Our primary relationship is the one with ourselves, and, of our intimate relationships, it is often the one we pay the least attention to.

We speak to ourselves in ways that would make the heart of another shrivel. We ignore our basic needs for quality nourishment, rest, movement, mental stimulation, spiritual, and other joyful activities. We fault ourselves for all sorts of random things, and then impose harsh punishments. We strive to put the needs of others before our own. Bad stuff happens then.

When we are out of balance with ourselves, and in that place of doing only for everybody else, we feel crappy. We get resentful, and then feel guilty, so we shove that down. Ignoring stuff like that makes us physically sick.

When we are out of balance with ourselves, we end up making strange decisions, like potato chips for supper, or staying up until 2:00 AM, which sets us up to feel crappy again the next day, and the cycle gets way out of hand.

When we are out of balance with ourselves, our internal gyroscope will often adjust to us, rather than bring us back to center. We find ourselves getting used to stuff that’s bad, and feeling like living in Crazy Town is normal. One of the most amazing features of the human entity is our ability to adapt. One of our most dangerous features is our ability to adapt. It’s in that adapting that we often lose sight of our natural life, and then we forget what it was like. And we think this crappy life is normal.

By bringing ourselves back into balance, by noticing our thoughts, being aware and mindful of our actions, by being respectful to our own self, and to others, by relaxing, using Creative Questions, giving ourselves a bit of reflecting time, and so on, we can come back to balance, and in that space, feel joyful and free again.

How have I changed from thinking I am the worst pain in my own neck to treating me with loving kindness?

Tuesday, August 06, 2013

Chillax, Yo

One of the most wonderful skills I am developing is something that is available to all of us just for the asking.

This amazing technique will energize you. It will calm you, it will center you. It can relieve stress and tense muscles. It can help you sleep more soundly, cut back on bad habits.

It sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it. Well, my friend, I’m here to tell you that it’s not too good to be true. It is amazing. It doesn’t require special training. It simply requires practice.

The skill is relaxation, and mastering it will change your life.

I’m not talking about being lazy, lying on the couch watching TV relaxing. I’m not talking about reading an engrossing novel relaxing. I’m not even talking about hanging out with an adult beverage relaxing.

Rather, I’m talking about conscious relaxation, where I spend a few minutes intentionally relaxing my body, part by part, and my mind, and my feelings. I am always curious to see where I am holding tension. I am not surprised when I need to let my shoulders drop, and to soften my tummy, but it cracks me up when I discover that my upper lip is tense. Sometimes, I’ve even had to relax the muscles behind my ears.

When I can do this little pause in my day, my breath deepens a bit. That’s wonderful for several reasons. Most of our detoxing happens through our breath, seventy per cent or so. So I clean me out a bit. My deepened breath also energizes me a bit, like a refreshing drink, or a snack.

When I practice conscious relaxation, I let my thoughts flow. It’s my brain’s job to think, so I will always have thoughts, some conscious, a whole lot unconscious. When I relax, I let them float on by, like little clouds, and don’t follow them. Except when I do, as soon as I notice, I come back to let them drift. This helps me to disconnect from them, and to gain a little perspective. They are thoughts, they are not me. I can change them. I am the boss of my thoughts.

Relaxing like this from time to time during my day keeps me responsive, instead of my old habit of reaction. I like this a lot. It means I have time to decide what I want to do. I have way less crap to apologize for. I love that.

It reminds me of the teaching about how, when I feel crummy, I am in a bad habit loop. If I am racing around all tense and clenched, I’m not going to remember that.

So relaxing my feelings is a benefit, too. And once I relax them, I can shed them, and get back to my sunny core. I really like my sunny core.

When I remember to practice relaxing every day, everything gets easier, softer, gentler, and way more fun. I really like fun, too.

How have I changed from being clenched and tight to relaxing my way through my day?

Monday, August 05, 2013

Satisfaction Guaranteed.

Oo, satisfaction! Isn’t that a lovely feeling. I think it’s so nice that we get at least dozens of opportunities every single day to feel satisfied. Waking up from a good sleep, ahhh. The first delicious beverage of the morning, ahhh. The wonderful feeling of brushed teeth, ahhh. Moment after moment of possibility.

Satisfaction, savor, relish, these are things that make life rich.

There is a really easy way to get more of that into your daily experience. In fact, it’s the way to get a lot more nice into your whole life.

Slow down, pay attention.

So simple.

I can hear objections all over! “I can’t slow down, I will never get it all done!” “I’m too poor to pay attention!” “I’m paying attention, to my thoughts!”

You know I know. This is one way that I have brought more satisfaction to my life.

I used to use my driving time to do homework (relistening to lectures) or listen to news or talk shows. Both of those things were hugely distracting. There were other stupid things I did while driving. I won’t even tell you. (consuming stuff, reading mail, flashcards, changing clothes; no secrets.)

I weaned myself to just listening to music, CDs, not the radio, where I would get all clicky with the stations. I’d still get all caught up in my thoughts, reworking stuff from my day job, imaginary conversations with people, sometimes even imaginary fights. I know, what a dork!

I drive a fair amount these days, and now, more and more, I find myself thinking of my car time as a “driving meditation.”

For me, a driving meditation means that while I am in the car, driving, I am attending to driving the car. I am alert. I listen to the sounds of the car, the surrounding traffic, the rhythm of the tires on the highway. I see the cars around me, I see the scenery, the sky. I feel my placement on the road. I feel my placement in the scenery, sort of like imagining GPS. I feel the contact between the tires and the road and the steering and me. That kind of thing.

When I notice that I have started to follow a thought, I pull my mind back to driving.

Wanna guess what happened?

I like it. I really value those drive times in a way I never did before. Driving with awareness, what a concept! It becomes such a deeply satisfying experience, not just a means to an end.

It’s different when I am a passenger, or when I am chauffeuring, but there are ways for both of those situations to be really satisfying, too.

How have I changed from distracting myself from my now, to relishing being in the moment?

Sunday, August 04, 2013

Getting to WooWoo

I love bumping into words that we use all the time, but don’t necessarily agree on what they mean. The one I have been thinking about lately is “spirituality.”

I use it when I say that I am spiritual, but not religious. I use it to describe the feeling I get when I contemplate nature, and then feel part of my natural world when I do so. I use it when I have mystical or metaphysical experiences.

Writing to you everyday is a spiritual exercise for me. I feel connected to my deeper self when I write these contemplations, and that deeper connection is a lovely way to start my day.

It is also easier for me to feel engaged in my life when I feel spiritual. When I make that connection, I feel happy, I feel magnanimous, I feel kind, I feel tolerant, and relaxed. When I feel spiritual, the work I do feels significant and satisfying. Oh, yeah, I am living my natural life. How lovely is it that I have found something to do that consistently gets me to that place of ease.

So that’s my query for the day. What are paths we can use to connect to our natural lives? How do I feel when I feel spiritual?

Curiously, when I approach something as a spiritual exercise, the most mundane activity is imbued with significance.

When I think of housework as a spiritual exercise, I feel like I am blessing my home and family. I notice that when I have made that decision, rubbing the vacuum on the floor takes on a different kind of weight, a cleansing, rather than just a cleaning, a purge rather than a tidying, and it feels like I am contributing to the well being of the world in a tiny way.

When I think of my physical activities; walking, qigong, yoga, running, dancing, weights, and so on, as spiritual activities, they gain in significance. I find myself dedicating that particular practice to someone or something. All of a sudden, that annoying workout becomes a sacred act.

When I think of the tedious tasks at my Clark Kent job as something that contributes to the University’s contributions to world betterment, spending my day cutting and pasting is less heinous, and seems to matter. That one doesn’t always work, but I know that it has more to do with my attitude than with the actual task. I mean, cleaning the cat box is cleaning the cat box.

Likewise, when writing thank you notes, or sympathy cards, birthday cards, thinking of you notes, and so one, by starting with a little intention, the act of writing a note all the way through to mailing it, makes it feel special.

So, for me, inserting a tiny ritual at the beginning of doing stuff can make the mundane feel sacred.

Having changed from feeling like nothing I did mattered to feeling like my being alive makes a difference is nice. Having changed from feeling isolated to feeling connected is nice. Having changed from struggling to living my natural life more and more is so pleasant, and easy.

How do you feel when you feel spiritual? What makes you feel spiritual? How do you live a life of significance? Why is it all so easy?

Saturday, August 03, 2013

Gimme That!

I had a curious moment the other day. reading an article by a “Happiness Expert” who said that feeling gratitude wasn’t necessary to be happy, that practicing gratitude was a waste of time, especially if it was hard.

First the thought made me laugh, and then I just felt really bad for the author. Trying to imagine feeling happy without gratitude seems to me like summer without flowers. I thought about the inside/outside versions of happiness, you know, the happiness you get from buying that thing you were looking for, compared with the happiness you get from connecting with your perfect self.

Now, I kind of understand where she’s coming from. Gratitude was a challenge for me. I learned to write thank you notes, grudgingly, but I didn’t learn to feel grateful. I felt possessive, I felt yearny, even some childish avarice, but I missed the gratitude and appreciation stuff.

I loved the feeling of acquisition, especially when it had a chance to build. The savor of that moment could last anywhere from a few hours to several days, but then would be replaced by the next desire. And by a sense of entitlement.

I was also fiercely possessive of my stuff, in that I wouldn’t let it go. Worn out, broken, too big, too small, empty, I would hang on. It was as though each thing I had yearned for held a tiny bit of my soul. Creepy.

I “got” gratitude right around the time I realized I was deep into hoarding behavior.

Gratitude may be a fundamental feature of our happy lives, but it took me some effort to get there.

I had to learn how to “go inside.” That was so weird. I mean, I knew I thought; dark, dismal, bleak thoughts, wanty thoughts, but I didn’t know how to go inside and identify my emotions. That took a lot of work. My first huge success was during a long walk when I got that three days before I was feeling angry. I know. Poor me.

Once I slowed down enough, and learned to recognize my emotions, I was able to start working on my feelings. Remember that emotions are simple physiological manifestations of our thoughts, and feelings are complex strings of thoughts and emotions.

That slowing down and noticing led me to start appreciating stuff. It was way easier to notice how delicious something is when you stop wolfing. It was way easier to really see the lavish sunset when I was able to be still.

This was a tremendous step for the girl who, when she started a meditation practice, was able to stand it for 10 unendurable seconds.

Gratitude is the child of appreciation. The more I could appreciate the world, the more I started to feel gratitude, the more gratitude I felt, the more I could feel the happiness stirring deep inside. That was a miracle. Deep, fundamental, happiness bubbling up from within, no attachments, independent of anything but the joy of life.

I am so grateful and happy.

How have I changed from feeling entitled and greedy to reveling in pure joy?

Friday, August 02, 2013

Let Me Hear Your Body Talk

In the times of darkness, there was a period of a couple months where I all I ate was six soda crackers a day. I drank a lot of pop and coffee, and took a lot of speed, and some cocaine to keep my energy up. And then I had to have a few drinks and smoke some weed to go to sleep. Seriously.

My body was the enemy.

I hated it. I had allies who hated it with me, from my boyfriend to strangers on TV and in magazines. Poor little body.

I did horrible, hurtful, scarring things to it. I was at war with a burning fury in my heart.

It turned out that my body wasn’t the enemy, I was. And let me tell you, that was a bitter pill.

I had to make amends. I had to correct behaviors. I had to find a way to love my body, when I had hated it since I was little.

I quit the drugs and alcohol. I started eating again. I took up yoga, and walking, and dancing. I went to therapy.

It was a slow process. I gained a lot of weight, but I also started to pay attention to the information I was getting from my body. I got a little more sleep. I slowed down a little. I stopped before I was exhausted.

I made exercise a normal and fun part of my day. I noticed when I said horrible things to my body, and corrected that.

I stopped trying to “fix” me, and instead, began trying to understand this physical being my mind lives within. I wanted to find a way to address all my physical symptoms and maladies in a different way.

I began using the model of body-mapping where you assume that your body is making sensations happen in certain places to tell you what’s going on with it, and with your unconscious mind.

On the one hand, this is a new idea, and a radical new idea at that. On the other hand, we have it built into our speech. Uh. Yes. We use dozens of body metaphors every day.

Carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders = sore shoulders. She’s got my back = feeling supported. He’s a pain in my neck, or elsewhere = sore neck, or elsewhere. I can’t stomach it, I’m scared sh*tless, I need elbow room, toeing the line, not a leg to stand on, I feel p*ssed off. The examples go on and on, and we made them up because that’s how our body talks to us, we just put language on them, and pretend that our body didn’t say that.

The more patient I am with my body, the more I listen to it, respect it, treat it well, the better it responds. When I notice what it wants to eat, or drink, and give it that, I feel good. If I sleep when I get tired, I feel good. If I get a twinge, I pay attention and look for meaning in the location, or type of twinge, and then I address the topic it raises. And then I feel good again.

How have I changed from treating my body like subsidized housing to feeling like my body is a sumptuous place all for me?

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Who is the Boss of Me?

This is a true thing: If I rely on the outside world for my happiness, it will come from time to time, sporadically and occasionally. If I draw my happiness from inside me, it is mine to have whenever I wish.

The woo woo phrase for a lot of this stuff is the Law of Attraction, but we, that is, humans, have known about it for ages. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.” (Matthew 7:7)

We find what we look for, we get what we ask for, and we lose most by not trying.

As I have grown up, one of the most challenging ideas for me, and I was challenged a lot, was the idea that I create my own happiness. How can that be? Aren’t I a victim of the whims of fate? If bad things happen, don’t I have to feel bad? Isn’t suffering our lot?

Uh, no.

It seemed like heresy to me. I mean, all the literature I’d read seemed to suggest that if bad things happened I had to feel bad, if abusers abused, I had to take on their crap and feel abused, that if I were sick, I had to be miserable.

Misery is a habit, happiness is a choice.

Part of growing up, or being evolved, or becoming enlightened, is owning that I am the boss of me. I decide how I will respond. I decide on my mood. I decide how I will see the world.

When we notice that we feel crappy; miserable, abused, freaked out, blue, and any number of other feelings, it is a way of our physical system, our body, to tell us that we have fallen into old, bad habits. Then our job is to do what we need to do to disrupt those habits, and replace them with shiny new habits that help us stay centered.

There are a gazillion ways to disrupt that bad habit stuff.

Creative Questions are a powerful and dynamic place to start. How could I choose to be happy? Why would I feel good? What makes me choose to be positive? How have I changed from feeling abused to keeping my center?

Posture, modifying our physical system, is another dynamic way. This is also a fun way to notice how our body positions can impact our emotions, and thoughts. When we lift our bodies, we feel uplifted. How weird is that? Even little things like pulling our shoulders down and back a titch, lifting our chins a titch, lifting our gaze a titch.

If we can, getting up and moving around can disrupt the habit. Likewise, singing, or recitation, and in dire circumstances, I’ve put a rubberband on my wrist, and snapped it to upset that those bad thoughts. Making a list of things we are grateful for, or appreciate, and feeling grateful, smiling from the heart, will shift things a lot. The more we practice, the easier it gets, the smoother the path to happiness.

How have I changed from feeling all suffery and buffeted to taking ownership of my moods?