We are so good at telling ourselves the story of what we can't do, of what's not going to happen in our lives, the places we'll never go. We like to go on and on about our limitations.
But what if all of this expertly leads us to the way out? Our very seeking, our feelings of discouragement, our lack of fulfillment, is nothing other than a tug towards the way out. We have to listen. We have to take the next step. We only ever get anywhere one step at a time, little by little. If we don't heed that, what we might do, what we are conditioned to do, is to numb that feeling. Drown it, cover it up, in whatever way we do this. We might shop more, exercise more, change relationships, seek a different car, or house, or job. Whatever it is, we ignore our own internal GPS which keeps trying to get us to turn towards truth.
You just have to proceed, to listen, step by step. And trust that that uncomfortable feeling, your unhappiness, is actually a life-saving feeling. Your life crashing around you is actually a life-saving event. You have to pay attention.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
beauty
This weekend my child looked at me and said, "Mama, you're beautiful. Can I give you a kiss?" Seriously did my heart a heap of good.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Holy Cow Batman!
Want to stay awake all day w/o caffeine of B Vitamins? Try having your child wake you up at 3am screaming "Daddy!" at the top of his lungs b/c he has the worst nose bleed you've ever seen. I'm still jacked up from the sight. Blood was everywhere. On hands, feet, legs, underwear, shirt, face, sheets, pillows. It looked like he had fought a wild animal. I was screaming for the hubby but he didn't hear me so I had to run downstairs and wake him up and we both took off running upstairs. Then after everything was cleaned up I was back downstairs washing the brand new Spiderman sheets that were on the full size bed we just upgraded the litte one to. There was no way that I could let the stains set. My brain is still reeling and I cannot focus today.
Btw...All detergent is awesome. I could pour it on the stain and watch it disappear.
Btw...All detergent is awesome. I could pour it on the stain and watch it disappear.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Who knew I would ever quote Salma Hayek...
The biggest thing brought into my life was this peacefulness. I still get passionate about things, but my passion is not so scattered and it's not needy. It's a lot more powerful because it comes with this groundedness and peacefulness. That it's about the process, not about the results.
Salma Hayek, Conversation with Salma Hayek, 2002
Salma Hayek, Conversation with Salma Hayek, 2002
Flames
"The life we are most devoted to is the life we don’t have" -Karen Mazen Miller
I read this a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. It resonates in my soul. Often I am asked, "tell me something exciting". I am then forced to search my brain for something I have done that would be considered exciting. More often than not I find nothing.
I find immense pleasure in couponing and meal planning. It is not exciting but it is necessary to keep me in my budget. I find immense pleasure in laundry and the immediate gratification its completion brings. Again...not exciting but necessary. I find pleasure in playing with my son or making my husband smile. Not exciting but completely necessary.
I spend a good deal of my time learning to be a better person. Getting back to who I am. I sit and I think a lot. I monitor my anger all the time. I don't do this because I am a better person, I do it because I will never be anyone else. I hate it when I wake up in a bad mood and take it out on my child, my husband, or a close friend. I don't wake up happy and refreshed but I do make a concious effort every day to watch my actions so that those I love don't suffer because of me.
It took me years to learn and practice with complete honesty the art of sympathetic joy. I am truly happy for people when they get what they have worked for. I am happy when luck appears to be on their side and they have won something. I am no longer jealous because someone I know drives a better car than me or lives in a better house or even appears to have a better life. I do have a problem with someone getting everything they say they wanted but then still not being fulfilled. I am slowly finding peace and happiness within myself but it is hard work.
Every day is a battle. Most days are spent fighting off apathy because the things that used to excite me just don't excite me anymore. I feel suffocated by it and the only thing that seems to alleviate it is finding joy in the simplicity of life. Sometimes I feel like I've lost my passion. I don't like to debate anymore. I don't like to party. I perfer small intimate groups to large ones and I don't like being the center of attention. I don't necessarily have an opinion about everything. These are all things that used to make me, well...me. So I feel a little lost and not quite sure where I fit in sometimes. So I am on a journey to find the spark that ignites the flames of an authentic, passionate life. It's fun and it's frustrating but I know that it will be worth it.
I read this a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. It resonates in my soul. Often I am asked, "tell me something exciting". I am then forced to search my brain for something I have done that would be considered exciting. More often than not I find nothing.
I find immense pleasure in couponing and meal planning. It is not exciting but it is necessary to keep me in my budget. I find immense pleasure in laundry and the immediate gratification its completion brings. Again...not exciting but necessary. I find pleasure in playing with my son or making my husband smile. Not exciting but completely necessary.
I spend a good deal of my time learning to be a better person. Getting back to who I am. I sit and I think a lot. I monitor my anger all the time. I don't do this because I am a better person, I do it because I will never be anyone else. I hate it when I wake up in a bad mood and take it out on my child, my husband, or a close friend. I don't wake up happy and refreshed but I do make a concious effort every day to watch my actions so that those I love don't suffer because of me.
It took me years to learn and practice with complete honesty the art of sympathetic joy. I am truly happy for people when they get what they have worked for. I am happy when luck appears to be on their side and they have won something. I am no longer jealous because someone I know drives a better car than me or lives in a better house or even appears to have a better life. I do have a problem with someone getting everything they say they wanted but then still not being fulfilled. I am slowly finding peace and happiness within myself but it is hard work.
Every day is a battle. Most days are spent fighting off apathy because the things that used to excite me just don't excite me anymore. I feel suffocated by it and the only thing that seems to alleviate it is finding joy in the simplicity of life. Sometimes I feel like I've lost my passion. I don't like to debate anymore. I don't like to party. I perfer small intimate groups to large ones and I don't like being the center of attention. I don't necessarily have an opinion about everything. These are all things that used to make me, well...me. So I feel a little lost and not quite sure where I fit in sometimes. So I am on a journey to find the spark that ignites the flames of an authentic, passionate life. It's fun and it's frustrating but I know that it will be worth it.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Pema
The following is an excerpt from Pema Chodron's book, The Wisdom of
No Escape:
When people start to meditate or work with any kind of spiritual
discipline, they often think they are going to improve. But
loving-kindness or maitri toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of
anything. The point is not to change ourselves. It's about befriending
who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever you
are right now, just as we are. The idea isn't to get rid of ego but
actually to begin to take an interest in ourselves, to investigate, and
be inquisitive about ourselves.
One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually
run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we
are. The magic is willing to be fully awake to that. You do all those
things for which you criticize people you don't like, all the people
you judge. Making friends with yourself is making friends with all those
people, too.
Sitting meditation, working, bathing, eating and other every day things
are all we need to be fully awake, fully alive, fully human. The body,
emotions, and mind that we have now are exactly what we need to be fully
human, fully awake, and fully alive.
Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic
goodness of what we have and who we are. Our wisdom is all mixed up
with our neuroses, therefore, it doesn't do any good to try to get rid
of our negative aspects, because in that process, we also get rid of our
basic wonderfulness.
No Escape:
When people start to meditate or work with any kind of spiritual
discipline, they often think they are going to improve. But
loving-kindness or maitri toward ourselves doesn't mean getting rid of
anything. The point is not to change ourselves. It's about befriending
who we are already. The ground of practice is you or me or whoever you
are right now, just as we are. The idea isn't to get rid of ego but
actually to begin to take an interest in ourselves, to investigate, and
be inquisitive about ourselves.
One of the main discoveries of meditation is seeing how we continually
run away from the present moment, how we avoid being here just as we
are. The magic is willing to be fully awake to that. You do all those
things for which you criticize people you don't like, all the people
you judge. Making friends with yourself is making friends with all those
people, too.
Sitting meditation, working, bathing, eating and other every day things
are all we need to be fully awake, fully alive, fully human. The body,
emotions, and mind that we have now are exactly what we need to be fully
human, fully awake, and fully alive.
Meditation is a process of lightening up, of trusting the basic
goodness of what we have and who we are. Our wisdom is all mixed up
with our neuroses, therefore, it doesn't do any good to try to get rid
of our negative aspects, because in that process, we also get rid of our
basic wonderfulness.
From my other online journal Nov 2005
So I've been thinking about some of the crazy things I did as a kid:
1) I grew up in the country so we had a HUGE backyard. My parents had beach sand hauled in so that we could have a sand pile to play in. My brother and I used to dig holes to China.
2) I climbed up on the clothes line pole one time (this pole is only about 5 ft tall) and I knocked the ladder over on my way up. I proceeded to sit up there for over an hour until I had the courage to jump down. My mom just stared out the window at me and told me that I had gotten myself up there so I had to get myself down.
3) I have always been the kind of person that likes to push the shiny red button. When I was about 4 years old I climbed under my dad's truck when he first got home and grabbed the shiny silver thing under there. Yes, I scalded my hand on the muffler.
4) Same truck...different day. I was playing gymnastics by jumping off the side of the truck and twirling on the way down. Well I judged wrong one time and ending up scraping my chin down the side of the truck. I still have the scar from that one.
5) We were eating foot long hot dogs one time and I choked. My dad had to give me the Heimlich maneuver and everything. Reason I choked? I was taking bites and swallowing them whole in an attempt to see just how big of a bite I could take w/o choking. That worked out well...
6) Every time my parents let me drive the riding lawnmower, I wrecked it. Now we have a 3 acre back yard and I still managed to run into things. I am no longer allowed to drive it.
7) I used to have a hobby horse. One of those ones that they definitely don't make anymore b/c it was suspended on a metal frame by 4 springs. I used to love to build up my momentum and get it going across the floor. I have broken more of these toys than I can remember.
8) I can remember sitting on the floor at the age of 3 watching Captain Kangaroo with a patch over one eye. I can also remember going in for eye surgery and going under the anesthesia.
9) My only fight was in fifth grade. I slapped a girl in the face with a baseball glove b/c she called me a fished eye fool. My guy friends then proceeded to hit her with baseball bats. We all had to spend the next week in detention copying the dictionary.
10) I used to love to fish with my dad. Still do. To this day I prefer to use a cane pole over a rod-n-reel b/c I like the simplicity of the cane pole. Makes me feel like Huckleberry Finn.
1) I grew up in the country so we had a HUGE backyard. My parents had beach sand hauled in so that we could have a sand pile to play in. My brother and I used to dig holes to China.
2) I climbed up on the clothes line pole one time (this pole is only about 5 ft tall) and I knocked the ladder over on my way up. I proceeded to sit up there for over an hour until I had the courage to jump down. My mom just stared out the window at me and told me that I had gotten myself up there so I had to get myself down.
3) I have always been the kind of person that likes to push the shiny red button. When I was about 4 years old I climbed under my dad's truck when he first got home and grabbed the shiny silver thing under there. Yes, I scalded my hand on the muffler.
4) Same truck...different day. I was playing gymnastics by jumping off the side of the truck and twirling on the way down. Well I judged wrong one time and ending up scraping my chin down the side of the truck. I still have the scar from that one.
5) We were eating foot long hot dogs one time and I choked. My dad had to give me the Heimlich maneuver and everything. Reason I choked? I was taking bites and swallowing them whole in an attempt to see just how big of a bite I could take w/o choking. That worked out well...
6) Every time my parents let me drive the riding lawnmower, I wrecked it. Now we have a 3 acre back yard and I still managed to run into things. I am no longer allowed to drive it.
7) I used to have a hobby horse. One of those ones that they definitely don't make anymore b/c it was suspended on a metal frame by 4 springs. I used to love to build up my momentum and get it going across the floor. I have broken more of these toys than I can remember.
8) I can remember sitting on the floor at the age of 3 watching Captain Kangaroo with a patch over one eye. I can also remember going in for eye surgery and going under the anesthesia.
9) My only fight was in fifth grade. I slapped a girl in the face with a baseball glove b/c she called me a fished eye fool. My guy friends then proceeded to hit her with baseball bats. We all had to spend the next week in detention copying the dictionary.
10) I used to love to fish with my dad. Still do. To this day I prefer to use a cane pole over a rod-n-reel b/c I like the simplicity of the cane pole. Makes me feel like Huckleberry Finn.
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