Undivided Wisdom

The other day I came to the realization that if there are 6 billion people on the planet, there are 6 billion worlds here. And that’s not counting the worlds that are snail worlds, and eagle worlds, and amoeba worlds and beetle worlds and bear worlds and salmon worlds and……..

What does your world look like?

Compassion is connection, and vise versa. The words, though representing very different ideas, are interchangeable in their realization. If I feel connected to you, I find it easy to feel compassionate to your story. Fostering compassion builds a sense of connection. Fostering connection builds a sense of compassion.

One way to feel connected is to acknowledge likenesses, such as our humanity; the common attributes of people the world over.

A more challenging way, perhaps, to foster connection and therefore compassion, is to develop a neutral curiosity of differences as a way of knowing, a practice which allows you to discover those marvelous aspects of humanity that had you not explored, would have remained entirely invisible to you.

As above, so below; as within, so without… The seasons mirror our selves, infinite cycles of outward expression and inward contemplation.

Autumn is upon us. The seeds the earth has sown have come to harvest, and new seeds are sent upon the winds to find a resting place. Nurtured in the dark earth, these new seeds will one day find expression as the inevitable cycles continue.

We too reflect the cycles of the earth. We too nurture seeds of intent within ourselves and bring them to fruition in their time. Let us take a moment to acknowledge these cycles; it is meaningful to understand the rhythm of the earth and her seasons, the rhythm of ourselves and our seasons.

As summer ends, perhaps we feel ourselves calming down. Once again we come to the hearth, both outwardly and inwardly, to warm ourselves and move into quiet contemplation. The days grow shorter and the enfolding darkness becomes our new teacher. This is not the darkness of “good and evil”, but rather the enveloping darkness of the nourishing earth, the meaningful darkness within the cave of the bear, where he waits in his deep and sound meditation, calm, silent, nurtured from within.

Upon the winds of our own evolution we effortlessly send the seeds of our next intentions, those new ideas and internalized expectations seeded from our experiences of summer blossoming and expression. We nourish those seeds within our inner awareness. We send them out as prayer. We warm our hearts by the fire, celebrate holidays with friends and family, drink warm tea and chocolate. We too wait, nurturing ourselves with quiet contemplation, collecting the energy we will need for our manifestations as they present themselves in their time.

Let us welcome wholeheartedly this time of inward turning, bask in thankfulness, and smile.

I found the Heart of Courage in myself and this is what it said:

“I am the Heart of Courage. I will go into the world and I will love it fiercely.”

 ”I am the Heart of Courage. I greet everything I meet with Love; person, place, or thing, thought, action, emotion, inside of me or outside of me.”

Everytime I remember those statements, I breathe again. Let me tell you how to find the Heart of Courage:

First, you must nurture the love you have for yourself. The love you have for yourself becomes your love for the world, because you are the world. Be kind to yourself. You are a treasure and a gift. Yep.

The love and understanding and care and compassion you have for yourself becomes the love and understanding and care and compassion you have for the world. We are special, and so is everyone else. Look closely and you will see.

And, by our example, we will teach others the same self love that enables them to truly love in the world too. Now’s a good time to practice.

Interconnectedness is what is true beneath the sensation of separateness. It is the deeper truth, despite appearances.

Imagine that everything you need to know today, to be today, exists within you.

Today, imagine that you are not alone. In interconnectedness, the whole of humanity is ourselves. You are not alone.

Interconnectedness is family, think of everyone as a distant relative, a long lost connection. Think of everyone as having another piece of your story. That each person you may meet or ponder, shows you a little bit more about who you are. Who WE are.

Interconnectedness is knowing that what we do to others we do to ourselves.

Interconnectedness involves not only human beings, but the entire world of nature as well. What we do to nature we do to ourselves.

The mind may automatically go to the negative things we do,  but today, contemplate this: when we nurture others, we nurture ourselves. When we care for nature, we care for ourselves. Contemplate this. When we love others, we love ourselves. When we are open and curious (rather than conflicted) about other ways of thinking, we expand ourselves.

Again, in the contemplation of interconnectedness, we want to put our attention on the myriad gifts, the greatness of humanity, nature, and the universe. In giving these things our attention, we energize and enliven them. So you see how where we put our attention is important.

In coming to a sense of interconnectedness, suspend judgment, criticism and analysis. Simply notice. The gifts of interconnectedness lie not in finding fault, but in finding the strengths that you can see in others and call out of, or to, yourself.

In interconnectedness, the entire universe is what you see outside of yourself, but it is also within you, and can be known there.

Where we put our attention is important. What we put our attention on is energized and enlivened. The qualities of ourselves that we put our attention on are energized and enlivened in our world. The qualities of others that we put our attention on are energized and enlivened in the world that we share with them.

What qualities of yourself, other, and the world are you paying the most attention to? Know that where your attention goes, energy flows. Your attention is like an open circuit to a light bulb. Where your attention goes, those lights come on.

It is equally important that we don’t hide things in the dark. We simply acknowledge them and turn our attention elsewhere. In some circumstances, the elsewhere that we want to turn our attention to is the solution, rather than fussing, fighting, and focusing on the problem.

Today, be mindful of where your attention goes. Seek out those things that you would like to see flourish, and put your attention there.

“The reward of patience is patience.” ~~ St. Augustine, born 354

Patience is that ability to be still, to be watchful and mindful of the moment. Patience understands that each moment unfolds, and the solution unfolds as well.

Patience sometimes smiles, sometimes ponders, sometimes lives contentedly in the unknown.

Patience is peace. It is open, it is creative. It is attention to the task at hand. Patience isn’t found in the past or the future, it is found in this present moment.

Patience understands that each of us has our own way of thinking, and that in curiosity rather than conflict, we expand and grow, enhanced through our interconnectedness.

Patience understands an unfolding universe that is greater than ourselves. It understands nature and cycles that are inseparable from ourselves. It understands change is always afoot.

Yes, indeed, patience is its own reward.

We have a responsibility to ourselves and the world to grow and evolve, to call out our greater selves, and to approach our unique potential.

Don’t like the word responsibility? Does it trigger feelings of the world on your shoulders, shame, rebellion, regret, duty, resolve, martyrdom, stoicism, or sacrifice? Try it this way: Response Ability.

The ability to respond, rather than react, to any given situation can be learned. We have choice. And, like any habit we foster, the more we practice that choice, the more natural to ourselves it becomes.

The opposite of response ability is that knee jerk reaction to situations based on old habits that, when examined mindfully, don’t have a true bearing on the present moment. So, well, don’t be a jerk!

This idea of ‘self response ability’ is a synonym for self awareness, and gives us another angle from which to view its importance. By noticing what is arising in our thoughts and feelings in any given moment (self awareness), we momentarily step aside from them; we become the observer of what is arising, thus creating a gap in the thought stream. This gap, however subtle, becomes choice. And again, the more we practice, the easier and more natural it becomes. Better still, the benefits of this practice are so positive, they will prove to be self motivating.

In classical physics, the world is viewed as a mechanical universe subject to specific laws and becomes predictable under those laws. Now, however, science has a new emerging world view.

Discoveries in quantum physics were the beginning of this shift, exposing a universe much more mysterious and much less wholly subject to mechanical laws than had ever been previously imagined.

Now, with the addition of mind boggling breakthroughs in virtually all fields of science, breakthroughs that actually begin to interconnect these sciences, there is an essential change taking place in our basic understanding of ourselves and the universe we exist in. This puts us on the brink of shifting our perspective so dramatically that it has implications for every part of our world, scientific, social, political, medical, economic, and so on.

“What does this have to do with me?” you may ask.

Every human being is endowed with particular character strengths and virtues, our greater potential, that, given attention, becomes who we are.

Currently, the majority of us are coerced into looking at and thinking constantly about humanity’s lowest potential, a societal bias largely cultivated through the media that I call fear-pressure. The new view of reality encourages the opposite. By acknowledging and giving attention to our highest potential and enacting it in ourselves, we assist the future in that direction, and change the world one person at a time.

We all have reoccurring thoughts of all sorts that spring up in response to everyday occurrences. Our thoughts trigger feelings, and we are swept along by the continuous flow of thinking that fills our heads.

This flow of thoughts and the feelings that accompany them tend to be experienced as who we are, but, in reality, we are not our thoughts. Thoughts occur, but they are not who we are.

This may seem like a crazy thing to say. We are constantly identifying with our thoughts and feelings, and making claims, both private and public, that because we think this or that we are this or that.

But if you take time to notice, you can see that thoughts come and go, feelings come and go, never are they permanent. Many of our thoughts and feelings are contrary to each other, even in complete opposition. This is because the many, many different ways of thinking and feeling exist in us all the time, occurring in our heads one at a time.

So, what we notice is that we are not the thoughts, we are the thinker. Consider this for a moment. Who is noticing the thoughts?

Beliefs, and the thoughts that accompany them, can change. Patterns of thinking can change when we practice gratitude, for example. This is not us changing into a different person, but rather ourselves as the thinker creating varied experience on purpose by paying attention to what we are thinking.

It is important to mention that resisting thoughts is not helpful. Noticing thoughts is.

New Age lore has long touted the benefits of positive thinking, but none of us are immune to worry, bouts of negativity, or reasons for sadness. It is not necessary, or even a good idea to judge ourselves for thoughts that may be arising. What is helpful is to acknowledge our thoughts, and purposefully choose a perspective; we can gently reframe our experience.

Yesterday a client shared with me that she had noticed recently that she had reoccurring thoughts of worry. Understanding that she is not her thoughts but rather the thinker helped her to accept that worry was arising, but that calm, trust, and other sensibilities exist in her as well. She gently acknowledged and smiled on her worry like a patient mother soothes a child, while also inviting those equally valid perspectives of trust and calm into her experience. By lovingly acknowledging that worry exists, and acknowledging also that other ways of being do too, she raised and expanded her experience from the narrow place that worry alone occupied.

Thoughts and feelings are the human predicament, one that is filled with a great range of potential. Discover it!