One message

"Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'"
~Kahlil Gibran

I had a wonderful, somewhat unexpected experience last night. A friend of mine heard somewhat vaguely about a blessing being done by a woman from India who imparts divine energy. She didn't know anything else about it except when and where it would be held. It sounded interesting to me so I decided to go to it with her. The evening ended up being part of Sri Karunamayi's 2008 World Tour, the Spiritual Discourse and Darshan piece of her larger Bay Area program. Amma, as she is called, is considered to be an embodiment of the divine mother, with a large heart full of love for individuals and the world as a whole. She has many followers in India and around the world, revered for her loving presence and good works.

While I've always found Hinduism interesting--really, find me a religion or philosophy that's NOT interesting--I was always more attracted to the Taoist and Buddhist end of the Eastern religious spectrum. I've been introduced to small pieces of the faith throughout the years, even studying the Bhagavad Gita and using a mantra, but I've never been one of those people who felt incomplete without a guru or a trip to India. However, one of the things I love about being where I am on my path right now is that I really got to enjoy the experience last night, soak up all the good energy in the room, experience Amma's amazing presence, and not worry about what to call it or find a label for myself in the midst of it. I loved the chanting--my favorite being the Sri Sarasweti Mantra, I've been singing it half the morning--loved feeling the vibration of the sounds in my chest and body, loved how it deepened my connection to everyone else in the room, loved how I could feel the vibration even during the silent meditation. During some of the chants there was drumming, which set my soul on fire and made me want to move, to participate in the creation of its beautiful, soulful rhythm.

Amma spoke on and off throughout the evening, sharing her perspective on the world and our place in it. I couldn't always understand the words she was saying, but I always felt connected to her message. The more she spoke the more clear it became to me that she was speaking a truth I'd heard before, just with a slightly different perspective on it. She may be coming from the background of Sanātana Dharma and I may be coming from a patchwork quilt background that includes Christianity and Religious Science, but we are both pulling from the same well, connecting to the same sense of the divine. She spoke of our Oneness with the whole of life, and how to be at peace with that life. She spoke of our duty to be in the world but not of it, bringing our presence out into the world without getting sucked into its drama. She spoke of the importance of meditation, and how to find clues to the practice of meditation by looking out in nature. And she spoke of a deep, abiding love that fills her up and spreads out into the world through each person that allows it to, carrying with it the peace and joy that true love brings.

At the end of the evening, I got to take part in the blessing. Amma reached out and dabbed a mixture on my forehead as she murmured a few words, and I thanked her, looking deep in her eyes and soaking up her loving energy. I felt so light, so peaceful, and so grateful to have been part of the experience. I bet if you'd seen me at that moment, I would have been radiant, almost translucent. Slowly but surely, I'm sloughing off my labels, my personal dogma, my limiting beliefs. I am opening up to experiencing all of the wisdom and truth and power and love this universe has to offer. It's a wonderful ride. Namaste.

Photo: "Sri Lanka," originally uploaded by Steve Evans

(Yes, I know this is a picture of a Sri Lankan girl, which means not only is she from another country but there's a 70% chance she's Buddhist. However, it's such a beautiful, striking photo that I wanted to share it. No labels, remember?)

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Curiosity

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
~Walt Disney

I've got a bit of a chicken-and-egg dilemma here--what came first, my curiosity or my spirituality? Okay, dilemma may be a strong word, but I am, ahem, curious about this. I've been noticing my curiosity blossoming like mad in the past few months. The whole world just seems fascinating and I want to learn as much as possible. I mentioned this recent influx of curiosity earlier this week in a class I'm taking, and a woman responded that curiosity opens you to connection with the divine. So I got to thinking, have I always been curious? And at what point in my life did I become spiritual?

While I usually define "my spiritual path" as having begun approximately 17 years ago, by stricter definitions I have been spiritual my whole life. I was born into a Southern Baptist family and can remember experiencing deep faith as a very small child. I was in awe of the fire-and-brimstone pastor of my grandparents' Baptist church and would always become more devout when we went to visit. I don't have many memories of stereotypically girlie things like planning my wedding 25 years in advance, but I do remember lying on the bed flipping through the Old Testament of the Bible looking for good names for my future children (Rebekkah was always my favorite). I also remember an incredibly formative conversation I had with my mother on the way to church when I was about 8 or 9. I asked her how she knew God was real and she said that when she looks at a flower or at the way our bodies were built, she knows there was an intelligence at work in that process, a belief I still share with her today. So while spirituality and religiosity might have been entangled during that era, I would say my spirituality began when I was fairly young.

What's interesting to me is that I don't think I was a very curious kid. I would spend twenty minutes with my nose against the glass at Baskin Robbins trying to pick a flavor and then end up with vanilla (still my favorite to this day, especially the Breyers with the real vanilla beans in it). I didn't like to meet new people or do new things--I preferred the comfort of the familiar. I probably re-read as many books as I read new ones, which is probably why I've still never read as many of the classics as I would have liked.

I have to attribute the development of my curiosity to a person. I met my best friend Kirsten when we both moved to Connecticut around the beginning of fifth grade. Her parents had met during the Peace Corps and their whole family had an air of the bohemian compared to what I had grown up with. While I had been raised to have faith, Kirsten had been raised to ask questions. And boy, did her questions ever throw me for a loop! If God loves everyone unconditionally, why do you have to build fancy cathedrals for Him and dress up for Him? Wouldn't he love you just the same wearing jeans in a shack in the woods? Kirsten opened me up to a new way of looking at things, and really introduced me to the concept that we each have our own unique perspective on the universe.

The convergence of my spirituality and relatively newfound curiosity happened when I took the Confirmation class my freshman year of high school. Now involved in a Congregational church in Connecticut, we spent a year studying the Bible, moving our awareness of our faith from that of a child to that of an adult. I threw myself into the class, asking question after question, studying everything I could get my hands on. I finished the program, went through the act of Confirmation, and promptly dropped out of the church. What I'd discovered had really only opened my eyes, deepened my curiosity, and sent me out into the world like someone dying of thirst would seek water.

That is the place my curiosity finds me again now, at this stage of my life. Having recently left the spiritual community that was my home for many years, I find myself open to all the wonders the universe has to offer. I may land again one day and build a nest amongst a new group of seekers, but I hope I never stay in one place for too long. What I've rediscovered here is too precious to misplace again, and this life is just too darn short not to try to soak up as much as humanly possible. It's okay to savor old favorites--friends and books alike--but there is a whole world of new things out there for me to discover, and I know I'll love every minute of the process. Namaste.

Photo: "There must be a present for me in one of these bags!", originally uploaded by John Haslam

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Surrender

"The more you struggle to live, the less you live. Give up the notion that you must be sure of what you are doing. Instead, surrender to what is real within you, for that alone is sure. As stars high above earth, you are above everything distressing. But you must awaken to it. Wake up!"
~Baruch Spinoza

Surrender is a dirty word for many people. I've known folks who have been on the spiritual path for longer than I've been alive who still have great resistance to the concept of surrender. When you look at the primary definition on dictionary.com, it's really no wonder: to yield (something) to the possession or power of another; deliver up possession of on demand or under duress: to surrender the fort to the enemy; to surrender the stolen goods to the police. Even the definition that I'm using doesn't sound much better on the surface: to give (oneself) up to some influence, course, emotion, etc.: He surrendered himself to a life of hardship. There's great fear that surrendering means we'll have to give something up, or even just give up in general. But what does "giving up" really mean? To me, anyway, it means to stop trying. And boy oh boy, is there ever a lesson for me in that. There is great power in ceasing to try to do anything. It's like Yoda says: "Do or do not. There is no try." The more we try the less we do, not to mention the more we get frustrated.

One day last week I was working on some things having to do with my finances and I could feel myself getting anxious about it--never a good sign. As I was trying to shake off the anxiety, I had an image pop into my head of Liz Gilbert from Eat, Pray, Love, when she was lying on her bathroom floor crying and talking to God. This image was quickly followed by one from the movie Saved! where one of the Catholic schoolgirls is kneeling by her bed crying and praying wildly. I thought, well, I've never tried it--who knows, maybe it's exactly what I need to do. So I went into my living room and knelt down, going almost into Child's Pose with my forehead touching the floor. I just started talking out loud, expressing how I was feeling about money and where I was looking for resolution. Before I knew it, a flood of emotion came out and I started to cry, ultimately lying there with my head on my arms repeating, "I just need some help, I just need some help," over and over again. Suddenly, I felt this deep sense of calm and stillness come over me--I moved into a seated position and sat there for a few minutes breathing in my newfound peace. Before I could get up and go back to my work my phone rang--it was a friend who wanted to pay me to do some work for her. I burst out laughing and when I hung up I simply said, Thank you.

I've invested a lot of energy lately trying to surrender--what happened that day was that I actually surrendered. I gave up in the sense that I stopped trying to do anything. My intention was in place, but I was holding on to it so tightly there was no room for the Universe to provide. By letting go, by surrendering, I opened myself up to solutions I never could have forced into being. In the end, surrendering isn't about giving up anything--it's about moving yourself into alignment with Life so you can begin to accept all the good that Life has to offer. This process reminds me of the poem at the beginning of Wayne Dyer's Your Sacred Self:

Broken Dreams
author unknown

As children bring their broken toys
With tears for us to mend,
I brought my broken dream to God
Because He was my Friend.

But instead of leaving Him
In peace to work alone,
I hung around and tried to help
With ways that were my own.

At last I snatched them back and cried,
"How can You be so slow?"
"My child," He said, "what could I do?
You never let them go."

What are you holding on to? What are you ready to receive? Can you begin to see how you might surrender it to the Universe, thereby allowing it to come into fruition? Take the leap of faith with me this week--truly surrender whatever it you find yourself holding onto most tightly. Experience the deep peace that surrender brings, and see what shows up to support you. Namaste.

Photo: "Sweet Surrender," originally uploaded by What's in a name...

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A New Earth -- Role-Playing: The Many Faces of the Ego

Jenn's thoughts and learnings from the fourth week of A New Earth: The Oprah Web Event.

"There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don't live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance."
~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

As always, Eckhart Tolle's presence this week was very timely for me. I had lots of fresh material to work with as I was watching the podcast of last night's webinar today. I appreciate so much Eckhart's centered, grounded presence, and the natural way he is able to answer the questions as they come in. This week in particular I felt that Eckhart provided some helpful tools, for me anyway, in dealing with issues as they come up in the moment. I'd like to share a few of my favorites.

* Practicing the Presence. I always wanted to be like Brother Lawrence, practicing the Presence. What it used to mean to me was being aware of your connection to Source all of the time. I suppose this is what Eckhart experiences with his being fully in the present moment, being fully the awareness and the Presence instead of the ego. One caller asked about how to bring this more into our daily lives, into work and relationships and whatnot. Eckhart provided a handful of suggestions for consciously bringing Presence, beingness, awareness into your day, throughout the day, as a reminder of Who You Really Are--a form of practicing the Presence for the rest of us who are still in the process of awakening.

Eckhart suggests that you make sure you're bringing your spiritual practice out into the world with you. While all practice helps you ultimately become aware, it easier to focus on your awareness, your aliveness when you're at home alone than it is when you're, say, at work. Take a few moments throughout your day to just be. You might allow your phone to ring two extra times, breathing in and noticing the aliveness within you before answering the phone. Or put a flower on your desk by your computer, periodically turning away from what you're doing to appreciate the beauty and aliveness in the flower and feel its aliveness in you. Even one conscious breath, in and out, is a short meditation. There's no need to wait until you're home alone or until you feel you have plenty of time to meditate--you can bring it with you wherever you go.

* The awareness gap. I've heard many people over the years, myself included, be frustrated when they don't find themselves applying their awareness enough in advance to avoid falling into an old pattern they thought they'd already let go of. Eckhart reminded us that the first step is awareness in any form. If you find yourself identifying with a role, behaving in ways that don't serve you, or any other form of falling into old patterns, the first step is to become aware of it, even if it is after the fact. As you become more and more aware of what you tend to do, the gap between the act and the awareness begins to shrink until you find yourself becoming aware of what is happening while you are doing it. And as you continue to practice awareness, you will get to a place where you can see where you are headed even before you get there. So have a little patience with yourself, celebrate your awareness whenever you are having it, and the gap will keep shrinking until one day it vanishes.

* Facing challenges. I don't know about you, but I definitely have areas of my life where it is easier to practice what I know and areas where I seem to keep tripping over my own feet. Eckhart says most people face one big challenge in their lives, whether it's an illness or a traumatic event or a person. When we come face to face with that challenge there are really two ways we can react to it: 1) we can fall into our old patterns, our old ways of being--like if someone gets angry with you and you join them in their unconsciousness, getting angry back; or 2) we can allow the challenge to wake us up even more, becoming even more present and aware in the situation and taking steps to disconnect from the ego's desire to react and just be. We can rail against a situation or we can surrender to it and go with the flow. We can get sucked into someone's drama or we can just be with them and provide them a space to get it out of their system. One of Eckhart's suggestions that I just loved was to pretend that you are transparent and just let whatever it is pass through you. He recommended practicing with a loud noise like a jackhammer, feeling the noise but allowing it to pass through, without reaction, without irritation. The more we practice with those smaller challenges, the more we can see the gifts in the bigger challenges and rise to the occasion.

* Guardians of being. Anyone who knows me knows how much of an animal person I am, and a cat person in particular. A caller asked about why it is that she always seems to be more present when she is with her dog. Eckhart spoke about pets (cats and dogs in particular) generally being more present than we are. I personally think it has to do with the way their memories are structured, but if you watch an animal, you can see that they are completely invested in the moment, fully present wherever they are. Right now my cat Morgan is cleaning herself in a sunny spot -- she is completely focused on the task at hand, so much so that usually she only cleans one paw, like there aren't three others for her to think about. Our pets become "guardians of being" when they bring that beingness to us. I think part of it is that as we engage with them we become fully present really in whatever it is that they are doing. But I also think that they elevate the level of beingness in the space, and when we occupy the space with them, we join them in that beingness. I didn't really need another excuse to love having cats more, but it is always a good for me to remember the special spirits they are.

* Focus brings success. Perhaps my favorite part of the webinar was when Eckhart was clearing up a misconception from last week. A lot of people had come away with the idea that there's no room for planning and ambition in the Now, and they wanted to know how you can still have a life of passion. He spoke about how much greater the passion and joy are when you stay in the present moment, when you stay focused on what you are doing now. The more you focus on where you want to get to, the more your passion degenerates into stress. Make plans, set intentions, have dreams, but then live each moment as it comes. Everything in life requires steps to get there, however the delusion is in the idea that the fulfillment somehow only exists in the future. As we've talked about before, life is a journey not a destination. Enjoy the ride.

Eckhart told a story from a Zen master that I think applies well to all of life. The gist was that if the archer focuses on winning, he steps out of the present moment and his need to win drains him of his power, keeping him from being able to hit the target. Mastery comes from being in the moment. Live each moment as it comes, experience the energy that moment contains, then let it go and move onto the next, experiencing it with just as much focus as the last. This is the path to true success, to true enjoyment of life, to true passion, to living life fully. Namaste.

Photo: "Masked figures," originally uploaded by Frank K.

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Everett Ruess Quote

I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one's true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?

~Everett Ruess

Connecting through nature

I had a wonderful weekend. Interestingly, however, I was all over the map emotionally, a regular roller coaster ride experiencing everything from being on top of the world to feeling smothered by doubt and fear. So how is that I can call it a wonderful weekend and feel so optimistic this morning? Because I spent so much time in nature, soaking up the beauty of the world around me and reveling in its glory.

Nature for me is a direct connection to the divine. It definitely helps that it was a beautiful weekend--70's and sunny--and that we had so much rain this winter. Everything is still so green, so full of life--I just opened the blinds and looked out over the valley beneath my apartment and it took my breath away. However I can find the divine in a gray and rainy day as well. What's important is that I make sure I get outside, go for a walk, pay attention to the landscape and how the seasons shift it, see what is blossoming and what is waning, smell the fragrances of the flowers, notice the quality of the air.

On Saturday, we went up to Mount Diablo for the first time. Now that I've seen its beauty, I can't believe I've never taken the time to experience it before. You can see most of the Bay Area from its peak, and its foothills are spectacular. Seeing it in all its green splendor this weekend brought to mind my mental image of what Ireland must look like. On Sunday, I took a walk through local neighborhoods and had a similar experience of the beauty around me. Walking along residential streets is a much more up-close-and-personal view, but all of the blossoming trees and flowering gardens still played their part in helping me feel connected.

Being in nature makes me come alive, increases my sensitivity to my own sense of vibrancy, of vitality. When I touch the earth I can feel its energy, feel it connecting to my own energy and providing its strength to support me. I have this fantasy of becoming a gardener, of putting my hands in the soil and taking care of plants and helping them grow. My brown thumb suggests that might not be wise, but I yearn for that direct connection with the earth. That might be why I enjoy camping so much--even when I'm sleeping on rocks and roots I wake up with a surprising amount of energy quite likely because I've been soaking it up from the ground. I have this childlike desire to go rolling down the side of a hill, and maybe I will.

What makes you come alive? What steps can you take this week to embrace that vitality, regardless of what is happening in the world around you, regardless of how you are feeling? Join with me in a quest for the divine, a quest for connection. Take some time this week to walk with your feet touching the earth. Bend down and smell a flower as it blooms, touch the grass as it reaches for the light. Notice the beauty around you whether it's gray or sunny, whether there's still snow on the ground or the world is blossoming around you. Feel the energy of the earth and let it strengthen you, let it feed you, let it ground you. Namaste.

Photo: "Sun over Pine Ridge in Mount Diablo State Park," originally uploaded by Miguel Vieira

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Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow
because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second
to be a bud on a spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,
learning to singin my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
in order to fear and to hope,
the rhythm of my heart is the birth and
death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing in the
surface of the river,
and I am the bird which, when spring comes,
arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the
clear water of a pond,
and I am also the grass-snake who,
approaching in silence,
feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks,
and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly
weapons to Uganda.

I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee
on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean after
being raped by a sea pirate,
and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with
plenty of power in my hand,
and I am the man who has to pay his
"debt of blood" to my people,
dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is likes pring, so warm it makes
flowers bloom in all walks of life.
My pain is like a river of tears, so full it
fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughs
at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart can be left open,
the door of compassion.

~Thich Nhat Hanh, from Earth Prayers

Photo: "Peacock Butterfly in the morning," originally uploaded by Hans-Peter

Spring has sprung

The first day of spring is one of my favorite days of the year. Every season is my favorite until the next season comes, but I love watching the days lengthen and the feeling that the world is waking up from its winter slumbers. Today I feel such deep gratitude for the path I find myself on, for the blossoming that is taking place inside of me, for the beauty that is showing up in my life and the world around me. There is an incredibly bubbling of ideas and opportunities happening for me right now, which just feels so timely with the advent of spring. I want to celebrate, to dance and sing, to be silly and playful and, well, me--yet another thing to be grateful for!

While working on a project this morning, I stumbled across some fun blog posts talking about spring. I had lots of fun and learned so much from some of the posts I found that I wanted to share them with you. Consider this Jenn's ode to spring, ending with a lovely poem from the wonderful Risking Everything collection.

For anyone who is curious about how the vernal equinox works and why we are celebrating the first day of spring on March 20th this year, I give you the farmers' almanac:
http://www.farmersalmanac.com/weather_chatter/?p=163

For the Irish, spring began over six weeks ago:
http://pandapeters.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/the-20th-of-march-the-49th-day-of-spring/

Spring on the farm means a new season of growing potential:
http://straightfromthefarm.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/spring-events/

I loved this celebration of rebirth and renewal by a self-described eclectic Wiccan. Now where'd I put that Chia Pet?
http://violetsun.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/springtime-magick-planting-runes/

Curious about what happened on this day in history? And hey, happy anniversary, Legoland!
http://lifetussle.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/happy-first-day-of-spring/

Welcoming spring means celebrating a happy new years for the Persians:
http://rielworld.com/2008/03/20/spring-and-the-persian-new-year/

And finally, some lovely photography celebrating spring and the Persian new year:
http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/08/03/20/

i thank You
by e.e. cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Photo: "Believe in the Spring!" originally uploaded by Hamed Saber

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Count Your Money

I did my taxes today. It was an interesting experience in staying present, in accepting the situation without negativity or fear. I'd been expecting a sizable refund since I didn't work in the fourth quarter last year, but it turned out we owe money because not enough was being withheld from my husband's checks. I turned to my book The Wealthy Spirit for a little inspiration and was reminded of a great budgeting method Chellie Campbell includes. I put together my own versions of the Low, Medium, and High budgets she describes and I already feel better about my finances. I'd like to share her wisdom with you here today--maybe you'll find it as useful as I did!

Count Your Money
Day 18 of The Wealthy Spirit by Chellie Campbell

"A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments."
~Samuel Johnson

To achieve success, you must think positive and send out ships. But if you want to achieve financial success, you have to add the third step: count your money. Keeping track of how much you're making, how much you're spending, and how much you're saving will tell you how effectively you're doing the first two steps. In other words, budget.

I suggest that everyone should have not just one, but three budgets, all with complicated names: Low, Medium, and High. You start with Medium Budget, which is the average income and expenses that you have right now. Then you create Low Budget--this is your bare-bones plan to reduce expenses if you have an unexpected financial problem such as a bill or reduction in income. Then create a High Budget--this is your goal budget, how you're going to spend the money you plan to make in the future. If you don't have a plan for how you are going to spend and save it, you won't have a reason to make it, or if you do, you might fritter it away on low priority items. These flex-budgets will give you a written plan to follow, no matter what happens with your money. And each budget is only for one month.

People hate budgeting because they're afraid of Low Budget. They think that's the only budget there is and that they'll be stuck with it forever. Who'd want that? No wonder people don't do budgets. But Low Budget is never forever, it's just for now. Anyone can go on Low Budget for a month! And when you're on it, stay light-hearted about it and double up on your prosperity affirmations. Make it a game! See how much money you can avoid spending each day. Look for opportunities to trade or barter services. Clean out your home and have a garage sale. What work can you do part-time that would also bring in extra cash? What can you fix instead of buying new? Create new outfits to wear by mixing and matching separates in new ways. And each day you succeed in conserving your cash with creative ideas, congratulate yourself on your wisdom and money mastery.

The real fun is creating High Budget. This is your Prosperity Plan. Spend some time each day looking at it and feeling rich. What do you want to have and do when you're on High Budget? Go shopping and price-compare for the best values. (Just because you have a lot of money doesn't mean you have to spend it foolishly.) Get pictures and brochures of the things you really want and put them on your wall. Start a special savings plan for major purchases. Be specific: if you want a new car, what make, model, and color is it? What features and options does it have? Smile and feel the pleasure now as if you already owned it. Affirm your ability to create this abundance in your life. It won't be long before it shows up!

Today's Affirmation: "I spend money wisely and happily, blessing myself and others."

Photo: "money roll," originally uploaded by zack Mccarthy

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A New Earth -- The Core of Ego

Jenn's thoughts and learnings from the third week of A New Earth: The Oprah Web Event.

Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. . . . The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.
~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Another great week with the A New Earth web event based, of course, on another great chapter of the book A New Earth. I'm having a lot of fun with this process, especially knowing how widespread it is. Crossing the street to go to the theatre Sunday night, I overheard two women talking about the book and the webinars, women who probably wouldn't have come to this experience without Oprah's help. It totally feels like Oprah is inciting a revolution of consciousness, and I, for one, am happy to be a part of it!

As always, there is nothing new under the sun--Eckhart is simply providing a new perspective on spiritual teachings that have been available to us for millenia. There's just something about the way he does it, about his personal presence and his interplay with Oprah, that I'm finding truly inspirational and entirely practicable. I love taking this stuff out into the world each day and applying it in new ways and seeing what happens. Here are a few of the highlights from this week's class that I'm looking forward to playing with this week:

* Your true power lies in being yourself. This was the strongest message for me this week, even though it was a relatively small part of the class. Perhaps because someone like Oprah is involved in this process, the power of this concept becomes larger than life. As Oprah herself said, and Eckhart confirmed as well, Oprah's success has essentially been because of her ability to be herself on television. She spoke of her early career as an anchorwoman and how she would put on a persona when she was behind the desk, and how that broke down for her and she learned to be herself. Her show reaches so many viewers because people see her as genuine, as authentic, as someone they can relate to and talk to themselves. It calls to mind the idea that August Gold and so many others have talked about in terms of there being a place for you in this world and you are the only person who can fill it. You are unique, and when you show up fully as yourself, it's as if the universe recognizes an alignment and works to empower it even further.

* Change begins with you. There is only one person you can directly change and that is yourself. As much as we do not want those close to us to suffer, as much as we want to be able to help raise them out of their suffering, ultimately that responsibility is theirs. That's not to say that you cannot be there for them, support them, provide assistance to them, however the only person you can change in this situation is you. The best thing you can do for yourself, and ultimately for anyone, is to bring yourself into a place of awareness, of presence. Being present with your loved one, not wanting anything for them, just being conscious when you're with them, gives them a space in which they might be able to begin to heal. If you find your thoughts slipping into worry regularly, take time to get out of your mind and go into your body, feeling its aliveness, several times throughout the day. Worry itself is a condition of the ego--what is worry but thoughts chasing themselves around in a circle? It serves no purpose other than to pull you into the ego and keep you trapped in a place where it is difficult to stay present. Worry pretends to be necessary, but it doesn't actually have a useful purpose--becoming aware of this will help you to step back, detach from the worry, and help you to find the present moment, the only moment, the now.

* Complaining does not serve a purpose. Complaining, like worry, has no real purpose. It's a way of getting stuck in something that has happened in the past, but nothing comes of it. Complaining isn't usually intended to help correct a situation--it is more often a side effect of taking things personally and is tied up in the need to be right and make someone else wrong. When you bring someone else into the complaining, it's the ego's way of seeking validation and strengthening your position. Now, this does not mean that you cannot take action to bring about change in a situation. Eckhart's example from the second chapter was about what happens when the soup you ordered is served cold. If you pitch a fit and complain to your dinner companions and yell at the waiter making him wrong, then the ego has taken over. However, if you take the ego out of it, you can simply state what the situation is without negativity. You aren't making the waiter wrong, your ego is not invested in the outcome, you are just looking to rectify the situation and have a delicious meal. When your goal is to resolve a situation without blame, often things go much more smoothly--as the other people involved aren't being made to feel wrong, they aren't as likely to feel the need to make you wrong, reducing or eliminating the conflict.

* Consume mindfully. Someone called in about being aware of things she shouldn't do and doing them anyway, for example eating French fries or drinking too much. Eckhart spoke about how the ego lives in a constant state of "not enough," so it is always seeking things to fill itself up, like food or alcohol or things. The problem isn't the the consumption itself--the problem is in the overconsumption, going along with the ego's "more, more, more!" mentality. So don't ban yourself from eating French fries or drinking wine or having dessert, but bring mindfulness, awareness, consciousness into your consumption. When eating French fries, eat each one consciously, enjoying it, savoring every bite. Pay attention to your body as you go. It is likely that after a few French fries, your body will send signals letting you know it doesn't need any more, whether it's that you're not hungry any longer or they just aren't as pleasurable as they were when you started. The goal is to not pass this point from enjoyment into eating the French fries because they're there or because you're sad or whatnot. You can apply this to anything. When you're drinking a glass of wine, enjoy each sip until you reach the place where you've had enough. Savor each bite of tiramisu, but put your fork down after the last bite that truly feels pleasurable. The flavor and enjoyment is usually in the first couple of bites of anything. If you are truly present and listen to your body, you won't feel the need to overdo.

As always, it's about bringing more awareness into your daily life. This moment is the only one that is real, so notice it, experience it, be truly aware of it, then let it go and move on to the next one. It is literally a life-changing process, allowing you to awaken to your own magnificence. Have a little fun with it, and let me know how it goes! Namaste.

Photo: "Hypericum Chinense - Core," originally uploaded by Jun

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Hoover, we'll miss you

There is nothing quite like losing a pet. They are part of your family, offering unconditional love and showing you a way of life that is playful and carefree. They bring so much joy into our lives that we want them to live forever. Even after 13 years, I'm still grieving the loss of Dandelion, who was my best friend growing up, and I have occasional flutters of pre-grief for my girls, Gryphon and Morgan, and the other cats in my family, even though they should all have long lives still ahead of them.

Nothing quite prepared me for the news I got this morning that my grandparents' cat, Hoover, didn't make it through the night last night. I still think of him as an overgrown kitten--he was only a couple of years old and so feisty, so full of vim and vigor. My cousin had adopted him originally, and when work sent him to Hong Kong for a few months, Hoover got to have an extended vacation at Grandmama and Granddaddy's house. He became a member of the family during those months and never left. He loved the big windows in the dining room and living room--about as close to watching TV as kitties get--and spent much of his time up on his cat tree observing his domain. Although mostly he wanted to get outside and show those birds and squirrels who was the boss, he loved to watch them through the glass and fantasize...

Hoover was a playful kitty, and nothing that moved was safe. He slept with me the last time I was visiting, which was great for the first few hours. Unfortunately, my feet move when I sleep and Hoover just couldn't resist attacking them in the night. I also returned home with my hands a little worse for wear--Hoover loved to nibble on me when I played with him, or pet him, or tried to give him treats, or really do anything in his general direction. But Hoover was also a loving kitty, with a big rumbling purr and rough tongue that he used liberally to give himself (and me) baths.

While Hoover was never a lap cat, he was still a joy to have around. I know I will miss seeing him perched in the window the next time I get to visit my family in Georgia. And I know Grandmama and Granddaddy will miss him each and every day. Hoover, we are so glad for the joy you brought into our lives the past couple of years. We'll be thinking of you in kitty heaven, where I'm sure you're finally getting to play with those birds live and in person. Namaste.

Kabir quote

Look at you, you madman, screaming you are thirsty and are dying in a desert when all around you there is nothing but water!

~Kabir

Breathing in, breathing out

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment. ~Alan Watts

Hanging out with a good friend last week, she mentioned how much trouble she's been having relaxing during acupuncture. Her mind just keeps working, her thoughts keep coming up one after another such that she has trouble relaxing. I suspect we can all relate to this, a mind that doesn't slow down enough for us to relax. Of course, the more we try to make our thoughts dissipate, the more our thoughts crowd in. It's akin to the pink elephant experiment--when you're told not to think about a pink elephant, what's the first thing that happens? A pink elephant pops into your head. When you try not to think, it's like your mind is drowning in thoughts, they just keep flooding in and you can't escape them.

Meditation is the best way I know of to train your mind. When you first begin to practice, your thoughts may merely laugh at your attempts to slow them and keep on flowing, keep attempting to distract you. The more your practice, the more you build your "meditation muscle," the more you can use your meditation to slow down the flow. Actually, it isn't likely that your thoughts are really going away--what's more likely is that you're sinking deeper into depths of your mind where stillness resides. Imagine the disturbance of the water on the surface of a pond, how there are ripples and waves, leaves floating on it, birds taking their baths, and animals quenching their thirst. There's all this activity on the surface, however if you were able to get below the surface into the depths, you would find quiet, stillness, peace. That's the place meditation brings you in your mind--but like anything else in life, it takes training. So here are a few tips and exercises that you might find useful as you are getting started with meditation.

* There's no one right way to meditate. Now, I know people who will definitely disagree with me on this, but I come from the school of thought that says meditation is a personal experience. If you're worried about not being able to do it right or even wondering what "right" really is, don't. Relax, let go of all notions of "should," and you're already in a much better frame of mind to become a successful meditator. The goal is to practice being still in whatever ways work best for you. I've got a few suggestions that I've found useful to get you started, but I would recommend being open to any new ideas you have, books that you discover, people who you run into along the way. Even after you've found methods that work for you, exposure to new methods can help to round out your practice.

* Set your time in advance. Whether you choose to listen to music or simply to focus on your breath, you should know in advance how long you are going to sit. Especially when you are just learning meditation, you will want some sort of timer to help you know when your time is up. The mind plays tricks on you and in the beginning you will likely think you've been sitting there forever even if it's only been a few minutes. Take the wondering associated with it out of the equation by setting a timer for yourself or by choosing a guided meditation or song selection that last for the amount of time you are planning to meditate for. Start with something that feels manageable, like five minutes, and work your way up. My goal is to sit for 30 minutes each day, but I have a minimum I've set for myself of 15 minutes. Find something that feels good to you, something you feel like you can commit to, and make the time to do it daily.

* Breathing. One technique that works for me and can be done anytime, anywhere is to focus on your breath. Even if you only have five minutes in the morning, before a meeting, or between classes, you can find a place to sit, close your eyes, and pay attention to your breathing. Take a few deep breaths to start and relax your shoulders, your body. As you breathe in through your nose, feel the air as it crosses your nostrils. As you breathe out through your mouth, feel the air as it crosses your lips. Having that one thing to focus on might be enough for you, or you might want to repeat "Breathing in, breathing out" or even just "In, out" in your mind. If you find your attention wanders, don't worry about it or get frustrated with yourself, simply bring your attention back to your breath.

* Watch your thoughts. Another process that might work for you is to watch your thoughts. Take a step back into your awareness, become the observer, the one who is aware of the thinker. As thoughts come into your mind, don't react to them or create further thoughts around them. Just watch them, notice them, and let them go. The idea here is to practice non-judgment, to practice not following where the thoughts lead. You will always have thoughts, but you don't need to let them be in control.

* Focus on a mantra. While a mantra can be used at any point in the day to help bring your awareness back into the present moment, it can also be used to help focus your meditation. If you're interested in exploring this idea further, you might find Eknath Easwaran's book Meditation useful. While not exactly a mantra, his method of meditation is to drop the words from a prayer or spiritual poetry into your mind one at a time, almost like they are prayer beads. Elizabeth Gilbert also talks about the use of mantra in meditation in her book Eat, Pray, Love. The one that ended up working for her was Ham-sa, a Sanskrit word meaning "I Am That." Or you might try something like one of the guided meditations in Thich Nhat Hanh's The Blooming of a Lotus. The first one has always been my favorite:

1. Breathing in, I calm my body.
Breathing out, I smile.

2. Breathing in, I dwell in the present moment.
Breathing out, I know it is a wonderful moment.

The idea here is to give yourself words for your mind to play with, but not to go along with them. So the words fall through your mind and you let them fall, you do not follow where they go. If your mind wanders, bring your attention back to the mantra. If you're using a longer one, you can either repeat the line you were just on or start from the beginning.

* Listen to music or chants. When I first learned to meditate, I was taught a relatively strict way. And I struggled, and struggled, and struggled. My body would itch, my thoughts would wander constantly, I would think that my timer somehow hadn't been set properly and I'd sneak a peak at the clock to see if I'd really been sitting for as long as it felt like. My mind and ego won that battle more often than not, and I'd either get up before my time was up or I'd be antsy the whole time. It was a frustrating process, and as much as I knew the mind could play tricks on you, I couldn't seem to get over the idea that I was just awful at meditating, that somehow something was wrong with me. At what point did this frustration shift into the love affair with meditation that I have now? When I added listening to meditation music to the breathing technique mentioned above. For me, listening to something solved the superficial issues I was having and let me dip into the deeper parts of the well. The music gave the top layers of my mind something to listen to, the fact that the track was timed meant that if it was still playing I was still meditating, and a sense of peace developed in me that had been missing for over a decade in my meditation practice. Does that mean my thoughts never wander? No. But it means I'm operating from a place of peace and tolerance that enables me to be gentle, to shift my focus back on to my breath, to use the discipline that meditation has taught me. You can find all sorts of great meditation music online, in music stores, and on iTunes. The gong music on Music for Deep Meditation: Tibetan Singing Bowl is a great choice, although it may be long for beginners. However, any instrumental or new age music can be used. If you don't have any in your collection, Comcast's digital radio has a great channel called Soundscapes, and Narada has several collections available that I would recommend as good introductions to the genre.

* Use guided meditations. Many people I have known find guided meditations a useful place to begin. In my early days of meditating I found that they gave my mind too much to do, which made the wanderings more pronounced, but now that my meditation practice has developed I've found a few that bring me to a new level of awareness, including my current favorite, Kelly Howell's Awakening Kundalini. Check your local metaphysical bookstore--many of the authors writing today have come out with meditation CDs including Wayne Dyer, Joan Borysenko, and Louise Hay. Or, if you have a handheld recorder you can record your own voice taking you through a guided meditation as well.

* Meditate in a group. Group meditation is an excellent way to get started, or to continue your meditation practice. Find a class or meditation group near you--whether you begin attending regularly or just drop in occasionally, you will definite learn to feel the difference between meditating alone and in a group. Friday night I went to a talk at East-West, a local metaphysical bookstore, and at the end of one of the guided meditations the speaker commented on the power of the energy in the room. Having experienced meditators present had helped to elevate everyone there, enabling even beginning meditators to experience much deeper meditations than they would have had on their own. Plus, you will gain exposure to new meditation techniques that you may choose to incorporate into your personal meditations moving forward.

Whatever you choose to do to get started, remember to be gentle with yourself. The habit of a lifetime is not going to disappear in five minutes. However it will begin to slow down a little bit with each successive five minutes, ultimately reaching a place where you begin to see its results, to appreciate the shift that is taking place. Some day, whether it's six months from now or six years from now or even 16 years from now, you will be able to look back on this beginning and smile. So go ahead, start today. Take five minutes right now to relax, let go, and use one of these techniques to begin your meditation journey. The sooner you begin, the sooner you will reap the benefits. Namaste.

Photo: "Meditation Center," originally posted by Linda N.

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Friday smilez

see more crazy cat pics

Notes from Jenn's World

Just a quick check-in about a few things going on in my world.

Gratitude in recovery

After almost a week, I am finally back to feeling myself. While I am relieved to have most of the nausea and dizziness gone, I do hope to hold on to the sense of presence I have felt throughout this experience. Driving home from running errands today, I could feel how much more in the moment I was, feeling the steering wheel and stick shift in my fingers, the amount of resistance in the pedals, the sun on my face. I smiled the whole way, recognizing the gift of the present moment and grateful for being able to have the experience feeling fully myself, fully in my body. It has been such a gift!

Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

I may not have been able to train this past week, but donations have still been coming in, reminding me of everyone's tremendous support. I am up to $1184 at this point, which is approximately one-third of my personal goal for this event. I cannot express enough gratitude for everyone's donations so far. The process has been a great reminder of the infinite abundance of the universe and the generosity of my friends and family. Thank you all!

Caroline Reynolds on Good Morning America

My mentor Caroline Reynolds was recently on Good Morning America talking about her book Spiritual Fitness. It's a terrific interview--click here to view it--and an even better book! I am in the process of planning an 8-week class based on the program outlined in Spiritual Fitness. If you live in the Bay Area and are interested in participating, I'd love to hear from you. I am ironing out the details and should be ready to publish them soon, but if you have a preference for when and where the class is held definitely let me know soon.

What's happening in your world? Anything new that you're exploring? Do you have any synchronicity to share? Any events coming up on your horizon that you're excited about? Please share!

Buoyancy

Love can make up for a great many things that are missing in your life. But, if you don't have love, no matter what else you have, it is never enough.
~Ann Landers

I had a wonderful, heart-opening experience last night. A group of friends from my former spiritual community got together for dinner. I felt completely buoyant at the end, uplifted by the power of love in all of its forms. I love rekindling my sense of community, reconnecting with old friends who better understand this path that I am on. It feels better than good--it feels necessary.

Riding this wave of love, I pulled out my new book this morning: Ten Poems to Open Your Heart, by Roger Housden. Not only does he have unfaltering taste in poetry that moves and awakens you, his commentary is powerful and enlightening. I picked this up as part of my own heart opening process and loved rediscovering this gem of Rumi's. Rumi writes some of the most beautiful love poetry in the world, perhaps because it is to that divinity within and around us. I will leave you to the simple power of his words. Namaste.

Buoyancy
by Rumi (translated by Coleman Barks)

Love has taken away my practices
And filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,
No strength but yours,
But I couldn't.

I had to clap and sing.
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,
but who can stand in this strong wind
and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,
and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence.

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man
squatting on the road.

But whoever sees your emptiness
sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides, like Mohammed, or Jesus,
moving through a crowd in a city
where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where!
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have. It's a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?
It doesn't matter how long we've been unconscious.

We're groggy, but let the guilt go.
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.

Photo: "you find love in the most unexpected places," originally uploaded by Alex

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Slowing down

I believe there is a gift in everything. As August Gold says, what happens to us is really happening for us. While I am still recovering from the concussion I received this weekend, I'm so grateful to have been able to see the gift in this experience. Now, I'm not saying that every moment has felt like a gift--someday I'd love to reach that level of presence--but when I take a step back and look at the big picture, I'm definitely more on the grateful side than not.

One of the biggest things I've gotten from this experience is the gift of slowing down. I am almost always busy, which often means I'm multitasking. The last few days I've been nearly incapable of focusing on anything other than what's right in front of me, so I'm having to do things one at a time. And since my thoughts aren't cooperating with me by moving at their usual speed, I'm also having to do everything more slowly. I love the picture above because it reminds me of how I've been feeling lately. I might have been practicing mindfulness last week, but I've been living mindfulness this week.

Here are some examples of other gifts I've received:

* My presence is a gift. At the hospital on Saturday, I was conscious of the pain and suffering around me, but also the love and caring. I chose to build upon that energy and add my own healing energy into the mix. I closed my eyes and practiced conscious breathing, pulling positive, life force energy from Source into my body through the top of my head (or crown chakra) and sending it out into the hospital through the middle of my chest (or heart chakra). Then I reversed the flow, pulling all of the suffering I sensed out of the hospital and sending it back up into Source. It was a variation on a Ram Dass mediation I used to have on tape that I've always loved. It made me realize that my presence in the hospital that day was a gift to those around me, and it gave me something other than how I was feeling to focus on--a win-win situation!

* Surrender to the experience. I'm not always capable of focusing on something other than how I'm feeling. Sometimes the nausea or dizziness is just too great and I get caught up in it. Other times, I am incredibly aware of all of the sensations in my body. It's like I'm overly sensitive or something, so every time I turn my head it's almost like I can feel the different signals being sent throughout my nervous system. When I resist the experience by attempting to fight it or ignore it, it just gets worse, probably because I'm adding a level of anxiety or annoyance to it. It leaves me feeling frustrated, heavy, and sad. When I surrender to it, I become fully present in my body, in my breath, in this moment. I can feel the aliveness of my body and for a moment, there is no past or future, there truly is only now. It's like I'm falling into an ecstatic trance where I notice everything that is happening or that I'm feeling in that moment. It leaves me feeling light, peaceful, and connected, a welcome change of pace for sure.

* Remove your head from the sand. There's nothing like an illness or injury to send me scurrying for my shovel so I can be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand. I tell myself ignoring and avoiding will make me feel better than dealing with things, which as we know is never true. At least this time I buried myself shallowly so I could pull myself out from time to time and take care of the business at hand. I've kept the apartment clean, I've taken care of some paperwork for my freelance gig and for my insurance company, and I even managed to call the doctor this morning for the follow up recommended by the hospital. The result? I feel organized, capable, on top of things, and I'm much more aware of the fact that I am getting better each day as my daily tasks get a little easier each day.

* Ask and ye shall receive (especially when it comes to help). Oh wow, is this one ever a biggie for me. I grew up believing that I needed to be strong and independent, which meant I needed to take care of everything for myself. Help was for the weak. I've been slowly releasing this concept over the past decade, but it's like a dandelion with deep roots and lots of scattered seeds. This experience has helped me to uproot it a little bit as I've been forced to call upon my husband and other friends for help. And everyone has been wonderful and supportive, of course. My friend Melanie wrote a guest post for my blog on Monday when I wasn't feeling like I could string words together to form full and complete sentences. My friend Beth is picking me up in a couple of hours to take me to a reunion dinner we are going to tonight. My husband has pitched in wherever he could, from helping with breakfast and dinner preparation to picking up around the house to running errands for me after work. And that doesn't even touch on all the long-distance love, support, and prayers that have come down the pipeline. When you ask for help, you get to experience all the love that is always present in life, sometimes even from unexpected sources.

What this all amounts to me is "Stay Fully Present," a lesson I've been attempting to learn for years. That's the funny thing about the way the universe works--sometimes you have to literally be hit over the head with it before you finally get it. Keep your fingers crossed the effects are long-lasting this time. Namaste.

Photo: "Slow The World Down," originally uploaded by Taro Taylor

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A New Earth -- Ego: The Current State of Humanity

Jenn's thoughts and learnings from the second week of A New Earth: The Oprah Web Event.

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at this moment.
~Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

I have been absolutely loving Eckhart Tolle's presence in the weekly A New Earth webinar. He is so gentle, aware, on message even when Oprah is dancing about. I'm finding him absolutely inspirational. This chapter is a really great introduction to the concept of disconnecting from ego, and is definitely the reminder I need right now. Thank you life for providing it for my evolution!

Eckhart's short definition of ego is that it is a false sense of self based on mental concepts, i.e. thoughts. The truth of Who You Really Are is the formless awareness that is at the back of all of your thoughts. When you think about "who I am" the ego is the "I" that thinks of itself as "me and my story," but the true "I" is the awareness, the observer.

I had quite a few Aha! moments surrounding this idea while watching him speak. What I was most struck by was about the strength of the ego. We tend to think of someone with a strong ego as someone with an overinflated sense of self, someone who thinks very highly of herself. So typically it would be someone who is very caught up in being beautiful, smart, sexy, popular, successful, wealthy, etc. The thing is that ego strength isn't about the qualities that the individual is identifying with, it's about how much she is identifying with them. So someone who thinks of herself as being miserable, unhappy, sick, broke, traumatized, etc. can have an equally strong ego (or more so) if that is how she is choosing to define herself. Do you know anyone who has told you their same story many times, all about how they were abused or mistreated, how hard life is, how much they've always had the short end of the stick? That person's ego is strong because their identification with their story is so strong.

But your story is just your story. It is not Who You Really Are. Your ego is incredibly invested in you staying stuck in your story, keeping you in the smallness that that story creates. It cannot survive without its identification. In fact, often when you start to slough off the ego what happens is that you identify with being special or enlightened or whatnot. This is just another place for the ego to grab onto and is a slippery slope for anyone seeking to uncover the truth of who they are.

Take a minute to think about all of the ways you define yourself. I am spiritual, a woman, a Scorpio, a Californian, a wife, a daughter, a perfectionist, a vegetarian, a renter, a former Project Manager, a former Practitioner, between jobs. But do any of these so-called definitions really get at the core of who I am? No. They have more to do with the choices I have made so far in life and with the roles I play. There is nothing wrong with making choices, having thoughts, fulfilling roles, having opinions--it's when we identify with them, define ourselves by them that we lose sight of the big picture of life. What do you do when something happens in your life that forces those definitions to shift, if you were to get laid off from your job, or your house were in the path of a natural disaster? Does that affect Who You Really Are? Again, no. Your selfness is still there at the core of your being. Nothing can take that away from you.

The more you can become aware of the ways you are identifying with your thoughts, your things, your roles, your beliefs, the more you can create a space around yourself, some literal breathing room. Because nothing helps you to see the real you, the observer, faster than just taking a deep breath, paying attention, pulling yourself into the present moment, becoming aware of the aliveness inside of you, your breath, your essence, your being. This is Who You Really Are. You are changeless, you are vibrant, you are beautiful and wonderful and magnificent. Bring your attention back here whenever you can, and you will not only find peace, but you will begin to embody that peace inside and out. Namaste.

Photo: "CHERRY BLOSSOMS," originally uploaded by Jun

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