dailydatewithgod

Our presence in the world is a gift.  A gift from God to us and to others.  We are all gifts.  Even if we do not see it, God does.  Why would a loving being bother creating us if not for the purpose of delivering love to the world?  Unfortunately, experiences over time cause us to believe what the world delivers and expects us to deliver and we change our own story.  We measure ourselves by our physical outcomes and deliveries instead of the measurement of our heart’s delivery.  I know I tried really hard to deliver on being the person I thought I was supposed to be based on my circumstances.  I almost killed myself trying to do so because I thought I had to numb myself from the whispers of my heart to make it happen.  In the end I could not deliver on what I thought I was supposed to.  Shutting down my heart to make the delivery came at too great a cost.  Thankfully , I found a way back to my heart and began to discover what the love in my heart I had blocked off access to intended me to be delivering.  It is hard to let the world go a little quieter and tune ourselves into our hearts whispers.  Sometimes the world has to come crashing down around us for us to find our way.  In the rubble God is there to meet us and guide us back to our hearts. It does not matter how we attempt to get back to the message our heart is delivering as long as we keep making the attempt to do so.

In an attempt to be mindful about our experiences in life one of the first things to notice are the number of thoughts that run through our heads.  It is a non-stop barrage or a ticker-tape parade going on in the mind at all times.  Some mindfulness practices or meditation claim the absence of thought as the ultimate nirvana.  It could be, not sure I have gotten to that point yet.  However, for many who attempt a mindfulness or meditation practice, they think they are doing it wrong because they notice all the thoughts running through their head.  We all have to start somewhere.  We are often not aware of how many thoughts are present in our minds at any given time.  Taking a look can be a bit overwhelming at first.  But if we do not look, we cannot know what we are dealing with.  I have learned on my daily prayer and meditation dates with God that it is about being thoughtful about my thoughts.  My inclination when I am unaware of them is to believe all of them, to take them as truth because they are going through my mind.  Having thoughtfulness is about consciously choosing which thoughts are worth the energy to latch on to.  Thankfully I remember once in a while to not take myself so seriously and laugh at some of the thoughts that run through my mind.  Statistically speaking, there is no way they are all true or even real.  It is like the mind is trying to quantify its existence by coming up with thought after thought after thought.  With God’s help and remembering to pause and breathe I can take a closer look at choose to explore the thoughts that work for me.  Being thoughtful about fear is rarely helpful unless I am actually in some kind of danger.  Being thoughtful about hope works better.  The thoughtfulness our hearts calls us to are focusing on the thoughts that bring love every closer into the picture.  Thoughtfulness begins with ourselves and when we are able to latch on to the ones that work for us, we can extend thoughtfulness to others.

It can be hard to determine if we are struck by something simply because of the moment we are in or if it is something that always strikes us.  We can find ourselves vexed by similar situations but because the outside circumstances seem so different we do not make a connection.  Then there are those times when we feel vexed by everything.  I am easily drawn to over-analyze everything.  It is part of my hyper vigilant nature and I am not alone in this characteristic.  In an effort to not find myself vexing over getting vexed by things and people who do not sit well with me in the moment, I came up with a strategy.  I call it my three-time rule and I use it for many different elements in my life.  If something happens once or twice I let it slide but if I find something vexing in my experience three times or more I take a closer look.  I begin to ask questions, why am I vexed by this?  God, is there some kind of message wrapped up in this irritation?  Is it possible to see the vexing from a different angle?  Am I vexed when it occurs after another experience in particular or does it vex me no matter when it happens?  Sometimes I need to vent my anger on paper or write one of my f-you letters that I do not send to get out the feelings that are triggered by the vexing.  Then I can engage the investigation with a clear mind and an open heart.  I can turn to God and ask, what is there to love about this vexing?  Is it possible to bring love and tolerance to this vexing situation?  My peace of mind and openness of heart is ultimately up to me.  No amount of vexing experiences can determine who I show up as in my life.  We can all choose to define ourselves by the vexing or the delights.  I need God’s help in remembering that the vexes can be delights in disguise when I see them through the lens of my heart.

According to A Course In Miracles, a miracle is a shift in perception.  It reminds me of what Victor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search For Meaning, ” the last of the human freedoms-to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” I know if I am seeing life through the lens of fear I do not see anything fruitful or worth living through.  I find my attitude tainted and despite my best efforts it is hard to see the forest through the trees.  It is in those moments when swapping my perspective for God’s is called for.  It is the moment when as Casting Crowns sings, “There is a place where fear has to face the God you know.”  I am asking God to swap my thinking with God’s.  It can be in big and small ways and at no moment does God resist providing the miraculous perspective.  It often does not come until I reach a moment of feeling I have lost control.  No matter what I do, I am not able to swap my perspective with another one.  A perspective which allows me to see the gift of life in the smallest ways making love visible again. I turn to God with an outstretched hand which God directs to my heart.  The swapping from fear to love begins with a new breath.  In the breath from my heart, my eyes begin to open to a new perspective where I am not in this alone and I begin to remember the miracle of love present all around me.

The world is going to wound us.  It is going to beat us up from time to time.  It is going to get muddy and messy.  But as the Buddhist, “Thich Nhat Hanh says, “No Mud, No Lotus.” Our inclination would be to insulate ourselves from the wounding, the beating, and the mud.  While our intentions are good when we go into heart protection mode we unintentionally shut out the healing, the victory, and the pure beauty present in the world.  Like most addicts, when I was active in my addiction, adding layers of insulation around my heart I was not thinking about the side effects other than the safety it would procure.  The irony, of course, is I never quite managed to insulate myself completely.  Because I am alive and my heart is pumping, I was still affected by the dark and light of life. The best I was able to accomplish through the insulation was numbing life’s experiences.  Just as I literally wore down my taste buds from all the sugar I was ingesting, I numbed my heart to feeling things completely in any direction.  The insulation I put in place was based on the premise of a child way of thinking it must be one or the other.  As someone in recovery,  I have learned how to be open to feeling whatever it is with needing the insulation.  Sometimes it means life hurts really bad. Sometimes it means experiencing an overflow of joy and excitement in my heart I can barely remember to breathe.  I have the courage to trust my heart today and a willingness to navigate without so much insulation.  I am not perfect and so sometimes I get creative about how I insulate my heart.  Those are the moments when I reach for God’s hand which encourages me to take a breath, put my attention on my heart, and be open to seeing the beauty of the mud being as beautiful as the lotus that grows from it.

As we go through life we acquire a lot of things: ideas, paperwork, people, experiences, beliefs, habits, and more.  As we go we cannot hold on to everything because we run out of room and or the energy to maintain all the accumulated elements. Thus begins the process as mirrored in nature of pruning and letting go.  Determining what to keep and what to let go requires reflection.  The ideal would be to keep only the components in alignment with who we have become and what matches the life we want to keep living.  Often without realizing it we keep things that we do not even know we have.  Some things we blindly took on because we did not stop to question its place in our lives. Our hearts invite us to pause and take a closer look at what is worth keeping.  What do we have the energy and courage to maintain?  A few elements may be static but most aspects of our lives require attention and maintenance.  The question of what is worth keeping is therefore about what we want to give attention to and maintain. What is worth the energy and engagement of our hearts to keep alive in our lives?

We think we all want smooth sailing all the time. Life would be easier if we didn’t have to face so many challenges or problems.  If we are honest with ourselves, however, we recognize that who we are  is shaped by the challenges we experience.  We are called to grow in all areas of our lives by the challenges we face.  We shape our understanding of the universe and find ourselves exploring avenues we may have not previously considered because of our challenges.  We meet people and form friendships with those we may have passed by without ever knowing because of our adverse experiences.  My greatest challenges have become my greater sources of freedom and happiness.  They have always started out as the thing I could not stand or the situation I did not want to be in or the thing I hoped would not happen.  If I were to look upon them solely with my head, I would never know the courage of my heart and the strength of my spirit.  I see the manifestation of God in myself and others because of the challenges we choose to face and overcome. When we are willing to walk into the challenges with the strength of our heart and light of our spirit we get to be carried by the power of love which always wins.

We tend to look at ourselves in a binary way.  All the good sides of ourselves versus the all the bad sides of ourselves.  The parts we like about us, the parts we dislike about us. Then we take it in comparison to others.  We see where we are efficient and others are deficient.  We see where we are successful and others fail and vice versa. Rarely, do we stop to take a look at the duality of each of those elements.  Within our good or bad sides are the flip sides. The opposing aspect of the good side of being a good listener can be seen from the flip side of not speaking up as quickly.  Being efficient in time keeping can make us deficient in flexibility.  We are not static beings.  Our good sides may hinder us in circumstances where we need the flip side to be present.  If we define ourselves solely by our efficient elements and try to hide our deficient side we are not embracing the whole of our being or the gift of the moment.  All the parts of ourselves are there for a reason.  We carry judgment about which is best to allow others to see and we judge others when their darker sides slip through.  At any given moment our deficiency may be the sign of something we need to address.  We will not know what we can learn about ourselves and others if we are too busy either ignoring or trying to hide them. Our hearts invite us to be in the moment we are in.  If we are demonstrating a deficiency (being cruel to others or ourselves, not managing our money well, being judgmental of others, or any other myriad of things we do often when we are out of reserves of the flip side) and see it as a defining element of ourselves instead of an experience in the moment we are in, we lose the gift it gives us.  I often notice the gifts of God from the heart are rarely packaged like some kind of Valentine’s Day surprise.  They are more like something wrapped in old newspapers or trash bags.  Our deficiencies provide indications of the current state of our heart.  We may not be aware of the presence of frustration in our lives until we see ourselves being impatient with ourselves, another person, or experience. Instead of labeling impatience as a deficiency of our being, we can use it as a call to get some additional support in dealing with our frustration.

When the rain is falling outside there is nothing more inviting than walking into a room radiating with heat and stillness.  It is a stark contrast to the whip of the wind and the droplets of cold water outside.  It reminds me of what it is like to sit and sip a warm cup of tea or wrap myself in a blanket.  The holiday season presents images of harbor from the harsh cold outdoors.  It is conveyed in the pictures of the fireplaces, sweaters, Santa hats, and holiday treats.  One hears it in the commercials and sees it in the stores.  The holiday season radiates the ideas of warmth and comfort.  I often wonder what it is like in the southern hemisphere around the holiday since their temperatures are warming up.  Paying attention to what we are radiating is more than just what we are wearing or doing.  It is about the state of our hearts.  The implication during the holiday season, no matter what celebrate specifically are the themes of gratitude and generosity.  It is as though we have acquired the understanding that if we are radiating generosity or gratitude we are likely to be the warmth that we crave from the cold harshness of everyday life.  Our hears know that is how it works all year round.  Radiating generosity not because it is what we are supposed to do but because of who we are enables us to be who we were created to be.  We do not need a holiday to do this but if it inspires it, all the better.

There are a lot of things that go on in our minds.  Most of which we are not even aware of.  The little we are cognizant of we choose to pay attention to or not. All my life I have heard that your memory goes as you get older.  I do remember when I reached a point where I had a harder time recalling information than I had before.  However, I do not think it has as much to do with the inability to remember as the added level of distractions that are occurring at the same time.  When we involve more than our minds in the process of awareness about something we will have an easy time recalling things.  The more our hearts and emotions are involved in an experience the more we will be able to recall it.  The same goes for experiences that resonate with information we have already learned and have a file on, so to speak.  It is also an element of humility to acknowledge that we are not recalling as much as we used to, especially for someone like me who has always prided herself on having a good memory.  There are countless things scientists are learning about how we ingest, digest, and recall information from our minds every day.  But regardless of what more information we learn about how our minds function, what if we start with the simplicity of the present moment? I find the more present I am in a situation, the better able I am at recalling it later.  The longer we live, the more outside and internal pulls for our attention away from the moment we will experience.  It makes sense we will not recall information as easily if we were not fully there to take it in.  God within our hearts invites us to be present in the moments we are in. Be where our physical head and heart are right now.  Then whether or not we recall it will matter little because we are there to fully experience it as it is happening.