dailydatewithgod

In Victor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, he shares his poignant and profound insights on the power of meaning in our lives. I learned many years ago there is what happens and there is what we make it mean.  It is the meaning that we are connected to because it comes from within us.  We get to choose what we make things mean.  It is a little difficult of a concept to wrap your head around if you are used to seeing yourself as having no choices in your life or being the victim of circumstance.  I get it.  I was once there too.  This small little idea has had a profound affect on my life.  When I got into recovery, I began to take a closer look at the areas of my life where I felt powerless and at the mercy of people and circumstances.  When you are broken open and raw, its surprising the things you will do.  It was not completely outside my character however, as I have always been a lifelong learner and very curious about the how and why of things.  I just did not realize the mind-field I was sitting on when I was walking through life numbed out on food and trying to avoid feeling and being present in my body.  Both of those things were an essential tool for my survival and I am grateful I found something that worked. As an adult, however I came face to face with its limitations and they were built up around my heart and quite literally my body. God knew in my heart I wanted to live and love fully. God was always aware of the light of life that resides within me.  It was as though the spirit of truth within me would not give up.  So I experienced a massive breakdown and admitted defeat.  What seemed like the worst things to acknowledge, being addicted to food and an incest survivor, ended up being the very things that would open me to a world more fully alive.  So far, it has been messy path and a winding road I never thought I would travel.  It is certainly not one I ever imagined I would be grateful for, but I am.  A key ingredient is in paying attention to the meaning I create.  All kinds of things happen to all of us.  Yet, we have different experiences of them based on what we make those happenings mean. Once I understood in small ways how I could shift my perspective and ask God to help me know a deeper or different meaning, life was full of hope and wonder again.  As I apply it to all areas of my life I feel more free.  It is as though something deep within my heart has been restored.  Then again, that is just what I make it mean.

My prayer for us is the courage to look at the kinds of meanings we place on our experiences and be willing to change the meaning to something in alignment with love today.

We have a tendency to take personal credit for everything we think and do.  It makes sense if an idea comes to us and we take it into action.  The thought generated in our mind and the consequential action done by us are our responsibility.  The response to our actions whether positive or negative , is not our responsibility but we can own what we set in motion.  Yet that leaves an incomplete picture.  Even our original ideas are those which come through us.  We are a conglomeration of all our experiences and education.  We are constantly exposed to many influences.  We choose how to interpret all we experience and learn but it does not all come from us.  We are vessels through which life is meant to be lived in the fashion to which we are drawn and feel connected to.  God uses our presence to share information with each other and be the message of love.  To experience the vitality of life comes in allowing life to move through us.  We begin by being willing to receive the messages and ideas that come from all areas of life.  Then we digest them and assimilate those with which we connect deeply. Then from the connection deep within us we can share with others.  I have experienced the power of this life and love giving force when I dance.  Was it my idea when I was a child to take a class or watch a performance?  Wasn’t it me who attended all the classes, put in the rehearsal time, and signed up to perform?  Yes, it was me.  And yet, when I have felt most powerful as a dancer is when I let all of that go, connect to my heart and begin to move.  It is practically an orgasmic experience the way the energy moves through my body and I get completely lost in it.   I have had performances where afterward I felt utterly spent and in tears over the humility of knowing my body was just used in the most life-giving way to tell a story I could not tell on my own. It is not always so profound but I know in my heart that it changes me, it affects others ,as they have shared with me, and I do not choose when it occurs this way. When we allow our throughness to be our guide, we can accomplish things we cannot accomplish alone. It is not evading responsibility,it is actually taking the highest form of responsibility by owning what impacts us and what we do with it.

I used to fear making a mistake because I thought it meant I was a mistake.  I assumed that others judged me the same harsh way I judged myself and if I made an error it was a reflection of who I truly was as an individual. This drove some insane push for perfectionism when it came to speaking up and sharing my perspective.  I had to weigh every possible objection you might have or clear with myself every way I may be behaving in a way similar to a way that you were doing before I could say anything. I reached some moments in my life when I didn’t care and just spoke up.  There were also times when it slipped out and I could tell I caught people by surprise.  Only in recovery have I developed the muscle of making errors as a stepping stone to growth.  The errors in judgment or an idea I have is not the problem.  Of course, I am not going to get it right no matter how much I figure out ahead of time. What is important is my willingness to stay open to being corrected.  To get that when I am shown the error of my thinking, it is not a reflection on me.  It is not because I did not completely vet it out ahead of time or consider all the options.  It is not because I never know what the correct thing to do or say is.  It is not because I am an idiot.  It is where I was in the moment I was in with the information I had at the time.  The error is not a reflection of being an error-ed human being.  I learned it is important for me to know where I am in the moment in order to be open to a different way of thinking.  If I can never admit to myself or anyone else what I am thinking or feeling about a person, place or thing right now; how can I be shown another possibility?  Others will never get to know me and what I think and feel if I am always holding back.  I will lose out on the opportunity to be in relationship and grow along with others if I am so busy hiding my errors or my perceived errors.

I remember as a child being told I was too dramatic.  There have also been various periods in my life when I put concerted effort into becoming an actress.  I do enjoy performing and taking on a role but as I have grown closer in my relationship with God I realize that I most enjoy boldly being who I am.  For such a long time I played along and took on the role that I thought was expected of me. There was no space to be myself.  I see it as an act of boldness for us to fully engage in life as the person God has called us to be.  It is an act of boldness to act from who we are instead of going through life reacting to what others say and do.  At the end of the day it is the ultimate act of bravery to act from the truth of our hearts in all the situations of our lives.  It does not mean that it will never meet with others expectations, sometimes it will.  The difference is I no longer depend upon the approval of who I am from other people for my survival.  I spend more effort connecting with the boldness of my heart where I know God has placed the truth of who I am. The difference is I am willing to make mistakes along the road of living my life if I know I am doing so from the boldness of my own character. The daily discipline of showing up for my prayer and meditation date with God is where I receive the refueling of love and light needed to run the boldness of my character one day at a time.

Have you ever stopped to think about what kinds of entertainment you like?  Do you prefer visuals or sounds?  Do you like lots of color or stark contrasts?  When you notice what your mind spends time thinking about you begin to clue into what your brain considers to be entertainment. It seems like our world is all about entertaining. Yet the goal seems to be to keep us occupied and numbed out. So much so that when we are not being entertained we feel as though we are having less than an optimal experience.  We want our spouses to entertain us.  We want our phones to entertain us.  We want our teachers to entertain us.  We seek out entertaining rewards.  Novelty and excitement creates new connections in our brains.  This is a good thing.  However, in order for us to be with the breadth and depth of the entertaining experience we need time to digest it.  Today we are entertained at every corner. After a while it becomes distraction.  It dulls our sensitivity and we create an expectation that in order for something to be important at all, it must be entertaining.  We are left feeling as though the ordinary and the routine are sub-par experiences because we are not overly stimulated by them.  The greatest joke about life that I clued in on after many years of my daily dates with God is that when we make time in the ordinary silence and quiet contemplation where we are not looking to be entertained and strongly engaged, all of life can be entertaining.  I find great joy and a sense of excitement sometimes in watching how birds travel in flocks.  I am tickled pink by watching a child share an idea they just learned. All of life becomes entertaining on some level because the wonder is returned.  When I make space for the opposite of what the world throws at me as entertaining and attune myself to the sacredness of the simple pleasure of being able to be alive and breathe, I can be entertained by the ordinary.

The evidence of the power of words is all around us.  We see it when we look at our beliefs.  A belief is a repeated thought.  It is a thought we attach meaning to and continually go back to as a source of our sense of ourselves.  The tricky part comes when we have beliefs that we are not aware of and ones we have adopted but did not author ourselves.  When we begin to listen to what we say out loud and what we tell ourselves we get an inkling as to what we actually believe.  If you aren’t connecting with what I am saying the next time you say something you always say like, “I’m so busy.”   Pause for a minute and ask yourself some questions: Is it true? What does it mean to be so busy?  Are there other words you might use to more accurately describe what it is you are expressing to yourself or others?  There is a common collective belief in western culture that we sound important when we indicate we are busy.  People say it all the time.  But what does it mean?  Does it mean we are overwhelmed?  Does it mean we mismanage our time?  Does it mean we are important?  What does it mean if we were tell someone we were not that busy?  Notice what happens in our tone and posture when we switch the conversation to not being busy.  What does that mean?  The power of belief is only effective in our lives if we know what it is we believe.  If when you go to question your beliefs you balk at the question all together, it may be an indication that you have no idea why you say or do what you do.  God invites us to question what we believe, even about God.  What does that word mean?  Do we believe in God? What does that look like?  What do we believe because we believe in God?  Is it a belief in our head or our heart?  What kind of message does believing in God convey to other people about the kind of people we are?  If we keep repeating the thoughts and they become beliefs and we define ourselves by them.  This is why we push back when people challenge them.  It is not an easy process to pause and take a look, but God invites us to do with curiosity and compassion. As part of our date time over the years, God invited me to peek closely at some of the beliefs I held for a long time and never questioned.  God helped me to wonder, if I was not always at fault, what might it mean about me?  If I am not busy today, am I still okay in God’s eyes even if not in the eyes of others?  Those others, by the way, are probably too busy to notice how busy I am. 😉

I have never been what one would describe as the rugged type.  When I travel I like to stay in nice places that have all the little essentials so you don’t have to worry about bringing it all with you. It is nice to feel taken care of, not having to worry about making your bed , and getting added comfort.  While that is my default, I have also voluntarily opted to experience what one might call roughing it. Camping, hiking, canoeing, kayaking, mountain climbing, snorkeling, and the like. The kind of trips where you go without a shower for several days and carry your own pooper-scooper because there are no portable toilets.  My experience of the essentials is completely different in those situations.  I am extremely grateful for the whole gamut.  It has given me an inkling of how one uses terminology that we think is defined a specific way and yet with a different context makes no sense.  An essential in a hotel room would be a bed with soft pillows, while an essential in a tent is a sleeping bag or at least a blanket.  An essential in a hotel room is the hot water in the shower.  An essential while rock climbing in Joshua Tree is something to wipe the dust off your hands so you aren’t ingesting the dirt with your lunch.  There is however, enough of a similarity that we cannot call these essentials completely different.  God is constantly reminding us in all areas of life that where we see differences, there are similarities.  Where we see separateness there is no union. While we may not agree on the content we can agree on the process.  While we may not want the same things, are interests may be the same. If we change our focus to the essential similarities between ourselves and others, we open the door for our heart to guide our vision.  Our hearts send the blood throughout our body to keep it functioning as a whole.  While the gut or the brain might get more from time to time, it does not mean they are both not an essential part of our lives. Their ability to survive is dependent upon the same system of the heart.

We all have a song inside of us.  Perhaps that is why music is so powerful.  The rhythm and the beat connect with our hearts. We are all energy vibrating in a vast universe.  It has been scientifically proven that we have an energetic vibration emanating from our hearts that is shared with those around us. It is not just a bunch of woo-woo nonsense.  These vibrations extend past words and gestures.  It is shared in such a way that we are aware of it even when we do not see anything specifically happening. Think about the time you met someone and sensed a connection which made no sense since you had never met them before.  Or how you can describe what a room feels like when you walk into it or get out of it.  When we take the time to connect with the vibration of our energy in our hearts we become attuned to what we are amplifying outward and inward.  If we are in distress or anger we will amplify those energies.  If we are in appreciation and wonder we will be the amplification of gratitude and curiosity.  It is not about forcing ourselves out of one state or the other, it is about an awareness that the energy residing in our hearts gets amplified and those around us will experience it.  Of course, how they interpret that experience will depend on what is resonating and vibrating within their own hearts.  We can take responsibility for our amplification by being aware of it and not blaming or accusing others of causing it.  There is an expression, if you spot it, you got it.  The reason we notice or connect with the vibration being amplified from another is because we sense a similar amplification in ourselves or the capacity for it in our ourselves.  God encourages us to know the vibrating  energy within our hearts by engaging in a process of self-discovery with curiosity and compassion.  It is not about blame or shame.  It is a call to know and love all the energies vibrating in us and recognizing them as playing a part in the song of our lives.

My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice the energy being amplified from our hearts and how it affects our perspective of ourselves and others today.

As a kid I remember we would have leftovers for dinner sometimes.  It would happen after a celebratory meal or a big gathering. Did you ever notice that certain foods are better as leftovers? There was, of course, my favorite leftover pizza! Best breakfast food ever!  😉 We do not often think of what remains as being the better part of an experience.  When you have guests over, isn’t it the ones whom you know the best who remain and help clean up?  When we graduate, all that remains are memories in a big year book and the stories we tell about our time together.  After attending a sporting event or a performance of some kind what remains is our sharing of the experience with those there and others whom we tell.  No wonder our stories mean so much to us.  Our interpretation of what happens in our lives is what remains with us far after other elements fade away.  Our decisions about the impact of something or someone is what remains when it is over or they are gone.  God wants to remain with us always.  God is remaining in our hearts to help us interpret and be with the experiences of our lives.  God desires to always be the faint whisper reminding us that no matter what remains we can use it to make some thing new.  God is the very idea that remaining as close to what we can learn about love from any person or exchange is what will remain in our consciousness and create a vision through which to move forward.  Remaining in a space of love is what our hearts are designed to do, but I need God’s help with that.  My daily date is a space to ask God, help me see the remains of love and growth from love after all else has faded away today.

God is now. God is present. God is here. We seem to spend a lot of time focusing on there.  When do we get there?  Go over there. Are you there? Look under there. What’s in there? Who is there?  What will happen when we are there? And the expression, wherever you go there you are.  Perhaps we must go the path over there or look under there or get to there before we are ready to let go and be here.  When we are here, we no longer need to concern ourselves with what is over there or under there or where.  Being here is the only place we can be.  When we let go of needing or wanting to be there instead of here, there is much less to carry in word and being.  But it is not as the spiritual by-pass story would tell us:  just be here and be zen about it.  Sometimes, often times in my experience,  it takes going there and looking there to realize I am and always have been here.  With the patience and perspective of God we can travel over there and wonder what is there.  It is in the exploration of the there that we find here.  We do not know what we are seeking until we walk the path.  The beauty, magnificence, innocence, and simplicity of God teach us that when we connect there with our hearts we are here and always have been.

My prayer for us is the wonder to explore what is over there or under there and allow ourselves to be shown what God already knows, that whatever is there is here in our hearts today.