dailydatewithgod

With so much breaking down of typically reliable systems, changes in how we operate as a culture, and facing uncertainty on a collective level it seems ridiculous to think about flourishing.  Our minds want us to be on the lookout for the next possible destruction or dissolution of ideas, people, practices, or institutions.  Our brains are wired to make sure we are aware so we can survive them. Our hearts have greater confidence in our survival because it is our heart that knows it is more than a body.  It is our heart that trusts us to be a part of the fullness of life which does not end when it stops beating.  Our hearts are connected to all that is and will always be.  It is as though our hearts have the internal awareness that energy is neither created nor destroyed. In this space, our hearts remind our eyes to see elements of flourishing.  The flourishing taking place both right under our noses and beyond what our minds narrow our focus towards. God invites us to notice the flourishing forms of life happening in and around us that provide a new breath of energy.  It is what we will need on the days when we cannot see any of it.  Flourishing is something we can internalize in such a way that it will enable us to call upon it within when we have no way of seeing it outside of us.

It may seem often that the road between our hearts and our minds is a long and windy one.  The mind speaks loudly, often, and at every open and closed moment. Our heart speaks softly, simply, in a language not measured by words and letters, and sometimes not until directly consulted.  The good news is with practice we can strengthen the connection and create a level of cooperation.  On my daily dates with God, I have learned many tools at the base of which is utilizing my physiology to jump-start the connection between my mind and my heart.  My breath is the fastest tool I have to get me right into the moment where I can assess if my heart and mind are on the same wavelength.  This moment becomes the belvedere upon which I create a new lens for life. When our hearts and minds are in alignment or at least attempting to be within the same self at the same time, we see differently.  We see wholly.  We see what a belvedere is designed to provide us an outlook to.  And this is only one method to get to the desired scene.  Because God creates unlimited possibilities and avenues, there is more than one belvedere to bring ourselves into alignment.  The process of discovering our belvederes is part of what makes us come alive and grow. When we connect to what those belvederes are for us they in turn create a belvedere within us.

One thing my daily dates with God have taught me is to tend to my realm.  It may sound fanciful or that I am pretending I am some sort of queen, but we all have a realm.  We are gifted with so much in the very being of who we are and it requires our attention and needs a benevolent ruler. There are certain elements that the world will tell us are more important than others.  But just like a ruler of a queendom, if one area of the realm is neglected it will fall into disarray, create a lack of coherence, suffer from neglect, negatively impact other areas of the realm, and or cause the ruler to be less effective in the areas of the realm that are tended to.  We may be excellent at ruling our physical realm, but do a poor job of ruling our emotional realm.  The same goes for our mental, spiritual, energetic, and so on.  We can give them whatever names we like but the reality there is much involved with being responsible for a realm.  Then, add to it when we decided to but our nose into how other people rule their realms or worse yet, take them over. We cannot give what we do not have. We can assist others in their rule, but it is advisable to keep our own realm in order first. God encourages us to explore and discover the intricacies of the realm of our being.  Perhaps there are abandoned stones and landscapes that are calling out for our attention. All of who we are deserve the royal attention so we can rule with power, confidence, courage, and be the beacon of light and love we are designed to be.

Many people, including myself at times, shudder just looking at the word confrontation.  Who wants that? It means conflict, doesn’t it?  Not exactly. The definition in layman’s terms is from the idea of two opposite things facing each other. It sounds very socially correct to say that we do not like confrontation.  Many I know shy away from it, to say the least.  I certainly don’t go searching it out. The funny thing is it does not exist outside of us only.  Most confrontation is going on inside of us.  We are often engaged in a confrontation between our mind and our hearts or our mind and our body or our mind and our spirit.  Are you noticing a trend?  Is it that our minds are built for confrontation?  That would be too simplistic.  The purpose of confrontation comes in the facing.  Acknowledging for ourselves where we are out of coherence. Where there is a possible conflict that stems from us not being whole in our expression.  It is not about being a perfect balance, it is about noticing when an internal confrontation is happening, and with curiosity, exploring what it is telling us about ourselves.  A productive confrontation between people with opposing ideas is handled through open and clear communication.   In the same way, we are invited to the confrontation between the different elements of who we are to discover our own truth in the moment. We spend time arguing with ourselves and avoiding confrontation because we are in fear.   Learning to trust that the core of who we are knows how to draw the courage and fortitude needed to face whatever inside of ourselves that is out of alignment, we can take a deep breath and walk through the confrontation despite our fear. We have the power to move forward and find the peace we seek within ourselves. Besides, when we are at war with ourselves, who wins?

Sometimes we lack imagination.  We become familiar with acceptable use of an item, purpose of an idea, intention of a person or group, and when it or they step out of the accepted norm our feathers get ruffled.  What would happen if we determined the use of family was to have as many farm hands as possible?  How upset would we be if we collectively agreed that the best use of an idea was to share something with others and engage in dialogue not throw it out as a truth that must be accepted if we want to be included?  Our minds are filled with all kinds of fixed ideas about what and how things are of best use.  When we step into our hearts we can see these same things through a different lens. It is not as much about what is acceptable as it is what is most needed at this moment.   How can we or an idea or an item best be of use right here, right now?  We do it in emergencies or the times we are faced with limited resources.  Otherwise, we default to what is normal or acceptable.  Our hearts open up our imagination by inviting the spirit of life into our system.  If we take a deep enough breath spirit can reach our minds and knock on the door of the expected and say, “imagine this . . .”  Suddenly we find an alternate use for something.  God invites us to stop suffering from a lack of imagination and use our hearts to open ourselves up to the spirit of use.

When people are focusing on something as a whole group there is a lot of energy on the element of focus because of the power of attention.  Commotions are typically seen as disturbances and something to be avoided.  But what if the commotion is what is needed to get our attention in the first place. Sometimes it is only when there is commotion present that we wake up to the presence of the energy around us. The same goes for the commotion within us.  We, humans, are fickle and do not like being uncomfortable.  At least it is what we tell ourselves.  In the striving for calm and balance, we can go too far and numb out.  Conversely, we can jump into something just because it is moving and we can’t stand being still.  God invites us to pause from the commotion in our minds which are first thoughts about everything happening within us and outside of us. In that pause, we can take a deep breath and notice if the commotion in our minds is also a commotion in our hearts.  Through our breath, we can assess if the commotion is something that genuinely resonates in our hearts as the impetus to move or the irritation on our hearts because we are blindly following the commotion of thoughts in our minds.  Our bodies can provide the tools needed to navigate our lives from a place of commotion that expresses the truth of who we are versus the desire to get out of ourselves and jump into the commotion of the world.

We pay attention to how we take care of our bodies.  At least many more people do now if they have not done so already.  We give credit to those who are custodians of knowledge.  How much do we value those who are stewards of the heart?  How important is it to us to be a steward of our own heart?  God gave us all of who we are physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.  The goal is not to be perfectly balanced in all areas all the time.  The idea is to learn to grow and thrive through all of who we are.  Being a steward of ourselves means becoming intimately acquainted with how the whole of who we are operates best. We are given acknowledgment when we are stewards of our bodies perhaps because it is easiest to spot. We are awarded when we are stewards of our minds.  When it comes to emotional and spiritual stewardship we seem to pawn that off to others to do for us.  Yet no one else can tell us what wounds our hearts emotionally and to what depth.  No one outside of us can decipher what makes us come alive so much that we involuntarily see the light in others.  No one besides ourselves can create the formula for what it means to be an effective steward to ourselves.  It takes practice.  It takes patience. It takes awareness. It takes levity.  It takes a willingness to be with ourselves and accept all that is happening within ourselves as being the truth of the moment for us.  To be a good steward of myself, I sometimes need God to remind me that I am valuable and worthy of the time and effort.  When we take the time to cultivate ourselves as good stewards within, we then have the capacity to be a steward to others.  We cannot give something we do not have.

It is easy to get a sense of where our thinking is.  Our mind is a non-stop chatterbox.  Without prompting it our head is ready with ideas and opinions about everything all the time.  It is so constant that it can be challenging to not feel overwhelmed.  It is why people struggle with meditation.  They think it is about making the thoughts stop.  Maybe there is some guru out there who experiences that on a consistent level but I am not one of them.  Meditation and mindfulness are about getting some agency around our thoughts.  Learning to watch them and not get attached  Learning to accept that all the thoughts we have are not true just because we have them.  The discussion our minds are involved in can be fascinating and mesmerizing but it is not all there is.  God invites us to develop an awareness of the discussion going on in our hearts.  The discussion in our hearts is more subtle and can get drowned out by the discussion of our minds.  Here is where we can use the tools of mindfulness to not only keep our minds from driving us mad but open ourselves to be able to hear our heart’s discussion.  Cultivating the internal awareness of our heart’s discussion attunes us into the whole of who we are.  Tapping into our heart’s discussion gives us a fuller lens through which to see life unfolding before us which then affects the thoughts prompting the discussion in our heads.

The funny thing about life is how it is often the unexpected occurrences that tell us more about who we are and what we are capable of than the ones we plan.  Only when the moment where we need to be ready and moved into action that we see exactly what readiness looks like for us. Our minds are full of ideas about what we can and cannot do or what we will or will not experience and most of it is bunk.  It is all an ethereal idea until the moment is present. God invites us to cultivate the awareness of what it means to be ready to show up for ourselves.  It is less about proving what we can and cannot do or what we will or will not do and more about discovering it.  How can we really know what we are ready for until the opportunity presents itself?  Many times over in my life I was convinced I was not ready when all that needed to happen was for a situation to show up in which I had to call upon the courage of my heart to see what it meant to be ready. We can live our lives by the ideas in our heads about what it means to be ready or we can take a deep breath, connect to the courage of our hearts and explore ourselves as ready at the moment.

The fundamentals of how we show up give witness to so much more than the facade we present.  Our bearing speaks volumes about the kind of state of mind we are in.  We tend to judge other’s bearing at the moment as the presentation of their whole selves all the time.  Yet, how many of us are our whole selves at every given moment.  We may do our best but our best will be different each day and sometimes within one given day. It saddens me to see how we are treating each other when we lambast someone for one action as if it has bearing on the whole of who they are and then treat them accordingly.  Yes, we are to be held accountable for our actions. Hopefully, we grow into the kind of reflective and introspective human beings such that we catch ourselves instead of just waiting for others to do it for us. Our bearing is a reflection of our state of mind and heart in the moment of action.  Often times the disconnection in our behavior is because of a lack of awareness of either our state of mind or heart or both not because our bearing means we always behave that way.  When we pause to notice our state of mind and heart we can gain some insight at the level of ability to change our manner of being.  God invites us to do this continually so we grow in relationship with ourselves and begin to get to know the intricacies of all that we are bearing to the world and to ourselves.  It can be a murky and dark path at first, but the more we bring God into it, the more light we will find.