dailydatewithgod

Much of the difficulty we experience in our lives comes not from outside of us but from our inner experience.  After all, what we perceive as happening outside of us is our perspective on it. This is how two people can experience the same thing and walk away with two totally different stories about what happened and what it meant.  Life is more than what happens, it is what we make it mean.  The meaning comes from our interpretation.  Our interpretation depends upon how we are feeling in the moment about ourselves.  As a way of coping with experiences as a child, I developed a very strong inner critic.  It served a great purpose.  It kept me out of trouble with authority figures, it focused me in terms of how to keep in line with the rules of society, and it provided a sense of safety.  Now, I am grateful for this critical side of myself.  The downside is it has outworn its purpose.  It did not allow me any room to just be human and make mistakes.  Sure, I made mistakes but the critical voice was there immediately letting me know how much I messed up.  It would be relentless in giving me a hard time to prevent such a thing happening again.  From this same perspective, I determined this part inside myself is not my ally.  It pretends to be my ally but the moment I step out of line, it is there to let me know what a complete fuck-up I am.  It is harsh and very black and white.  It tainted my view of myself and everything I lied eyes upon. On my daily dates with God, I was invited to take a closer look at this critical perspective.  While it might seem to be the best choice to tell it to go away, I realized I had a relationship with this part of myself.  It was not about excising it from my being but getting to know what was behind the facade.  Time on my dates allowed me the opportunity to question what was driving this part of me. Usually, it boils down to an attempt to keep me safe from harm.  This is a beautiful thing.  But it was not until I was willing to make it an ally instead of the enemy it presented itself to be, that I could even engage with it.  If I remember to pause after hearing a comment from the critical part of myself, I have a moment to distance myself from what is being said.  I can turn the statement into an opportunity to engage and make an ally out of an enemy. I can acknowledge that part of me for doing a stellar job of taking care of my safety growing up.  Its past works need to be acknowledged.  From there, I can open it up to seeing things from God’s perspective.  What might a kinder way of keeping me safe sound like?  What would make you willing to test some things out and see what happens?  What is it we need to be protected from in this moment?  These are all questions that open up to the development of creating an ally from a foe.  I do not know if any of you deal with a critical part of yourself, but after so many years of making myself wrong for making myself wrong, God showed me a way to create an ally.

In project management, the design is to plan with the end in mind.  Then one backs up from the deadline to configure the milestones that need to be reached and what needs to happen to get to them and so on with the process so completion occurs.  We can’t plan our lives like a project as we do not know where we will always be going. There are some areas of our lives functioning this way, but not all.  However, we all have an expiration.  It is no secret that we are all going to take our last breath, our last expiration right after our last inhalation.  The topic of death, especially ones’ own death, often makes people uncomfortable.  I am not sure if we think if we do not keep it present in mind we will somehow stave it off or we just think it is sad to be aware of the expiration of our lives.  As someone who by all accounts was kind of like the walking dead for a long time with moments of wishing I would just expire I am not sure that it ever scared me.  The uncertainty around the circumstances causes me discomfort as much as uncertainty does in general.  As a person living in recovery and coming back from an experience where I was barely holding on or valuing the quality of my own life, I have a fresher perspective on expiration.  It sharpens the sight with which I view the present and all the inspirations I remember to pay attention to.  I am aware of how our hearts prompt us through inspiration to expiration.  On some level, I believe when we agreed to enter into this life and take the first inspiration we also agreed to our expiration.  Given the way all of life flows, it is clear we do not hold on to anything.  It is a series of inspirations and expirations.  In the elemental sense, the expiration is just as pivotal as the inspiration.  If we do not take the expiration, we will not be available for the next inspiration.  So while death is apparently the final expiration, maybe it is the step before the next inspiration.

We typically think of richness in terms of money.  We see our value by the amount in our bank account, our salary, or stock portfolio.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do not think there is anything wrong with money, I am grateful for it as it allows me at the very least access to more choices and opportunities. Yet there are so many plush areas of our lives that have nothing to do with money.  There is a richness to being alive.  It is plush to feel comfortable in my own skin and know who I am.  It is a plush element of my life to have people I can trust and be accepted by and feel a sense of belonging.  The number of breaths I get are plush.  It is a plush experience to live in Southern California where I can see and feel a sun so many days out of the year.  Apparently, the value of a new transmission is plusher than I realize so I get to be grateful for the plush value of a good mechanic I trust and increased value of my car when it is fixed.  Often money separates people into different groups and causes them to have different perspectives.  The plush values of my heart bring me closer to myself and others.  If I remember to focus on the plush nature of all areas of my life I am not subject to the fluctuation of numbers in my bank account or what my salary is.  My heart reminds me to see all the plush present in all areas of my life.  It is easy to overlook the plush gauge of my heart but the moment I take a breath, I am reminded of the connection within my body allowing me the opportunity to reflect on the plush nature of my life.

When we want to approach our lives from the truth of who we are we have to know how to access our foundation.  Otherwise, we are likely to be swayed by outside forces and wax and wain so as not to be who we are called to be.  Our linchpin needs to be an open flowing connection so when we feel tossed about we know how to get grounded.  Understanding our linchpin comes from being in a relationship with ourselves.  Through our interaction with others, we grow by moving from our linchpin as we choose how to interact.  We learn more about who we truly are through our interactions but they do not define us.  It takes a lifetime to get to know our linchpin. The experiences of our lives invoke us to discover our truth.  We are impacted by each other and can use that to grow in love if we so choose. Or we can opt to see life as burdensome and ourselves as an effect of it.   Strengthening my relationship with my linchpin has become more fluid in the time I have been on my daily dates with God.  The daily practice of prayer and meditation, a time when I am committed to myself and my creator, sets the tone for me to operate from a linchpin of love as I go through my day.  It does not mean I am no longer human and do not get affected by the world.  It means I remember when I do get tossed by life I know how to return to the linchpin which is the truth of who I am and all that is.  Sometimes depending on the circumstances, it takes longer than others but I know if I bring notice to my breath and engage my heart I am already halfway.

We can never know precisely how things will unfold.  We can imagine how they will work out.  We can presume based on past experiences.  There is no way of knowing how something might change based on a hinge.  The hinge can be the thing we never see coming or the known entity moving someone in a way we would not imagine them to be moved.  More important than events we are invited to get to know what our heart hinges on.  If we are to explore the truth of who we are and get to know our being as God created us, it is helpful to know what that sense of ourselves hinges on.  Does it hinge on how we are feeling that day?  Does it hinge on how someone reacts to us?  Does it hinge on how we perceive the outcome of our endeavors?  Does it hinge on whether we can define ourselves by our standards or does it hinge on defining ourselves by our standards?  Does our sense of self hinge on who we are aside from the facade we present to the world? Does it hinge on how productive we are?  Does it hinge on who we are being?  We are not robots that have one awakening and then we are done.  Life is a series of experiences guiding us to open up to what we can learn about love and how that relates to the truth of who we are and are called to be.  Do we then find our sense of self hinging on how powerful the experiences are?  Can we connect with the truth of who we are by simply being in the moment we are in?  Can our sense of self hinge on an awareness that surpasses space and time?  Does our being hinge on our definition of God or does it hinge on God’s definition of us?  These are the questions we get to explore.  These are the trips and turns we take on this crazy path of life.  More than anything I hope whatever my sense of self hinges on it is not limited by what I perceive to be true.

In the mix of life, it might seem obvious the things that work for us.  Many things we have operating work so well that we do not need to be aware of them.  It is the miracle of being alive and the automation present in our cells.  The elements of our way of being that contain the baffling layer of what is operative are the ones we see as not productive and yet they still operate.  I believe people do what they know to do.  We underestimate the willingness and biological imperative to stick with the known.  It may work in contrast to what we are intending to do, but on a layer beneath our awareness, we are either stuck in a familiar pattern or what seems counterproductive because we know it.  We know it from phrases like, “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”  Based on that system of operation, we are playing with devils.  Why not let angels lead us?  Why not make room for our heart to step in with its courageous system to take control of our operations? The operative nature of the heart takes delight in the mystery and the unknown, but it does not operate like a fool.  Our hearts contain the courage needed to update our operating system because there will be fear.  The fear shows up the moment we move in a direction that is unfamiliar.  God gifted us with the energy needed to adjust our operating experience by turning to our heart one breath at a time.

We live in a world full of distractions.   It is amazing how much we can stay on track with everything working to get our attention at once.  The distractions, however, are not just external. We have our body and mind which are constantly feeding us information.  Much of it we process without any awareness but what about the ones in our awareness? Have you ever found yourself fixated or trying to figure out how a certain conversation came to dominate in your head?  It did not ask for permission. It did not submit a worry request.  It did not give a reason for taking up residence in your head.  What is even more frustrating is how often it is the same conversation or at least a conversation with the same motive.  The specifics might be different but there is an underlying theme.  I am all about paying attention to those nagging ideas and feelings especially the ones we want to just go away, but it is best to begin an investigation by interrupting.  On my daily dates with God, I have learned to notice the conversations whether in the abstract of my mind or the ones I am having about my body.  Just noticing them is a form of interrupting.  It gets in the way of simply believing everything we think simply because we think it.  Yet sometimes the conversations get savvy at which time I begin to request more information.  I am interrupting the thoughts when I ask them to show their faces or tell me who they are that is saying them.  This may sound crazy at first.  Yet, what is more crazy, allowing unhelpful thoughts to roam rent-free in my head or finding ways of interrupting them and seeing behind the chatter to discover if there is anything of substance.  When we initiate interrupting we are pausing long enough to take a breath.  Taking a breath invites our hearts to play a part in our experience.  Our hearts will always provide another option when we cannot seem to find one anywhere else.

Growing up there seemed to be this unwritten rule around anger.  It was either an explosion that was bad or righteous and just anger which was good.  Any other layer of anger got couched under less intimidating terms.  It was okay to be bothered, frustrated, annoyed, and irked. Irked was always my favorite mostly because it saying it one can vibrate some of the energy behind the feeling.  Besides, it is okay to say one is irked by many things without seeming like an angry person.  Just like using sarcasm as a socially acceptable way to voice anger without seeming angry.  If one is sarcastic they are not angry, they are funny.  The reality is all feelings exist on a continuum.  Feelings are not positive or negative, but how they are expressed can be either harmful or helpful.  As a result of not understanding the latter, I learned to use sarcasm and claim that I was irked when I was not able to successfully suppress the anger.  I am not sure if others can relate, but I always use to say I was someone who did not get angry.  It is kind of like saying I have an arm I don’t use.  I was more concerned with staying in the realm of what is socially acceptable than allowing myself to look at what might be behind the anger.  In recovery, I learned how to express anger healthily.  There is nothing wrong with it as long as I do not use it to hurt myself or others.  Given my history as an addict, I had lots of practice in hurting myself with it but not even realize that was part of what I was doing to myself.  Today, I do not need to wait to identify myself as feeling the emotion of anger.  I can begin by noticing what irks me or what I am inclined to be sarcastic about as indications I am on the path of anger. When we learn to pay attention to our irks instead of brushing them aside and telling ourselves they are not important, we give ourselves permission to practice honoring our feelings, no matter what they are.  If we listen to the message behind the irks or what we hear ourselves expressing sarcasm about, we can touch on what we are angry about and find a healthy way to express it before it becomes unhealthy.  Our irks become the wake-up call to what is going on inside of us that needs our attention.  If we are not willing to pay attention to ourselves, why would anyone else?

Safety is one of our basic needs as human beings.  It is something we understand at a visceral level.  Many fears come down to a lack of safety.  Love cannot grow in a space where one does not feel safe. We tend to play off this idea of needed refuge because we think of it in terms of a particular construct.  Child safety, workplace safety, safe conversations are all examples of specific areas we recognize the principle.  The reality is the world cannot provide the refuge we seek.  We look to others and situations to tell us we are okay.  We seek out experiences where we can feel certain because it gives us the illusion of safety.  As an incest survivor, I can tell you that growing up, I felt something was missing.  I could not put words to it until I found myself as an adult putting words to it.  My sense of safety was very mixed and my experience unstable.  I did not find refuge at home, except at certain times or in certain situations.  I eschewed my sense of personal safety to convince myself I was okay.  I did find refuge at school and church where the rules and expectations were laid out clearly and I knew what would get approval.  We all have our own unique experiences of lack of safety.  It is part of the human experience to know what it is like to lack the refuge we seek.  In those moments is the opportunity to turn our attention to the place within ourselves where our true safety and refuge lie.  It is as though life conspires by calling us to what is present for us we would not otherwise look for. It is the space of our hearts where God’s truth of who we are lives and breathes in light.  In the space deep within us there is the knowledge that no matter how unstable the sense of safety is outside of us, we can find refuge in our connection to something greater.  It takes time to cultivate a relationship with something that stands in contradiction to the physical world we see with our eyes.  Yet we are just as wired to find refuge within as we are to seek for it outside of ourselves.  We can design safe spaces, have safe conversations but we cannot block everything outside of us that might cause the need for refuge. We can ask ourselves, what greater refuge can exist than the knowledge we are wholly loved and innocent no matter what is going on outside?

So much of how we see value comes from rightness.  Rightness means importance and success. It is only okay to rely on something if it correct.  It is only important if it has been proven to be right.  It deserves attention because it is right.  Within this focus on rightness and success, there is no room for the process.  If we do not travel the road to get to what is right bumbling our way there, will we ever get to what is right?  Does it only count or only have value when we have reached the destination?  What if in the course of our bumbling and getting it wrong we turn a corner which gets us to what is right?  What if in the bumbling we begin to ask questions we would not have asked if we knew the right way to get there in the first place?  I get it. We like the win.  We want the pretty trail with the flowers, but even the flowers grow out of the messy mud.  As Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist teacher says, “No Mud, No Lotus.”  I say, no bumbling no success.  We look to those who have achieved what we deem are right and good things and situations and presume it was some sort of smooth path. Yet if you look closer you would most likely, if people are honest, see lots of bumbling.  Some people can’t even articulate how they got to where they are.  In their eyes, they bumbled so much they are surprised they landed anywhere with substance.  I used to think there was something wrong with me if I didn’t have the right answer.  It is what they taught us in school, isn’t it?  It only counts if we have the right answer.  How many wrong answers does it take to get the right answer?  Maybe if we allowed more bumbling we would appreciate the success or the rightness much more because we value what it took to get to it.  Not to mention we would not have to get stopped in fear of wrongness on our path because we are so busy condemning ourselves for not having figured it out sooner.   Bumbling allows for breath, for pause, for reality, and for a compassionate heart.  When we can allow ourselves some bumbling on our path we can see it in others and recognize our kinship with them instead of seeing them as wrong.