dailydatewithgod

As much as we hold to the things we know our reality is there is far more to what we don’t know that exists.  We often resist acknowledging what we do not understand for fear of seeming less intelligent or as though we are not paying attention.  There is much bewilderment existing in the world. We can choose to fear it or we can embrace it and use it.  As an incest survivor, I can tell you I spent many many years in a state of bewilderment about my own experiences.  At a very young age, I could not make sense of the puzzling behavior of my body or my relationship with my father.  As a child who is dependent upon the adults in her life for survival, I had to choose the only way to stay alive which I decided was to be bewildered about me and my body versus my relationship with my father and what was happening.  In my mind, at least I could control the bewildering experience by hating my body and treating it poorly.  I could suppress any natural sexual feelings that came up and mask my experience of them by making them wrong and bad.  Coming out of the bewildering experience as an adult I still carried the same tools for living which no longer worked for me.  Living in recovery means recognizing the bewilderment for what it was and working with it.  Seeing the fear in the experience and choosing not to fall for it.  Bewilderment becomes the gateway to an inner knowing and trusting of my experience.  Bewilderment is the portal through which I can access my hearts knowing and see what is real and not real for me.  The bewilderment on whatever level we experience it does not have to signify a stupidity or a lack of intellect or make us less than.  Bewilderment about life can open us up to exploration.  Exploration is the lifeblood of our hearts which seek to make room for being with what is in at the present moment.

At least in the Western world, there is a lot of emphasis on one’s profession.  Western identity is strongly tethered to the world of work. In school, we are asked to think about what we want to be when we grow up.  What schools do we need to attend so we can be sure to get into our chosen profession?  Is the profession we are interested in one that is respected and revered?  Is it one that is paid well or poorly?  Is it one that will make you stand out as someone who makes a noticeable contribution or behind the scenes contribution?  Is it one that aligns with what you are good at or what people in your family are invested in?  Before we even have a chance to discover who we are, what our strengths are or what we like and dislike we are asked to think about our careers.  Our profession is the primary way we make our mark in the world.  What about those who do not stay within a particular career trajectory?  What about those who have a profession only to make money so they can do what they love doing outside of work?  The reality is our professions are more about who we are being than what we do.  We may be a professional doctor but if we have the bedside manner of a crook, we are professing two different ideas. Our career as a garbage worker may say we dig through people’s garbage but what we are professing is we are willing to do the things others deem as less than with dignity.  We are more than the labels we put on ourselves or others put on us based on a set of particular criteria.  We may be in a particular profession but the way we live professes to the world how we see our role in that particular profession.  This is how we can bring our hearts into the work we do each day regardless of what the outside world calls that work.  None of us our stationary beings.  Even when we are a part of a particular profession on one day we profess the best parts of that profession and on other days the worst.  How might our lives and our view of others change if we began to look at what professions people are making with their beings versus their titles? How might the eyes of our hearts open to the hearts of others if we see past their professions into what the professions of their hearts are portraying in their lives?

Upon examination of our lives, we can see the times we have taken action with conviction and the times we have not.  We often tout to the world all the things we believe in but the question is if we were put on trial at the end of our lives would we be convicted of the crime of living those beliefs.  When we step into the realm of conviction, what we believe takes on new meaning.  Conviction involves the energy of our hearts because we have to garner courage.  If we are convicted about something we are willing to take action and stay the course.  When others condemn us or try to make us wrong, it is our conviction that gives us the fortitude to stand with ourselves and those who believe as we do.  Clearly, when we look at conviction we see the difference between a belief which is a repeated thought and a lived belief.  Conviction requires action, not just words.  God invites me over and over again to look at the beliefs I have, especially the ones I hold without question.  I do not necessarily witness, nor do others, the beliefs which I have accepted without question.  They may be a good fit for me or not, but I do not know until I look at them through the lens of conviction.  If I am willing to take action and stay the course, I can claim my belief as true for me to my core.  At the end of the day no matter how many things we claim to believe about ourselves, others, and the world, it is ones which we hold with conviction telling the story of our life.  The more daily dates I go on, the more I realize the importance of the beliefs I hold also being beliefs that hold me with the strength to stand with them no matter what is happening outside of me.

We like to put on a good face.  We all wear masks and we need them in order to function in this world.  It would not make sense to have everything transparent to everyone all the time.  We need a way to have some sanctity within ourselves.  But sometimes those masks become murky.  We get lost in the mask so much we begin to think it is us.  We get carried away and do not notice how the dark side begins to seep out of the corners of the mask.  It is not a bad thing to have a murky side, we all do.  It is pretending we don’t by the masks we where that gets us in trouble.  There are light and darkness, good and bad, right and wrong, and so on.  We live in an existence of duality so this should not be news.  The masks become murky when we use them to try and snuff out the shadow.  It is better to own our darkness and work with it than put on a thicker mask.  We do not need to reveal all sides of ourselves to everyone all the time, but us not owning up to the presence of shadows in our personality creates the murk.  Murk is what becomes of our shadow when we are not aware of it or pretend it is not there.  Embracing our shadow with curiosity allows us to shed some light on it and not fester in the murk.  It is our growth in wholeness. It is the calling of our heart to embrace the shadow so murk does not form.  Our shadows only turn to murk and work to our detriment when we deny them access to light.  No light, no growth.  No light, no love. No light, no wholeness.

So much of life happens in whispers.  We probably don’t notice how the tree branches touch each other in the wind. It escapes our attention to how a car passing by a pedestrian looks different for the pedestrian than it does for the driver.  Like Ferris Bueller advises: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Unlike Ferris, we do not have to skip school or work to enjoy it.  Having a day off of work is great and I enjoy stepping away from the usual day to day agenda, but if I were to allocate stopping and looking around at life only on days off, I would miss so much.   My daily dates with God, unknowingly have provided the in the moment capability to make things stop.  Each time I take a breath, there is a stop.  Each in stops for the out and vice versa.  Each conversation exchange with another person is a series of stops.  How many of those stops do we invite our heart’s eyes to look around?  Or are we stuck in our heads thinking of what comes after the stop?  Honestly, sometimes I am so in my head, I am thinking of what comes after the next stop while I am still in motion.  Stopping and looking around is only the answer if we use it for the opportunity it can be.  Only when we tune into the energy of our hearts can we use the stops instead of the stops using us.  The looking around comes when we take the stop provided by nature and use it to open the eyes of our hearts and see the depth the life we are in at the moment. The moment before we judge whether it is good or bad.  The moment before we choose where to go.  The moment before deciding if we want to look around. All of the moments of our lives are a series of stops and starts.  How fast might we perceive life to move if we utilized the stops in our lives to look around and see with the eyes of our hearts?

Sometimes the answer is just to let go. We try so hard to make things happen.  We push ourselves, we are in action in our lives, and we are doing our part to create what it is we want to happen.  Somewhere in there we inadvertently pick up some things that are actually impeding what we want. We create barriers with all our actions where we do not intend to create an obstruction. It is hard for us to wrap our minds around it because we cannot imagine why we would intentionally set up barriers to something we want to happen.  However, most of our barriers are internal.  We do not intentionally set out to obstruct our own goals.  There is a part of ourselves that may be thinking ahead to what will happen if we get what we want and it is not in alignment with it.  It might cause us to change how we see ourselves. It might require us to step up responsibility and we are overwhelmed by there mere thought of responsibility. Even with all the planning we do, we may not see these inner barriers until they reveal themselves in the process.  It does not mean we have failed or we will not be able to get where we are going. It simply means our hearts have a slightly different pathway for us to travel than our minds.  These barriers which we find ourselves frustrated by are simply parts of ourselves calling out for some love and attention.  Almost like little children who need to be heard.  Talking over them or forcing this part of ourselves may not do the trick.  It may for a time but wouldn’t we rather get to wherever we see ourselves going as a more whole person than when we started on the journey? That is all the barriers are calling for.  They want to join in and ride along.  God has shown me on our daily dates the more I open up to the messages of my internal barriers, the more I can grow my heart and become the person I am meant to be.

We often imagine things happening in big strides.  We see change as happening with major events, big transformations, or profound moments of enlightenment.  When people share their story of how they changed or how an experience changed them, we expect to hear about some catastrophic shift in perspective.  Change can be this major experience but often the road to such changes are paved with tinges.  We get little inklings along the way that maybe we could look at things from a different perspective.  The tinges are like when the hair on our arm stands up when someone says something or a fleeting thought which is different from the usual.  The reality is within each new breath there is an opportunity for change.  We just take for granted that our heart is prompting us to take in some newness with each of those breaths.  We often ignore the tinges which can serve as a wake-up call because they are not big and loud.  Tinges are like the still small voice of God written about in many spiritual traditions.  It is hard to hear compared to the loudness of the clamoring of the world.  When we take time in our day to slow down, experience some quiet, and be with our heart and our breath we can attune ourselves to the messages encased in the tinges we experience throughout the day.  It does not mean we are doing it wrong if we do not pay attention to the tinges and instead wait to be hit over the head with life.  Instead, it is about having a curiosity towards what our hearts might be trying to communicate with us in all ways.

One of the gems phrases I learned in the rooms of recovery is “Thank you for sharing.”  It is often used when thanking a fellow person in recovery for sharing their story or their experience with something.  It acknowledges their presence, their contribution, and is not a judgment on it.  What I learned is how effective it is with my own thoughts.  It makes room to acknowledge the thoughts without judgment and simultaneously relegate them to a time and place where they might be useful.  The first thoughts we think about anything are the brain’s attempt at survival.  It is instinctual and therefore valuable but may not be what is needed at the moment.  By relegating them we can own them without taking action on them.  We think all kinds of things all the time.  When it comes to doing something it is helpful to have some space between the thought and the action.  Relegating those thoughts by putting them to the side allows us to bring our hearts online.  We do not want to train these first thoughts out of us, they will save our lives. We all want to take action without thought when it comes to getting out of danger and true life-threatening situations.  Our thoughts about handling interpersonal relationships are ones that often need some time.  Relegating makes room for the pause which makes room for heart thinking.  Leading with the heart online when it comes to our interpersonal relationships in my experience leads to greater peace with myself and others.

We all have modes which we follow without thinking about them.  We drive on a particular side of the road, we wear clothes in public, we get together for holidays, and so on.  When we do these things over and over they become habits and we see them as norms.  We grasp rather quickly what is considered normal by our families and society.  In order to fit in, we follow them. The norms dictate the set expectation of behavior in order to belong.  Belonging is important.  If we want to function we attempt to fit into the norm.  Anyone who steps outside of that and goes against the grain can be seen as not normal or even worse at outlier.  Just the very connotation makes one feel as though they have not been accepted.  There are different levels of norms and sometimes we can get away with going against the grain.  It is often people who do whom history remembers as major contributors to the shift in the norm.  Yet at the time they are moving against the grain, they are not applauded by it and had to walk through a lot of their own fears about not belonging. We don’t hear that part about it after time and so it looks very glamorous. Most of us when choosing to go against the grain come face to face with the fear and back down. Our minds will always come up with reasons to not do it because we will stand out or people will think we are crazy or weird.  To go against the grain requires courage.  Courage comes from our hearts.  We can listen to the call of our hearts by practicing in small ways going against our own grains.  Doing so builds courage and resiliency.  It shows our capacity to be the person we are designed to be at our core instead of buying into who or what we have been told we are.  We get to meet ourselves where we are instead of trying to meet the someone else we are expected and told to be. Discovering the courage present in us gives us an inkling of what God sees.  The God who knows the truth of who we are.

It is hard to imagine what life would be like if we knew there was no end.  What if we all lived forever?  Would we be different people?  Would we live our lives differently?  Would we interact with others differently?  As it stands now we all experience the same outcome.  We all die.  How does this shape our reality?  Do we spend our time and energy accepting this fact or do we focus on how we can outwit death?  It is funny that the very outcomes which are the same for everyone are the same one no one wants to talk about.  At least in Western culture, unless one is faced with their death or the death of another we all go around acting like it isn’t going to happen to us.  We don’t like to talk about it and if we do we are seen as dark and morbid.  We keep dead people in the basement of hospitals and find those who own and operate mortuaries a bit odd.  When a doctor has to broach the conversation with a patient, it is met with a certain level of trepedation.  Why do we fear this outcome?  Just recently I was experiencing the rolling effects of an earthquake and thought for a moment, what if my outcome was today?  It turns the perspective of the day on its head.  What if today I met the outcome of my life?  The irony in all of this is it is not the outcome we fear.  It is what it will mean.  It is about when we get to the outcome of our lives, what kind of life will we be able to say we lived?  If we delay the idea of the outcome in the first place, we do not have to stop and reflect on what kind of life it is. We do not have to ask ourselves the perhaps difficult question:  How have we lived from our heart on our way to the outcome of our lives?