dailydatewithgod

Why do we think obstacles are the problem?  Why do we assume that the road to where we are going is supposed to be smooth without any obstacles?  The strange thing is as much as we fall for this idea, again and again, we continually encounter obstacles.  Even when Dorothy and her friends followed the yellow brick road to get where they wanted to go, they encountered obstacles.  And with each obstacle, they learned something and received what they needed.  In fact, by the time they reached the wizard by going through the obstacles they were formed by them into what they were seeking.  The lion became courageous, the tin man became loving, the scarecrow became smarter and Dorothy realized the place she called home was actually always within her reach.  What if life is actually an obstacle course, not a smooth highway?  What if we are supposed to move through and overcome obstacles not get them out of the way?  We think obstacles are an impediment to our growth but they stimulate it.  We presume there is a problem when we encounter obstacles but they are on the path for a reason.  Through the obstacles we encounter we discover the faculties within us we did not know were there until we came face to face with them.  We think it is a place or a thing we are supposed to get to in life.  Life is about being. God has shown me on our daily dates that being on the path, facing the obstacles, moving through them (not around them) is what gets me to the destination inside myself that I think is somewhere out there.

Oddly as someone who loves to think and analyze the shit out of something the whole concept of experimentation I chalked up to the realm of scholarly science.  As my daily dates with God allowed my eyes and heart to open up I began to see life as a continuous growing process.  There is nowhere to get to or a checklist to complete.  It is about living.  Trying things out, see if they work, use what does and keep going.  I realized life is one big experiment or series of experiments.  We are all really doing the best we can.  Some people are more inclined to seek out more tools and find new ways to grow, others are just merely trying to survive.  I consider myself fortunate (my perspective on a good day) to have been one of the folks who form of survival began to cause my death.  Only then was I willing to seek out a different path.  A path with a lot more experiments.  A path with hope and curiosity.  A path with compassion and forgiveness for imperfections.  Actually, a path that thrives on imperfections.  A path guided from the heart.  A path which does not have a fixed ending or someplace else to be.  It is uncomfortable and a mind shift, but it stills my mind, lightens my heart and makes room for experiments so I can get a glimpse of the possibilities in God’s eyes.  It hurts when the experiment doesn’t work the way I think it should.  It is exciting when the experiments bring unexpected benefits.  It spurs a willingness to continue to show up and try again when the experiments fuel my resolve that my heart provides the courage and strength to keep going when it doesn’t look promising. It is actually somewhat freeing to say I don’t know how it is going to turn out.  Like any good experiment, I have some hypothesis but I don’t know what might happen until I take the action and do the experiment.

One thing I have come to learn about myself on this crazy journey called life is my disposition to self-judgment and self-criticism. On the outside, as an obese woman, I used a lot of self-deprecating humor in the hopes of showing I didn’t care what you thought of me (all the while being afraid that all you saw was what I saw).  The funny thing I have learned is as much as we worry about what other people think of us, most of the time, they are not thinking of us.  Plus, how they view us is simply an insight into how they view themselves.  I would be lying if I said I am not just as inclined to be critical of others as I am with myself.  The difference is I can see it, pause, and not to act on it when it comes to others. A deeper level of understanding comes when it alerts me to how I am seeing myself at that moment.  It is, after all, my mind and eyes which are perceiving the other person. The great cosmic joke is that we all judge.  It is part of our nature.  It serves a purpose.  We get so lost in chastising ourselves for it or trying to hide it that we forget that we can choose how we use it and it what context.  It was only in recovery I was able to take a long hard look at how this element of my character in a vain attempt to keep myself from stepping out of line had gotten out of hand.  In my brilliant mind, I figured my self-judgment kept me in good standing, kept me from disappointing people, and kept me from letting the parts of myself which were less than ideal slip out.  What I did not realize is it has the side effect of tension and take myself too seriously.  I marvel these days in the moments when I can laugh at myself.  I have learned through my daily dates with God, the judgment I used to keep myself down does just that but it is not discriminatory.  It will keep down the good and the bad.  I can see how God has changed and softened my heart over the years which makes me more willing to try things out, laugh at myself, and right size my expectations of myself and others.  It is a much better world when I can use my judgment to make a choice when buying something versus whether or not to condemn myself or be disappointed in someone else’s behavior.  There are many layers to this judgment stuff but it is in the small moments when I stop to notice what is happening, the familiar path my conditioned mind wants to go down, and ask God for the help I need to take another path.  With practice, it actually works. Given the human facility for judgment is not going away any time soon, I imagine I will have a whole lifetime of practice (and I know it works because just thinking of that makes me smile).

We pride ourselves on our knowledge.  We have initials after our name so others know before they meet us how much knowledge we have obtained.  We give people who know more or at least seem to know more places of authority.  We feel safe about having an answer.  None of this is either good or bad.  The real question is how do we perceive an experience or ourselves when we find ourselves doubting?  It is not a question of whether or not we will experience doubt but when and in what form.  The deeper question is what do we do with it once we experience it?  It may have a different flavor if we are talking about matters of the heart or matters of the mind, but doubt play an important role in what it means to be human.  Just like our dark sides, we try to pretend doubt is not really there or push it down.  Acting more assured of something or working to prove it to others to make it truer does not squelch the experience of doubt.   If we pause and breathe in the face of doubt and let it in the door, we can engage with it.  What kind of questions can we ask?  What might the experience of doubt without the context of the specifics be providing for us as a path to growth?  Sometimes we need to doubt to be pushed to see what it is we really do know or believe.  Only when we stop and take a look at what we have taken for granted, do we see get a chance to learn all of what it contains.

When we interact with others we are affected by them.  We can claim that we do not allow people to affect us but energetically there are things happening of which we are not consciously aware. Just because we do not experience it on a cognitive level does not mean it is not happening.   It is easier however to concede that we are affected by others than it is to own how much we are affected by the thoughts we think.  Many of our thoughts are so automatic we stopped paying attention to them.  Just because we do not experience it on a cognitive level does not mean it is not happening. When others repeat our words back to us, sometimes we stop to notice if we even believe what is going through our minds.  Often there are thoughts we think which we adopted a long time ago, so long ago we don’t even remember the circumstances or person from which they generated. When we learn to pay attention to our thoughts and watch them as though observing something outside of ourselves we can get some much-needed distance.  When we stop and listen to the words that come out of our mouth we can gain insight into what automatic thoughts are rolling around in our head of which we stopped being conscious.  On my daily dates with God, I have learned to become an observer of my thoughts.  It is powerful to know we are not our thoughts and we can choose which ones to hook into.  All are welcome and I am slowly learning not to make myself wrong for them or the effect they have on me.  My goal is to latch on to the ones which contain affection.  The affectionate ones are the ones I want to grow and make more automatic.  It takes practice given our propensity as human beings to be on alert for the negative, a much-needed survival technique. Even the approach to one’s thinking becomes layered with affection when we pause and seek to find what is workable with our thoughts.  It is a switch in perspective to be willing to be affected by affection in our thoughts and it can change the landscape of our inner world.

We recognize the choruses of songs because they repeat.  Anyone of us can recall a time when we could not get a song out of our head as though it was on replay over and over.  The thoughts which repeat over and over without our even realizing it become the litany of our lives. Why do you think prayers have a repetitive nature to them?  The way our minds work provides the soil from which to grow the experience of thought into belief.  A belief is just a repeated thought.  The litany of our lives gives us an indication of where our lives are headed or where we have come from. If we want to change our lives we need to start noticing the litany of thoughts we allow to take up space.  They become the prayer or song if you prefer of our lives. I remember when I first got into recovery. I would be in these meetings and they would read these steps and traditions every single time.  I first thought, don’t we know what they are by now?  Have we gone stupid and cannot retain information?  What we were doing is changing the litany of negative self-talk, thus changing our beliefs and providing a shift in perspective.  I have heard many people over the years talk about the power of finding a phrase or wording they repeat to themselves to put themselves in the right frame of mind. It sounds similar to how prayers work. They change the litany from worry to hope.  We can choose to change the litany in our minds when we pause to notice the barrage of thoughts we allow to roam rent free.  Using the prompting of our hearts through our bodies by taking a breath and noticing what kind of litany is present in our minds building our beliefs.  It is a litany of love?  Is it a litany of compassion?  Is it a litany of frustration? Is it a litany of things never working out?  Is it a litany we would want to give to another? Are we allowing a litany that works for us to play over and over in our minds or is it like one of those songs we can’t get out of our heads? Or is a litany that worked for the person who unknowingly shared it with us?

While the song Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones is very popular and quite catchy, on its face it is rather hopeless.  What is the point if we can never be satisfied?  Why bother?  On a deeper level what Mick Jagger and Keith Richards may have been alluding to is the idea of satisfaction not coming from the sources where we seek it.  It is not going to come from another person, a product,  or what the world has to tell us to get us going.  God did not design us to be satisfied with the uncertainty of an ever-changing world.  It is satisfying at the moment but it is fleeting.  We cannot sustain a feeling.  Feelings are meant to move.  Opening ourselves up to the courageously seek out the satisfaction of our hearts brings us once again to the deepest part of ourselves. God has already given us what we need within to find the peace and contentment of which we seek.  Life even works in partnership with this design because often it is not until we experience yet again the dissatisfaction of the unsustainable outer experience of peace and contentment do we turn inward.  We think it is a failure or we are on losing streak like they sing of in the song.  What if those experiences are designed as such to prompt us to seek within ourselves?  As far as I can tell when we leave this world we cannot take anyone or anything with us.  We cross over on our own and maybe it is time we started to seek peace and contentment within ourselves.  The great benefit of this as I have learned on my daily dates with God is it changes the eyes with which I view the outside world. Suddenly what I see on the outside is more satisfying than when it was the only place from which I sought satisfaction.

We recognize the power of knowing where and who we come from.  We are curious about our background and ancestry even to the level of DNA.  We want to know what of our story comes from what came before us.  Knowing one’s heritage provides a fuller picture of who we are and what has transpired in order to bring us to who we are. Heritage is not only our background of people and places but of beliefs.  Those ideas get passed down often without question as to their current application.  Why is it we get together at Thanksgiving every year?  Is it because we want to celebrate that particular national remembrance? Is it because we are Americans and it has meaning for us? Or is it that we believe we are supposed to do so with the people from whom we came and shaped our lives in the beginning?  We cannot change who or where we came from but we can evaluate whether the ideas that came along with those people and places still apply to us today. A place to start is by looking to see if those ideas hold a place just in our minds or in our hearts as well.  It is not about getting rid of it all or making it wrong.  It is more like taking it off the display shelf, dusting it off, seeing what it is made of and trying it out to see if it fits our heart today.  Some things may and some things may not.  It does not make them right or wrong, after all, they worked for whom they worked for in their situation.  Why else would they have carried them out?  People do what works. We are called to live our lives in the design of the hearts within us.  We cannot truly live the truth of who we are if we are only a carbon copy of our heritage. The heritage we come from gives us a starting point and it is what we make of it with the uniqueness of who we are that allows it to grow and become something alive in the world today.  We can honor our heritage without blindly following it.

We always think the end is the most important time.  Why are we looking forward to when things are over? Is it really that we want them over or that we want to be on to the next thing?  I often think when I am done with this, it will be better.  When I don’t have to deal with the situation I am in, all will be at peace. On our daily dates, God is always with me in the moment.  Is it that I do not think I can handle what I am in the middle of or I simply don’t like it or somewhere there must be something better going on?  We are where we are at in the moment we are in it.  It is not easy to trust in the timing of God.  I am certain God laughs all the time hearing me go on about why something is taking so long or is not happening soon enough.  I find God draws me back to my heart in those moments to let me know where I am is exactly where I am supposed to be.  If by the will of force I could change my reality, I would have done it.  The irony is in many ways I already have done it and I am where I am because of it.  Just because I do not understand the timing of life doesn’t mean it is wrong or I have a better way.  Why do we get upset that we are not at our vacation yet when we are on the road to get there?  It isn’t just children who go around asking, “Are we there yet?”  When I settle back into the truth of who I am I can see the timing of life as not something I can orchestrate at all.  Just because I can see how it moves according to numbers on a dial, does not mean I have any real idea of how many things go into the workings of something coming about or changing in my life.  Much like I do not see all the inner workings of a clock, I do not know what inner workings of my heart are at play when it comes to the timing of my life.  I am left with trust in God’s view or not.

There are people we call friends, others associates, and then there are the people we randomly come in contact with in everyday life.  All these people and our family are our companions on this road of life.  We are in each other’s lives for a reason.  Sometimes we know why and understand the role we seem to play in each other’s lives but not always. I wise woman once said to me, some people come into our lives for a reason, some for a season, and some for seasoning.  All of these various companions are here to teach about what it means to connect and they provide an opportunity to look at ourselves.  We get to explore what it means to be in a relationship with another and what we are here to give and receive.  Rarely do we pay attention to the companions we allow the closest, the thoughts and feelings within us.  We often see ourselves as having no choice.  Sometimes we look for ways to drown them out or pretend they are there.  We think by making them wrong, the experience of having the thought and feeling companions will make them disappear, but it doesn’t’ work that way. We make jokes about people who talk to themselves.  I am more concerned about what I am allowing to talk to me inside my own head.  When I think of the thought companions I keep inside myself, I realize I would never consider them a friend.  The ones I allow to spring up from my heart are the kindest companions.  The ones God shows me to draw close to are friends to my soul.  God reminds us when we take the time to quiet ourselves, we are not at the mercy of these inner companions.  We can always choose to step back and observe and choose the level of closeness we want with them.