dailydatewithgod

The great irony of life is we spend most of it concentrating on what is going on outside of us.  Life gives us ample opportunity to address our lives from the core of who we are but we often brush it aside because we think it does not matter.  Our roots are what ground us to our understanding of reality.  If we want to change our reality we need to go to the root of what is shaping our perception.  Only we can do that.  We are not the victims we paint ourselves to be.  We have more agency than we recognize when we step up and take responsibility for our role in shaping our reality. If we take a look at the root of who we are versus the story we bought into due to circumstances, we see two totally different stories.  The issue is not what happened to us it is what we do with it.  It requires courage and strength which are at the root of who God designed us to be.  If we dig deep within our hearts we will find we have what we need to face this mysterious, sometimes treacherous, many times exuberant and always playful thing we call life.  Our experiences simply give us an opportunity to draw on the true roots of who we are and show ourselves and the world what we are made of.

The survival elements of our existence enable us to have a keen awareness of all times of things that may go wrong.  It is referred to as the negativity bias.  Since our brains are wired for survival it sees things from a very basic perspective.  An important perspective while I cannot speak for all people, I am interested in staying alive.  Given our evolutionary capacity which has allowed us to not just survive but thrive this can present some challenges.  We are readily attuned to hearing what is not.  We are slanted towards being aware of what is not present.  We are engaged with handling what is not happening.  It shows up in all forms of nots.  Someone not being there.  Not getting what we need from a person, place, or thing.  Not knowing what to do.  Not being aware of something.  Not being a part of.  Not wanting what we are feeling.  Our nots motivate us into action.  They are the markers of our fear.  Not being able to keep something we want or not getting what we want.  We create expectations for the world and when they are not met we feel like we are not getting what we want or deserve.  Then before we know it we are rolled up in nots.  God invites us to pay attention to what we identify as our nots, pause, and look closer.  What are our nots telling us about what is important to us? What are our nots telling us about how we see ourselves in the world?  What are our nots telling us about who we are connected to or invested in?  Our nots are typically the product of fear and the negativity bias, they are not inherently a bad thing.  Like most things, our nots can be an opportunity to bring love to the experience.  The more we pay attention to where we go automatically, the more we can not be driven by it. automatically.

It is difficult for us to grasp the depth at which we experience connection with others.  We get stuck in our thinking about how different we are.  We are separate bodies with different shapes and sizes.  We have different ideas and engage in different activities.  We are valued for what we can bring to the table as individuals and are praised for our uniqueness.  These are all valuable parts of the human experience.  However, if we are to be completely honest with ourselves we are more unified than we like to imagine.   Why do we struggle with unification with others?  Perhaps because it calls upon us to practice a level of humility, patience, and seeing things from a different perspective.  Our unification which symbolizes our connection to others and the natural world are part of what expands our hearts.  Isolating and being so independent gets lonely.  It is not about needing other people.  It is about seeing ourselves in others.  It is about recognizing our unity with the person we cannot stand.  The person who irritates us or we do not think is in their right mind.  They too need to breathe and be in connection with others. Within each of us is the unification of all of life.  It is energetically present in our hearts. When we utilize the eyes of our heart we can see past the constraints of our eyes have which keep us divided.  The simple act of taking a breath requires the balance of nature and trees without which there would be no oxygen.  Then if we do not breathe out nature cannot benefit from our gift of carbon dioxide. If we aren’t breathing, everything else is not happening.  Unification is the recognition of the truth of how life works.

Most people when approached for help are willing to do what they can. Some people go out of their way and others do avoid it.  Sometimes what stops people from being helpful is because they do not know how or what is most needed.  There is a facility within our hearts that leads to an inclination to bolster each other.  It is not foreign to the truth of who we are. We can be moved to provide bolstering without being prompted but there is a greater sense of fulfillment that comes from knowing we are providing what is needed.  God encourages us to look for opportunities to practice bolstering in small ways throughout our day.  Does it make a bigger difference if God knows? The grand gestures are great but in an effort to demonstratively execute our bolstering skills we miss the little chances that may not look like much yet have a strong impact.  How often do we get a chance to smile at someone and we opt not to?  Yet how many of us feel a lift when we see someone smile?  Maybe we worry too much about how our bolstering will be received.  Maybe we have our attention on the wrong thing.  There are a multitude of opportunities in any given day to say thank you to someone.  Who doesn’t love to be genuinely appreciated?  When our heart moves us to share and be in connection with others we are contributing to the overall bolstering of the energy around us and with further ramifications of which we are aware.

We like to think we know exactly what we want.  Why is it once we get it we are still not satisfied?  Why is it we are ready to focus on the next thing we want?  Is it really the thing, person, or experience we are seeking?  Everything around us tells us so.  If we get this car, that job, are in a relationship, or obtain an accolade then we will be what?  Secure? Fearless?  Settled?  Successful?  Happy? Are we seeking a way out of the drudgery of the human experience? I never fully bought into the idea of getting the car, the job, or the house as a sign of success.  My goal while not conscious was to get the approval of others.  I figured if I followed the rules, did what was expected, and didn’t rock the boat I would somehow feel like enough.  I would be able to justify my place on the planet.  Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how one looks at it, it pulled me from the truth of who I am almost to the point of total destruction.  In recovery, I learned the form I am seeking is not what my heart is seeking.  There is nothing wrong with having the car, the job, the degree, the boyfriend and so on.  It is when I make those forms the be all end all of what is important about me.  The forms are important because they propel us in a particular direction. However, if we let our hearts and souls guide our journey, they will often take us farther and deeper past the form into an experience of greater depth and power.  My drive to prove I was worthy of taking up space on this planet led me to destroy myself and hide my heart.  This led me broken down into recovery which opened a door to a whole world I did not even know existed.  It brought to me the idea of my daily dates with God.  It showed me a way to be in the world where I did not have to be afraid of the form I had taken and how I could change what I thought about me and others.  If I had gotten the love and approval I desired by my actions and in the form I expected, I would have missed out on what it is like to know I approve of me and I love myself because I AM.  I would never have known the precious heart understanding that because God gave me breath, I am here where I am supposed to be.  The form I wanted would not have allowed me to know that to have a truly open and present heart means making space for all forms and seeing the love within them.

On any given day we are presented with a multitude of choices. Most of those choices already have meaning attached to them.  Do I see my anger as an indication of something trying to get my attention or something wrong with my state of mind?  Do I think I am good for ordering the salad for lunch or bad? Is there an end to this uncomfortable situation at work or will it last the rest of the week?  Should I ask a question or not say anything at all?  Red or pink?  All of these choice points are presented to us through the lens of the filters we have already built-in.  From the filters we discern what is most appropriate in the moment.  For some elements our minds have made a decision long before we are even aware of it.  We like to think we have much more say in some of our decisions than we do. So much of our choices are made automatically.  This is good on some level because to really have to choose at every choice point would be exhausting mentally and emotionally.  But for some things we want to make it a point to use some perspicaciousness.  It may require a pause, a breath, investigation of further information, asking a question, seeking another person’s perspective, or choosing not to make a choice.  Discernment is similar to judgment but it is less automatic. Being perspicacious means taking the time to consider things instead of just going with the first thing that comes to mind.  We all judge, this is not a surprise.  The question is do we take the time to be perspicacious.  On my daily dates with God taking I am sometimes asked to look again, to discern, on a decision I made previously.  God is not standing there with a gavel condemning me for being judgmental but an open invitation to be perspicacious. A chance to use my heart to further evaluate the effectiveness of my judgment.  To look clear-sighted and see if it was made automatically from my programming or if I took the time to be aware of what I was choosing to do.  The gift of perspicaciousness is the chance to make decisions as a whole person-body, mind, and spirit.

When we make decision it is powerful.  Our hearts push out the tenacious energy needed to stick to what we know to be true down to our bones.  Sometimes when we find ourselves faltering it is because either we did not wholeheartedly make a decision or we made a resolution instead of a decision.  The tenacity required to sustain a commitment is what carries us through when we begin to doubt.  We wonder if it is worth it. We don’t feel into it anymore.  We question if we are really meant to do what we set out to do or be. If we are longing to embrace the truth of who we are being in alignment with how we show up, tenacity is required.  Who we are at our core is not some carbon copy of others.  We are not meant to follow a pattern so we look and act like everyone else.  We are designed to be messengers of love. The particular expression of love meant to come through us is not always going to look like it does for others or what is considered to be acceptable.  God does not ask us how we are loving like expected.  God asks us if we are loving from who we are.  We are given guidelines through spiritual paths and religious practices but love expressed in the moment is what counts.  The tenacity to be the love in the moment takes courage and cannot be expressed except by those present in that particular moment.

I resisted using a GPS system on my phone while driving for a long time. I am the gal with the AAA maps in my car and the Thomas Guide book for Southern California because I was going to figure out what direction was best and how to get there.  Those however, do not provide traffic updates or alternatives that are not easy to see especially while actually driving.  There is a certain surrender in being given direction to follow that is both freeing and frightening.  Do I really know where my GPS is telling me to go?  Is the directions I am being given really saving me time?  My GPS cannot seriously expect me to make a left turn here during rush hour?!  There is no way . . . and then there is.  Taking direction is welcomed in some areas of my life but not in others.  Usually my resistance to direction whether from God, an inner inkling, another person, or my GPS system is due to fear.  Fear of where following it will take me and if I will be safe.  Yet there are times when I will catch myself blindly following the direction of someone or something else without a thought on my part.  Somewhere in there is a balance.  Our heart carries within it the direction of the core of who we are designed to be.  Within our hearts are the directions to love.  When we pause and check in with our hearts anything we are receiving from outside, we will know which direction to follow in that moment.  The best direction much to my chagrin is usually one that comes a step at a time.  My head wants to know where I will end up but my heart is right here, right now.  It is my heart that knows when it is a good idea to take the path of love that leads me to make turns I didn’t know I could and see places I have never been or to go ahead and take the freeway because it is the highway we are all on.

There are all kinds of things we react to in life.  Most of what we do is automatically react.  It requires a level of mindfulness and presence to choose to act in a situation.  Many hours of our day we don’t actually need this skill but when we do we are so used to operating out of reaction it feels foreign to us to not do just react.  The choice to allow something to spur us to something else is a choice we can make.  God encourages us to notice what is automatically spurring us to action and how we might want to make different choices.  When we pause, take a breath, check in with our heart we might make a different choice.  We may not.  Recognizing and claiming our capability to choose what is spurring our actions in life may seem overwhelming at first.  With practice and on my daily prayer and meditation dates with God I see the benefits of claiming my ability to choose.  Instead of the responsibility feeling like a burden it is freeing.  With time I have come to see that others ideas, behaviors, or experiences cannot spur me to anything I do not choose to be spurred by.  Therefore, no one else is to blame.  Which means I can change if I want. I cannot change what is outside of me. Connecting with my own heart and balancing the spurring of my mind is a step into freedom with each breath I take.

No matter how much of a self-starter or go-getter we are sometimes we just need a boost.  We need people and a way to remind ourselves of how powerful we are.  Those who know us and love us are usually more than willing if we ask to lift us up.  Especially if they know how much we need it.  The key is the vulnerability to ask for what we need.  It takes courage to ask for secours.  It take a moment to humbly recognize we cannot do it on our own all the time.  The beauty of the human design is we can begin the process with ourselves.  If we pause and take a breath, it is the beginning of secours.  The very breath we take to be honest with ourselves about what is going on.  The breath we must take as we choose to humble ourselves and ask for back up.  In the breath which is within us is the opportunity to create secours as we garner further determine what kind of assistance we need.  God designed us to begin to cultivate what we need within ourselves.  Not so we can do it all on our own.  So we can have the courage to engage with others.  Our breath is the opening portal to secours.  On my daily date with God I am given the secours I need to remember throughout the day that God does not leave me when our daily prayer and meditation time ends by starting with my breath.  In turn it gives me the courage to be the secours for someone else I cross on my path in the coming day.