dailydatewithgod

The world is going to wound us.  It is going to beat us up from time to time.  It is going to get muddy and messy.  But as the Buddhist, “Thich Nhat Hanh says, “No Mud, No Lotus.” Our inclination would be to insulate ourselves from the wounding, the beating, and the mud.  While our intentions are good when we go into heart protection mode we unintentionally shut out the healing, the victory, and the pure beauty present in the world.  Like most addicts, when I was active in my addiction, adding layers of insulation around my heart I was not thinking about the side effects other than the safety it would procure.  The irony, of course, is I never quite managed to insulate myself completely.  Because I am alive and my heart is pumping, I was still affected by the dark and light of life. The best I was able to accomplish through the insulation was numbing life’s experiences.  Just as I literally wore down my taste buds from all the sugar I was ingesting, I numbed my heart to feeling things completely in any direction.  The insulation I put in place was based on the premise of a child way of thinking it must be one or the other.  As someone in recovery,  I have learned how to be open to feeling whatever it is with needing the insulation.  Sometimes it means life hurts really bad. Sometimes it means experiencing an overflow of joy and excitement in my heart I can barely remember to breathe.  I have the courage to trust my heart today and a willingness to navigate without so much insulation.  I am not perfect and so sometimes I get creative about how I insulate my heart.  Those are the moments when I reach for God’s hand which encourages me to take a breath, put my attention on my heart, and be open to seeing the beauty of the mud being as beautiful as the lotus that grows from it.

As we go through life we acquire a lot of things: ideas, paperwork, people, experiences, beliefs, habits, and more.  As we go we cannot hold on to everything because we run out of room and or the energy to maintain all the accumulated elements. Thus begins the process as mirrored in nature of pruning and letting go.  Determining what to keep and what to let go requires reflection.  The ideal would be to keep only the components in alignment with who we have become and what matches the life we want to keep living.  Often without realizing it we keep things that we do not even know we have.  Some things we blindly took on because we did not stop to question its place in our lives. Our hearts invite us to pause and take a closer look at what is worth keeping.  What do we have the energy and courage to maintain?  A few elements may be static but most aspects of our lives require attention and maintenance.  The question of what is worth keeping is therefore about what we want to give attention to and maintain. What is worth the energy and engagement of our hearts to keep alive in our lives?

We think we all want smooth sailing all the time. Life would be easier if we didn’t have to face so many challenges or problems.  If we are honest with ourselves, however, we recognize that who we are  is shaped by the challenges we experience.  We are called to grow in all areas of our lives by the challenges we face.  We shape our understanding of the universe and find ourselves exploring avenues we may have not previously considered because of our challenges.  We meet people and form friendships with those we may have passed by without ever knowing because of our adverse experiences.  My greatest challenges have become my greater sources of freedom and happiness.  They have always started out as the thing I could not stand or the situation I did not want to be in or the thing I hoped would not happen.  If I were to look upon them solely with my head, I would never know the courage of my heart and the strength of my spirit.  I see the manifestation of God in myself and others because of the challenges we choose to face and overcome. When we are willing to walk into the challenges with the strength of our heart and light of our spirit we get to be carried by the power of love which always wins.

We tend to look at ourselves in a binary way.  All the good sides of ourselves versus the all the bad sides of ourselves.  The parts we like about us, the parts we dislike about us. Then we take it in comparison to others.  We see where we are efficient and others are deficient.  We see where we are successful and others fail and vice versa. Rarely, do we stop to take a look at the duality of each of those elements.  Within our good or bad sides are the flip sides. The opposing aspect of the good side of being a good listener can be seen from the flip side of not speaking up as quickly.  Being efficient in time keeping can make us deficient in flexibility.  We are not static beings.  Our good sides may hinder us in circumstances where we need the flip side to be present.  If we define ourselves solely by our efficient elements and try to hide our deficient side we are not embracing the whole of our being or the gift of the moment.  All the parts of ourselves are there for a reason.  We carry judgment about which is best to allow others to see and we judge others when their darker sides slip through.  At any given moment our deficiency may be the sign of something we need to address.  We will not know what we can learn about ourselves and others if we are too busy either ignoring or trying to hide them. Our hearts invite us to be in the moment we are in.  If we are demonstrating a deficiency (being cruel to others or ourselves, not managing our money well, being judgmental of others, or any other myriad of things we do often when we are out of reserves of the flip side) and see it as a defining element of ourselves instead of an experience in the moment we are in, we lose the gift it gives us.  I often notice the gifts of God from the heart are rarely packaged like some kind of Valentine’s Day surprise.  They are more like something wrapped in old newspapers or trash bags.  Our deficiencies provide indications of the current state of our heart.  We may not be aware of the presence of frustration in our lives until we see ourselves being impatient with ourselves, another person, or experience. Instead of labeling impatience as a deficiency of our being, we can use it as a call to get some additional support in dealing with our frustration.

When the rain is falling outside there is nothing more inviting than walking into a room radiating with heat and stillness.  It is a stark contrast to the whip of the wind and the droplets of cold water outside.  It reminds me of what it is like to sit and sip a warm cup of tea or wrap myself in a blanket.  The holiday season presents images of harbor from the harsh cold outdoors.  It is conveyed in the pictures of the fireplaces, sweaters, Santa hats, and holiday treats.  One hears it in the commercials and sees it in the stores.  The holiday season radiates the ideas of warmth and comfort.  I often wonder what it is like in the southern hemisphere around the holiday since their temperatures are warming up.  Paying attention to what we are radiating is more than just what we are wearing or doing.  It is about the state of our hearts.  The implication during the holiday season, no matter what celebrate specifically are the themes of gratitude and generosity.  It is as though we have acquired the understanding that if we are radiating generosity or gratitude we are likely to be the warmth that we crave from the cold harshness of everyday life.  Our hears know that is how it works all year round.  Radiating generosity not because it is what we are supposed to do but because of who we are enables us to be who we were created to be.  We do not need a holiday to do this but if it inspires it, all the better.

There are a lot of things that go on in our minds.  Most of which we are not even aware of.  The little we are cognizant of we choose to pay attention to or not. All my life I have heard that your memory goes as you get older.  I do remember when I reached a point where I had a harder time recalling information than I had before.  However, I do not think it has as much to do with the inability to remember as the added level of distractions that are occurring at the same time.  When we involve more than our minds in the process of awareness about something we will have an easy time recalling things.  The more our hearts and emotions are involved in an experience the more we will be able to recall it.  The same goes for experiences that resonate with information we have already learned and have a file on, so to speak.  It is also an element of humility to acknowledge that we are not recalling as much as we used to, especially for someone like me who has always prided herself on having a good memory.  There are countless things scientists are learning about how we ingest, digest, and recall information from our minds every day.  But regardless of what more information we learn about how our minds function, what if we start with the simplicity of the present moment? I find the more present I am in a situation, the better able I am at recalling it later.  The longer we live, the more outside and internal pulls for our attention away from the moment we will experience.  It makes sense we will not recall information as easily if we were not fully there to take it in.  God within our hearts invites us to be present in the moments we are in. Be where our physical head and heart are right now.  Then whether or not we recall it will matter little because we are there to fully experience it as it is happening.

In this Yin-Yang universe of duality there is a myriad of contrasting experiences and understanding.  We fall prey to focusing on the contrasts to our detriment when we think the flip side of the contrast is not true.  When we start thinking there is nothing we can have in common with the person who thinks or believes something in contrast with what we think or believe, we have lost our true sight.  Did they somehow lose their humanness?  The mere fact that a contrast occurs is not a sign of us simply being the contrast to the other but of them being the contrast entirely.  We all have all sides to us. It comes through in different forms but none-the-less it is present in all of us.  When we latch on to one side of a person we are not extending to them the same human dignity we would want extended to ourselves.  None of us are just one thing.  None of us have only one way of thinking and believing.  When we recognize it is our desire to have things figured out, not risk the mystery of the moment, or trust the value of getting to know someone on a deeper level, it is easy to believe the other person is only the contrasting idea.  Our eyes and ears may get stuck in the one-sided view but our hearts are open to the contrast.  Our hearts close to our breath remind us life is one beat at a time.  Each beat is a new moment and opportunity to relax our eyes and ears and breathe in the mystery of getting to know all the contrasting elements of ourselves and others.

We have all been blessed with the gift of life.  While the blessing itself is profound, I often felt like I was left without instructions on how to live it.  I know I am not alone in this.  We all go about figuring it out the best we can.  We go with what we are given by our family and society.  Schools and religious institutions instruct us.  There are fundamental biological elements built-in which we do not have to think about. There are also components we absorb unconsciously in our early years that we do not even notice until we are older and they begin to break down.  This breakdown can be viewed as a problem or an invitation to be a creator in our own lives again.  It takes moxie to go against the grain and discovery a new path. Some, like me find themselves on their knees after having valiantly tried to live by the components adapted from those around them. In those cases, it takes some moxieness to admit we have done our best to go with the design we were shown.  There is a space in our hearts and our spirit calls us to look at some other options.  But we like the familiar and the known and we are afraid to step out of it.  This is where the moxieness comes in.  Courage is not the absence of fear but the decision to go ahead anyway.  When we utilize our moxieness to admit what is not working for us, we become willing to find another path.  The good news is there are many out there including the one resonating most deeply with the truth of who we are.  God is with us as we walk the moxie road of unfamiliar territory whispering in  our ear that we are worth living life in a space that supports and accepts the truth of who we are.

At our core as human beings we are wired to survive.  It is not something we have to think about it is ingrained in every part of our being, right down to our cells.  It is part of the grand design of the universe for the human race to continue.  So many of our inherent decisions are made in our minds long before we are consciously aware of them.  The mechanisms we have created in order to insure our survival that we developed as children, can begin to outlive their usefulness.  Those mechanisms were created to account for the discord between our reality and the truth we knew in our hearts. Now, our circumstances have changed and we can return to our truth.  We have power and agency as adults that we did not have when we were young. We no longer need to rely upon our childhood mechanisms for survival.  In the process of the setting up and repeated use of the mechanisms as a child, they have become ingrained.  Our brain does not require any added energy to go with the default.  To create new mechanisms we need to defy the old ones.  We have to move against the defaulted groove in our brain.  When we start doing this, it feels uncomfortable simply because it is unfamiliar.  If we are not careful we will listen to our brains which tell us we are defying who we are.  To step into the wholeness, authenticity, and power of being an adult requires some defiance of our usual self.  Fighting for our right to be uncomfortable while a new groove is formed is what our hearts are calling us to do.  We can be grateful for the mechanisms that got us where we are today and then let them go. They are no longer the measurement of the truth of who we are.

We are often unaware of the effect we have on each other and the world around us.  We are all usually so busy inside our own heads that we do not fully conceive the impact we are creating.  Our heart’s energetic frequency extends about six feet outside our physical body. We are literally bumping into and rubbing off on those around us even if we never touch them physically. This means what we are carrying in our hearts is permeating into our environment.  God encourages us to get in alignment with the truth of who we are at our core so we can be spreading the message of our truth through our being.  Permeating the light and love of our existence is what we are here to do. We can influence others to do the same for themselves only when we take the time to do it for ourselves.  It shows up in our reality and we cannot run from it.  It is not easy to make peace with ourselves especially if we have been telling ourselves a false story of who we are based on some experiences in our lives.  It take time and effort but the truth will prevail and it will permeate our being if we are willing to courageously discover God’s view of us.