dailydatewithgod

I am guessing if you are not hiding under a rock or perhaps you are, the word exposure has taken on new meaning in the current world health situation we are all experiencing. The pandemic situation aside we are all subject to various exposure whether it is intentional or accidental.  Some exposure is that which we do intentionally, and others it happens to us.  Exposure can be experienced at all levels of awareness and realities. There is the vulnerable nature of our physicality and our emotionality causing us to be exposed to known and unknown factors. There is the liability of information we give and receive.  The risky nature of exposure can lend itself to creating trials and tribulations.  Without exposure, however, we will not grow.  Exposure places us face to face with elements we have not yet become aware of.  It gives us a sense of what inner capacities we have like the courage to walk through experiences we normally might avoid. It is about dealing with exposure mindfully and lovingly. (Again, I am not talking about the COVID-19 pandemic where it is mindful and loving to limit one’s exposure to the virus through whatever sound measures are available.) Exposure prompts us to discover the elements within ourselves that we may not have even known were there.  Our courage to take action, our capacity for forgiveness, our insights and collaborative ideas, our desire to connect with others, and so on.  Each exposure is presented to us as a gift in sometimes unattractive wrapping.  God has taught me and continues to remind me that situation in life happen and it is within me to discover which of the inner resources are best suited to walk through whatever it is.  I do not know if everything happens for a reason but I do believe that whatever it is God can help us find within our whole being what is needed to travel through the exposed path which has presented itself.

I was struck by something today when I was reading one of my daily spiritual books.  Actually, it was one word.  Innocence.  At that moment I saw each of us on this plant as innocent little children.  The uncertainty of how long this pandemic will last, who will still be alive when it is over, how much our lives will be changed as a result, and how much we grieve the simple loss of what is familiar in our patterns we are all brought to this place of not having the answers.  Our innocence is always present within us.  As children, we have a way of seeing it in ourselves and others but as life goes on we lose touch with it.  Many of us found ourselves at the downside of a hard life lesson and determined that our innocence left us vulnerable.  Perhaps more vulnerable than we could bear.  So we let go of our curiosity, we held tightly to what we were certain about and we closed our eyes to what was possible.  In this vulnerable state, we are in we are returned to the dual-sided nature encased in innocence.  The duality of vulnerability and possibility. Yet if we allow our hearts to reconnect to the innocence of our hearts which knows that no matter what happens outside of us we are still designed in and for love, we can see each other and our world with new eyes.  We can remember it as we look upon our fellow human beings who do not have any more certainty than we do about exactly how this will all turn out.  We can hold on to the innocence of trusting the depth within ourselves to be with us as we walk through all the unknown myriad of possibilities, good and bad, that we will face each day. We can reflect on the innocence shown to us of how nature ebbs and flows through whatever happens and we can do it too.  It is about calling upon the power of our vulnerability to stand in our innocence and the innocence of others and not get swept up by the fear our minds create just to be able to hold on to what we think is certainly going to happen.  I am not talking about ignoring practical measures or facing the grief and other feelings that are coming up.  God is encouraging us to connect to the true innocence of love as our source of navigation in these uncertain times whatever the individual and collective realities we are called to face.

The power of light is immeasurable.  It literally colors our whole world.  Colors are actually a way that our mind processes different levels of light. There are are a couple of things that come to mind when I think of highlights. The distinction of colors in the hair on my head, the bright markers I used all through school to bring attention to the most important ideas in the books I was reading, and the magazine I loved as a kid full of puzzles and finding surprising matches and mismatches. There is also the highlight of the truth of who we are.  Our hearts embody the perspective that living in the truth of who we are is enabling us to be a highlight to the world.  Being who we are designed to be in love to the best of our ability will, in fact, be a highlight to someone else on any given day.  We often fall prey to this idea that we are supposed to hide our gifts and perhaps at one time we were encouraged to do so.  But aside from living someone else’s ideas of what is okay and what is not okay, what is the point?  Why not be the highlight we are meant to be so that others can be enlightened to be the highlight they are.  If we walk around hiding in shadows because our light makes others uncomfortable, the darkness will grow and not have a chance to come into the light.  The light of God is what infuses our heart’s courageous energy which whispers the highlights we are called to be at any given moment in our day.  It is not about blasting people with our light or forcing them to see.  It is about being the highlight God sees in the myriad of colorful creation which God endowed to a loving world.

Growing up in New York I remember there being screen doors in front of all the doors which led to the outside on our house and every other house I knew.  When we moved to Arizona the doors to the outside did not have screens. They even had schools with classrooms that opened up into an outside courtyard.  I was blown away.  I am not sure of the technical reasons for this as in California there are screens on most outside doors here as well.  However, I did teach at a school that had classroom doors that opened to an outside courtyard.  The purpose of the screen as I see it, was an extra layer of protection perhaps from bugs or other elements but allowed for air from the outside to move through the house.  It is a way of opening oneself up to outside elements without all the elements. In Arizona it was so warm most of the year, maybe they decided it was best to either have the door closed or open.  However, years later we did have a lockable screen door over our front door at our home in Arizona.  I guess times change. Our minds act as a screen in two ways.  One is how we take in everything we see as our understanding is filtered through our perception. We can look out through our eyes but depending on how thick or clear our perception is, what we see is altered.  In turn, this perception determines what we project as happening in our lives, like a movie screen. God invites us to bring elements of our hearts into the picture of our lives.  With the balance between what we are allowing ourselves to receive and the wisdom of our hearts to know what it is true in the realm of love, we can adjust what we play as the movie of our lives to be what is most in alignment with the truth of who we are. It takes courage and energy to not just run the film with our first thoughts. Engaging the breath which awakens the heart allows the energy to flow to our minds and alter the picture we see project onto the screens of our life.

One thing God has shown me on our daily dates is the power of the gifts that come to me in unappealing wrapping. How many times can we acknowledge the truth that things we thought were the worst thing we could experience in the moment bore fruits, later on, we do not want to live without?  Attempting my best to live as a person in recovery who engages her daily relationship with God which started because my life depended upon it I can list off the offers I received over the years that I did not want to accept.  In fact, probably some of the most profound offers were exactly those I did not want to accept.  As an incest survivor coming to terms with the effects of that experience as a child is chock full of offers I am not the least desiring to walk through.  I developed a way to survive amidst that situation and God calls me daily to change my lens on many layers of lies I told myself about myself and my body just to make sense of the incomprehensible.  Accepting the lies I told myself to get through are the very offers of freedom by aligning with my heart’s desire to be realigned to the truth of who I am at my core. We all have our own paths in which we are faced with offers that look like something we cannot or do not want to walk through.  Our hearts offer us the courage to connect with God who will walk this path to freedom with us one day at a time.

The course of our lives can feel like it slips past us. We wake up to find ourselves chronologically older wondering what happened to all the time we had when we were younger.  There is this idea that things simply break down or shut down as we get older.  We forget things and our bodies don’t bounce back as quickly. We tend to get so used to what we see in our daily lives that we lose touch with the fascination we had as a kid.  We tend to think we know all there is to know.  One of my core tenants is learning and is a driver in my life.  I knew from a young age I always wanted to be learning.  I can be a bit of an information or improvement junkie but on the positive side, it creates a lens of wonderment for life.  There is always something to be discovered or uncovered.  Wonderment is a link to the energy of our hearts.  It allows us to let go of what we know is true and what we fear might be true according to our mind’s main focus of survival.  Our heart can play in the wonderment of life because it does not have the same timeline as the mind.  Our heart subsists on the energy of love which is not limited by time and space.  To allow ourselves to be present to the wonderment of life connects us to our childhood and our adulthood because they are one in the same heart.

One pivotal idea that I learned in recovery is the distinction between making a mistake and being a mistake.  Growing up based on the circumstance, I drew the conclusion that they were one and the same.  My goal then became to not make any mistakes and if I did which is human, I was mortified.  I was sure I had failed even if it was as simple as having the wrong answer in class at school. Later on, as a teacher, I came across the saying which I posted in my classroom:  ” The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”  I posted it but on a deeper level, I did not believe it.  I still wanted to be the one who gave the information without correction needed.  Teaching middle school made it relatively easy because most of the students still think the teacher is right most of the time.  When I got into recovery, working with a sponsor taught me what it was like to received loving correction.  Her voice was not as loud and demeaning as the one in my head.  Her voice was not as shame ridden as the one in my head.  Then as my daily dates with God began I learned that the only mistakes we make are the ones we learn nothing from. Making room for correction that comes from the heart is about course correction, not condemnation.  At a time when we may find ourselves operating in the fear stories of our mind that tells us if we do not do this correctly, we will die, it is good to know that the soft gentle voice of correction for any possible missteps is as accessible as our breath.

It goes without saying that change is inevitable. We can choose to see that as a burden or a gift.  Depending on the day it might be both. The most fundamental and powerful gift we can give ourselves is to change our perspective.  We often want this for others, usually, so they will see things our way.  However, tapping into the capacity to make our own little tweaks empowers us to flex the muscles of breathing through changes and navigating potential fears that arise. Perhaps you have experienced a time when you resisted a change because all you could see are the negative potentials stemming from it.  As you look back now, you realize you did not know the positive potentials which were also present. Being open to tweaking our perspective gives us the grace to walk through life and not get so hooked by fear of the unknown.  This is not necessarily easy given our biological imperative for survival which keeps us on the lookout for what might go wrong. One tool I have learned through my daily dates with God is making little tweaks which slowly lead me into releasing the possible fear that seems like it wants to grip me and cripple my power to choose my attitude. A powerful practice for me is acceptance.  When I am not accepting of a person, situation, feeling, or whatever and it seems like miles of grueling work to get to a place of acceptance, I have to start with a tweak.  The tweak is to acknowledge that I am not accepting at this moment. But, I can accept that I don’t accept right now.  It is a simple tweak coming from a place of acknowledgment which emanates from my heart.  It can quiet the loud judging mind which wants to condemn me as not being spiritual enough to be in a place of acceptance yet. The tweak of accepting my non-acceptance makes breathing room for accepting me exactly as I am in this moment.

When we are stressed out or challenged beyond what we believe is our capacity, we find ourselves at a choice point. We can give in to the situation either by giving up or by surrendering. We can choose to fight or stay in the game long enough to see if we are made of anything else.  We can make room for our creativity to bubble up and invent a new way of handling things.  We can affirm who we know ourselves to be and recognize that no circumstance can change who we are at our core.  These options come from a reserve present in our hearts. We may not even know it is there because we have managed thus far to exist mostly in our minds. Everything around us confirms that we can and should be able to think our way out of whatever it is. The truth is as whole human beings we are neither heart or mind, we are the two together. Until we are challenged, we may not discover the reserve in our hearts.  Until we find ourselves in something not predicted by our mind, do we look within to find the reserve. The energetic courage reserve at the core of our being is always there for us.  God created it within us so we would never lose our connection to the truth and power of love.  Our mind may jump in telling us of our limitations because it does not want to be maxed out due to possible survival implications, but it can only have the final say if we do not invite our mind into the reserve of our hearts. Creativity begins with the interplay between our hearts and our minds.

As change occurs, we adapt.  One thing the history of time has shown is the tremendous reliance and power of the human-animal to adapt to change.  We may have lots of stories in our heads about our ability or dealing with the unknown, but when push comes to shove we do what needs to be done. Today’s circumstances find us in a space of juggling multiple points of change which may seem overwhelming and cause us to doubt ourselves.  God invites us to take a different approach.  God encourages us to pause from the juggling in our minds of the changes and possible changes and connect to our hearts.  Our mind focuses on all the little pieces of change and our hearts take an approach of wholeness. The approach of the heart reminds us to see what does not change amid changes.  The approach of connecting to our breath as without it nothing can happen. The approach of seeing all changes as a part of a whole instead of separate pieces.  The approach of belief in love is more powerful than fear.  The approach of guiding us to make one choice at a time which is actually all we can do. The approach of an invitation to link with our minds so our choices represent the balance of who we are as a whole being.