dailydatewithgod

Technically we are always in a time of uncertainty but these days we feel it with trepidation as the world deals with the reality of the Corona Virus pandemic.  We are more connected than ever which means we have access to more information.  However, it makes it hard to distinguish what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. We can take any one of the messages received and turn them into a memorandum.  Taking time to pause and reflect in our hearts as well as in our minds what to take action on is where the rubber meets the road.  There is still a lot that is being figured out. What often happens as our fear base gets hijacked by all the latest information on what to do next and what will happen if we don’t, we lose connection with ourselves the truth of who we are.  I get it, the last thing that sounds like a good idea is to continue making my daily dates with God the first thing I do in the morning before opening my phone.  Yet, if I want to move through life based on the memorandum of the truth of who I am at my core versus circumstances I am facing, there is no better way.  If I intend to respond instead of react, I need to keep checking in with my heart and see what it’s memorandum is on how to walk, talk, and drive in the world.  Our heart’s memorandum is the one that will remind us we are not alone in what we are feeling and dealing with at this moment in time.

In the world of self-improvement, the emphasis always seems to be on creating oneself anew.  I like the idea and I appreciate the perspective but over the years I find it lacking.  However, the message given is often less about the improvement of who we truly are and more about being someone or something else. Freedom for me has come from first noticing what is, seeing how it works positively or negatively, and then choosing to keep it, discard it, or adjust it.  On my daily dates with God, I get an adjustment just by taking the time each day to connect with the truest part of myself.  God is not the one who looks at me and sees what is broken, I do that.  My head is all about unearthing or burying what I believe are faults, brokenness, and darkness.  My heart, as God has shown me on our dates, sees the potential for adjustments.  To believe that what is inherent is flawed and wrong is to believe God messed up the design.  Nothing in nature ever screams to me as messed up.  There are things I don’t understand, there are things I do not like, but I am humble enough to recognize that just because I don’t understand it does not mean its wrong. My unwillingness to be open to an adjustment versus an overhaul is directly proportional to my level of acceptance. God can see the gift in whatever it is. My heart reminds me of this when I am ready to bury or burn something I have unearthed about myself I do not understand.  My heart whispers the possible adjustments and if I can quiet my mind down long enough to listen to the still small voice, I can see exactly what adjustment is connected to the truth of who I am at my core.

The reason hindsight is 20/20 is that there is no way to know when something starts out what its ripple effects might be.  We may have some inclination to where something is going based on the preface of the experience but an inclination or educated guess is always based on what we know from the past.  We relate to things from the space of what has come before.  At the preface where everything is starting out, it is a clean slate.  A preface is the opening to possibility.  Our minds quickly go to how it fits in with what we already know but it is a limited view.  If we can conceive of it in our minds than we are not allowing God’s perceptions to take root.  Our hearts which speak the language of energy know how to hold the space of possibility.  Our heart’s approach is the preface to an unknown experience or person because we see what is in front of us outside the boundaries of our mind.  To preface an experience or encounter with something new we can pause and breathe as we open our eyes reconnecting our head to our heart.  If we are willing to preface our movements with the idea that we may not know it is the same as taking a breath.  It is a refresh to our thinking to let go of what is known.  Every preface we come to is the chance to play in God’s view.  It is humbling to acknowledge just how much of what we experience is a repeat of our past but when we are willing to be honest with ourselves we know it is.  It changes shape and circumstance but life can become a series of repeating thoughts that become beliefs that form our character. If we instead opt to preface our next movement with a breath and invoke the energy of the heart we open ourselves to the curiosity and surprise of the unknown from a place of courage.

We recognize symmetry when it is in front of our eyes. We are drawn to it and find it beautiful. We seem to be challenged by the symmetry between our hearts and our heads.  There is a Sioux Indian saying: “The longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.”  It is hard to imagine that such a short physical trip takes a metaphorical, energetic, emotional, and spiritual lifetime.  From what I have gathered on my daily dates with God is it is about the process. We find ourselves in symmetry and then we get off track. We struggle in asymmetry and come across the way to get back into symmetry.  It stays for a while and then something comes along to alter our mind or heart’s perspective and put them in asymmetry.  My humble estimation, therefore, is that asymmetry is just as important to the process as symmetry.  In a world of dualism, it plays right into the game of life to dance between the two.  On the path to symmetry, we are in asymmetry.  To really appreciate and enjoy the symmetry we must fully know asymmetry.  God does not hold the judgments of whether we are asymmetrical or symmetrical in mind and heart. Given how plentiful judgment of ourselves and others is God does not need to jump on our bandwagon. God is the space that holds the power of the symmetry when all we feel is an asymmetrical connection between our head and our hearts and the space of gratitude and peace when we are in head-heart symmetry.

One of my spiritual mentors pointed out to me that there are three kinds of business.  Mine, God’s and other people’s. If I am rotating in someone else’s business orbit I do not function well.  Being outside the sphere of my influence while perhaps well-intended allows me to be spinning about something over which I have no control.  We like to think we influence people by stepping into their orbit or that God might do better if we were to assist in God’s orbit.  However, in all honesty, and humility, all that seems to happen is it messes with the orbit of all parties.  We can look at the orbit of another and imagine if they ran their orbit the way we do ours, it would have stellar results.  Yet, others may not have the same star composition or types of gases that we do.  We may see something we would like in others but as I have evidence for in my life, anytime I have adopted someone else’s way of operating, it was only successful when I put my own spin on it.  Staying in our own orbit allows us to influence by example.  Being able to line up our own planets and stars and various elements of our lives because the resonant frequency is aligned allows us to be a shining example of an orbit of love.

We carry a message with us wherever we go.  The message comes through in who we are being.  Sometimes it correlates with what we say and do but sometimes it does not.  We are the vessel for our intentions.  We hold them in spaces within ourselves no one can see and they are conveyed through our energy.  When our words and actions are in alignment we are a clear vessel. When our intentions are out of sync with our words and actions we are a muddy vessel. It is not about being a perfect vessel at all times, I do not think this is possible.  Rather it is about the awareness that being a clear vessel makes room for the light of life to be transmitted through us.  When we are in alignment with the truth of who we are at our core we have no need to create a distraction or hide.  When we have done the work of investigating the stories and beliefs we have adopted from others to determine if they are in resonance with our hearts we can breathe. The Spirit of life moves freely through us when we participate in the respiratory process. The clearest vessel is the one that is free of elements that do not resonate with its energy.  The brightest vessel is the one that holds true to who or what it is in the moment and allows life to move through it.

Living in Southern California I have some would say the luxury of enjoying rain because it is somewhat of a novelty. I am drawn to it, but not enough to move to a place where it rains consistently.  I chose to live where it is sunny most of the time because it is a better fit for me. Yet I love it when it rains.  The draw is a mixture of the darkness, the mystery, the uncertainty, the cloudy atmosphere, the messiness and yes the novelty of the rain. I always appreciated growing up in the desert how after the monsoons came, everything outside was so colorful and pungent it was like a painting.  I could see the life that came from being nourished by the water. It is said that water is symbolic of our emotional nature, maybe because of its flow.  What I find most powerful about rain is the clearing nature it inhabits.  There is a sense that all that came before is being washed away and cleansed.  When it stops raining the clouds part open and make way for the sun.  Things are cleared of debris and ready for the fresh breath of light.  It is similar to the clearing my mind and heart feel after a good cry. I can breathe easier and I feel lighter. Sometimes it is as though the release has made it clear for something deeper within ourselves to be seen and known. The rain starts out with the ominous clouds of darkness that have a foreboding nature and at that moment we can decide to run and hide or open ourselves up to the clearing that comes just after the darkness.  The clearing that comes to light after the darkness and the rain whether external or internal allows for the true nature of whatever is rained on to shine from its core.

As humans, it is natural for us to notice distinctions, to be able to separate things out.  Our brain categorizes information by sorting things by their differences.  Those who are alike belong to one group and the things that are like that are in another.  It is a way of processing the information automatically so we do not have to be conscious of what we are doing with all the information coming at us.  It is almost like our brain is a big file cabinet and since the idea, we heard yesterday is like the one we heard a month ago it will go into that idea file.  If the person in front of us looks a particular way we can put them in the same file as someone else who looks or acts like them.  We would run out of fuel really quickly in the course of our day if we were to mentally be aware of all the automatic distinctions we were making.  This is a helpful mechanism but it can create fences in between the different files like fences between houses but we can’t see them.  We can literally have a difficult time combining two people or ideas because, in our minds, they are separate.  We experience it as confusion.  It is like the first time I came across my neighbor at the grocery store.  It was not like I had never seen a man I knew at the grocery store, but usually, when I see him he is entering his apartment.  We both saw each other and reacted with surprise.  We had just crossed a fence in our mind.  There are stronger fences we have built in our mind which do not get crossed by surprise.  Those are the fences we need the courage of our hearts to see through.  We all know what they are . . . the people who have hurt us, the idea that sounds preposterous, the experience that can never be fenced with ones we are willing to try again.  Our hearts create passageways through and above the fences.  Our hearts know that while according to our mind it looks like the fence we have up keeps us safe, it actually keeps us locked in our own yard.

We think of the agenda when it comes to meetings.  We think of them in terms of intention and expectations.  What we don’t often think about is the distinction between our mind’s agenda and our heart’s agenda.  In theory to the extent to which one practices self-awareness one can know what agenda he or she is holding in any given situation.  Our minds are constantly chattering to us about what we want and how we see things going.  This is good. It is important to know what our lens on life is because it informs our actions.  Getting acquainted with the agenda of our hearts is a little more subtle.  It calls on us to pause and check-in with ourselves from a space of quiet where we are not distracted by the dictates of the mind.  Breathing into our hearts to let them know we are present with them is the first step.  Listening without judgment when the agenda is presented makes the process simpler. God encourages us to learn to distinguish between the agenda of a wounded heart and the agenda driven from the core of who we are.  One or both can be driving the agenda and will aim for different outcomes.  A willingness to explore the caverns of our hearts for our agendas and making room for compassion for whatever shows up creates opportunities to learn and grow experiences in the realms of love.

One of the things that scientists have determined about behavior motivation is our inclination to avoid loss.  We are more likely to do something to keep loss from happening than to gain something we don’t already have.  We are described as being loss averse.  Perhaps it is because we are not aware of what we are adhering to until we lose it or are threatened with losing it.  What might it look like if we cherished the things we were adhered to whether it is our identity, things, experiences, or people? Perhaps loss occurs so we can become aware of the things we are adhering to. Which things or ideas do we adhere to with our minds but not our hearts?  I am interested in knowing more about the adherence of my heart because I know it is closest to the truth of who I am.  When I experience a loss I am made aware of my adherence to what I have made that thing, person or experience mean about me than the thing itself.  This is where we discover the adherence of our hearts.  Loss is challenging and to the degree to which we have adhered the thing to our sense of who we are according to our mind, is the degree of challenge. Our ego does not like to question our sense of self. What if in any moment of loss, we were given the gift of evaluating its adherence to the truth of who we are instead of who we think we are or who we think others think we are?  God invites us always to get to know the truth of who we are at our core and everything including loss can tell us something about the adherence of our hearts if we let them.