dailydatewithgod

One of my favorite words is continue.  It is a simple yet profound term to describe hope or devastation depending on the context.  It is a word speaking to the power of lingering with something.  As a child, due to the sexual trauma I experienced, I learned really quickly how to abandon myself.  It took the form of leaving my body because of the confusion and the discomfort or my perspective on what was happening which did not seem to agree with others’ perspectives.  I then found other ways to create the same experience through food and self-hatred. The idea of lingering with myself as a safe place to be was foreign to me.  I am not sure I truly understood what it means to linger in safety until my daily dates with God began.  I had such a mixed-up sense of safety because what I told myself was safe and unsafe caused me to want to leave myself.  It was God who showed me the power of lingering a little bit past my comfort zone to move from a place of unsafe to safe.  It seems contrary to our minds to linger when we experience discomfort of any kind.  Why not leave?  Why not get on to something more comfortable?  Yet there is power in lingering past what our minds’ tell us is our capacity, our courage, and our strength. The truth is our heart is far more resilient than we realize.  It is what allows us to continue on despite difficulty.  It is what empowers us to continue to search for a way to make it through when we feel lost.  Being with God who is happy to be lingering along with me as I get to know the landscape of my heart is what has taught me what it means not to abandon myself.  Lingering with our heart gives us the fortitude to continue to hope no matter what we are going through.

It is sometimes hard to discern what applies to us.  There are so many categories and elements to who we are that when we come across ideas or situations we may think it pertains to us but it may not.  There are all kinds of categories to which we belong and some we do not have any control over.  I am a woman, a worker, a friend, a sister, a daughter, an American, a Southern California resident, a car owner and driver, a master’s degree holder, a descendant of Irish and Italian immigrants, a writer, a blonde-haired person, a spiritual being, a giver, a learner, and so on.  We could spend all day divvying up where we belong based on all our different characteristics. Consider for a moment how there are groups and qualifications assigned to any one of those categories which may pertain to us.  That is a lot of categories or groups to belong to. But do they really pertain to us?  How do we figure out what pertains to us or how much of that characteristic pertains to us?  Which of those elements of ourselves pertains enough to impact how we are being in the world?  What about the categories for which we are not a part?  Do those pertain to us?  There is only so much time and energy we can spend being a part of or involved within one day.  We get to choose the level of how any one of these elements pertains to the truth of who we are.  It may not pertain that much to me in a particular circumstance that I am a woman and tomorrow it may not pertain as much to me that I am a worker.  We get to discern which elements of our lives pertain the most to who we are being and what we are up to in the moment we are in.  No one else can determine that for us.  Some think it is their job to point out to us that we belong to them, but if we feel it does not pertain to us we can choose otherwise.  We are not victims of our circumstances or elements.  We have the agency to discern in any given moment the level to which any part of ourselves pertains to us.

I remember as a kid we would play “opposite game.”  We would respond to each other in whatever we were doing with the opposite of what we normally did.  It was very random and very freeing.  There was something inherently altering and silly in being able to see things as the opposite of what we were used to thinking and experiencing.  The same thing can happen for us as adults when we opt to take the inverse perspective on something.  Maybe it is an idea we think is wrong.  What might we learn about it if we took the inverse perspective and thought of it as right?  What about people we think we don’t like?  What is possible with the inverse thought of them being someone we do like?  Would it affect how we treat them or value their contribution? When we choose to hold the inverse perspective on anything we open up a whole new world.  We can let go of our mind’s fixed ideas about how things or people are supposed to be. Even if we opted to take the inverse on being with what is.  A simple but potentially profound way I try this out is in moments when I telling myself something is not what it is supposed to be.  For a moment, usually, when I am frustrated enough, I will pause.  In that pause, I choose the inverse and ask myself, what if this is exactly how it is supposed to be? The question provides an opportunity to breathe a little easier, let go of my frustration, and face what is in front of me.  I am not saying that I accept the inverse but being willing to ask the question means for a moment I do not have to fight reality.  Not fighting reality is always a good thing.

There is something wonderful about the feelings of sprinkles of water on your skin.  When it starts to drizzle it is like a little taste of refresh that comes from the rain. When we encounter the sprinkles in our life we get a taste of things.  It is a way of introducing an idea or having a moment to take something in without drinking it down at once. When I learned to sprinkle thoughts of gratitude throughout my day I got to taste what it was like to focus on another side to something I might be inclined to complain about.  Sprinkles of different kinds of people I encounter at work give me a taste of all different kinds of ways of doing a particular project.  When we make room for sprinkles of experiences and ideas foreign to us we open ourselves to growth without having to make an immediate decision whether we agree with them or not. I believe God sprinkles moments of love and affection which connect us through our hearts to our true nature.  The sprinkles are an awakening that helps us remember who we are. When I feel the opposite of love and affection I look for the sprinkles, the small markers of love’s presence. The key is remembering that the sprinkles will often show up in colors and shapes I do not expect.  When I sense the sprinkling on my heart, I can wake up to the love and affection which has been alive inside of me all along.

Have you ever noticed there is so much stuff to calling for your attention?  Do you ever wonder how it is that you are not missing out on something at some point? Of course, we are.  To think we are not going to have our attention change course with all the diversion options out there is to not be in touch with reality.  The distinction is whether or not we are choosing the diversion, the length of the diversion, and or using the diversion to tread a different path altogether.  The main marker for me is to determine if the diversion is going to lead me further from the truth of who I am or closer.  Does the diversion open my heart or cause it to close?  Does the diversion give a broader, deeper, and possibly more compassionate perspective on people and life in general or does it make me want to stay diverted from all reality?  It is not a question of whether diversions are good or bad.  It is a question of if we are going to be used by them or can we make use of them.  All things can be choices on our part. We may not like our choices, but we still have them.  Diversions in and of themselves cannot do anything to us we do not give them permission to do.  Before I can blame the ping noise of my phone telling me I just received a text message and thus divert me from paying attention to the person in front of me who is talking to me, I have to own that I can choose to put my phone on silent.  Instead of blaming the multiple ways life can divert me from the path I have chosen, I can own that sometimes it is nice to follow a diversionary path and see what happens.  It always comes back to my relationship with me and my heart.  If something or someone becomes a diversion from my connection to my own heart, I can choose to pause, take a breath, and reignite the connection.  Then I can choose whether to continue down the road of the diversion or not.

I am sure you have heard the catchphrase, “Inch by inch, success is a cinch.”  Despite its corny and catchy phrasing, it contains a truth that we often disregard.  We are focused in this world on the immediacy of things so much so that we can often grow blind to the progression of things that happen over time. The gradual nature of all things is inherent in our nature.  It is about being in the flow.  Sometimes things move quickly, sometimes slowly.  It is all part of the give and take process of life. Sustainable growth happens over time.  Giving validity to the gradual nature of change makes it easier to accept. We like to think we want it to all happen now but there is a receiving and digesting process that is needed.  Gradual may not be sexy.  It may not be exciting or something to post about in social media but it is beautiful.  We place a higher value on the end product and consequently can be hard on ourselves when it looks like nothing is happening.  The experience of gradual leaves room for the breath.  The gradual means we can breathe and allow.  Gradual means we can make adjustments as we go. Gradual means what is happening or what we are doing is enough. How well do we think it would go if the caterpillar did not gradually go through the cocoon to emerge a fully formed butterfly?  We assume our minds can handle a rapid change but our experience speaks otherwise.  We are very adaptable so often we think we fully grasp something right away when in reality we are more likely to be gradually digesting small pieces at a time.  If we are willing to honor the gradual nature, the language our heart knows well, as much as the end product maybe we can stop being so hard on ourselves when we think nothing is happening.

We recognize sometimes reluctantly that we all have a different way of seeing things.  It is easy to fall for the idea that if other people just saw something as we do, everything would be fine. We falsely believe our way is the right way and if everyone saw things the right way there would be no strife or conflict. The funny thing about this perspective is we also falsely believe that we do not have it. It sounds like something only someone who is incredibly pompous and self-righteous would say.  We don’t see ourselves holding this particular stance.  Okay, so maybe we feel that way about one or two things but it certainly cannot be our stance when it comes to all our ideas, right?  The degree to which we hold the stance of being right about what we think is directly proportional to the degree to which we identify it with who we believe ourselves to be.  The more invested we are in an idea or way of seeing things as a part of who we are, the stronger the stance. Our minds balk at the idea of seeing things from someone else’s perspective because it is a threat to who we are to be open to other ideas.  None of this is happening on a conscious level which makes it even harder to recognize it as the stance we are holding.  It is a good thing that we have a sense of self but the fact that our mind freaks out at the idea of adjusting ourselves is disproportionate.  When we invite our heart into the interaction we can loosen our stance just enough to be open to learning.  Our hearts can entertain the idea of loosening our stance because it is about breathing in and breathing out.  Our hearts do not perceive the flow of information and ideas as a threat.  Our hearts can take a stance of openness to possibilities.

One of the first stumbling blocks, when a person attempts to spend time in quiet or meditate, is the encounter with his or her chattering mind. Many believe they are terrible meditators because they cannot quiet their minds.  I have been meditating for about 18 years and all I can say is there is a reason it is called the practice of meditation. The point of meditation is to bring your attention and intention back whenever your mind wanders or when the chatter gets too loud. It is about learning to be a detective with your mind.  We do not have to take it literally. Some use a mantra to direct their thoughts.  Others visualize or listen to guided meditations.  I have used any and all of these different methods.  They are all beneficial but the end game for me is making peace with my thoughts.  One of the benefits I have found over the years is my pause before believing one of my thoughts as I go through the day.  I will talk back to my mind when I hear it make a blanked statement by asking for evidence of its truth.  For some years I assumed all my thinking was correct.  If I had the thought it must be true.  Thankfully, this is not correct.  As I learned to delve a little deeper I started to notice the clues certain thoughts were setting up. The pattern set down by the clues gives me a sense if I am headed into familiar but not necessarily helpful to my well-being territory.  Is the pattern cluing me into a feeling of peace, harmony, lightheartedness, frustration, anger, judgment, or relief?  Being able to notice the kinds of thoughts I am having gives me a temperature gauge on my current emotional state.  If I am in a good place, it is likely my thoughts will have the same resonance.  If I am feeling worn down or frustrated, my mind will conjure up more thoughts to keep my feeling state engaged.  I have also learned my thoughts can be sneaky.  If I am in a good place for a while, my mind will look for thoughts to support the idea that something not good is lurking around the corner.  It is the proverbial other shoe that might drop.  The purpose as far as I can tell of our thoughts is to enable our survival.  What the mind requires for survival is not the same as the heart.  By learning to notice the clues shown to me when I observe my thoughts, I can know if it is a good time to engage my heart.  My intention when it comes to dealing with my mind is to befriend it but not buy into it as if it is all there is.  God has shown me on our daily dates that making room for the heart’s energy is equally important to be a full human being.  I can utilize my thoughts by observing them and picking up on the clues which show me who I am being in the moment.  From there I can turn my attention to my heart and see if there are any adjustments needed to my attention.

We get so used to what we believe is normal that the moment something or someone stands outside of the norm we think it’s weird.  Even the word weird is used in so many contexts it has become normal.  I have often thought of coincidences and God-incidences.  Incidences where God chooses to remain anonymous.  There is also a great question we can ask ourselves when we come across something or have an experience out of sorts.  Is it odd or is it God?  Maybe some of the things we call oddities are really just things or situations where God is showing up in a way we did not expect.  I have found over my many years of daily dates with God that the one thing that stands in the way of trusting in God’s presence at all times is my expectations of God.  When I have decided knowingly or unknowingly that God would show up this way or that way and I do not experience God this way or that way, I presume God is not present.  God created me and not the other way around and I forget.  I start thinking I know how and in what specific way would be best for God to make his or her presence known.  Through that filter, the oddities whether in my own character or a situation are labeled as an anomaly, quirky, or just plain not supposed to be.  What if instead of seeing those things as oddities we embraced them as God’s presence in our character or present in our lives. Imagine how we would look upon our fellow human beings we labeled as odd if we saw their oddities as God-ities.  Okay, so it is not a word but neither in God-incidence and I have been using that one for decades 🙂

Taking the time to reflect is something we do not often do when we are bowled over by all the daily to-dos.  There is a social emphasis placed on it when it comes to the end of a year. Sometimes when we find ourselves in a situation where something dramatic happens it causes us to pause and take a deeper look.  But what about reflection each day?  What about choosing to get to know who we are and how we are operating in the world before we get to the end of our lives?  Are we aware of what our lives epitomize?  Do we know how we are impacting ourselves and others daily?  Does it encapsulate who we believe ourselves to be?  God encourages us to be in alignment with the encapsulation of our being.  It is not about doing everything right or being perfect.  It is about a desire to be an encapsulation of the truth of our hearts to the best of our awareness and ability one day at a time. My daily dates with God give me a chance to reflect and pause so I can notice what the encapsulation of my life is about.  I do not want to wait until I am at my last breath to look back at the encapsulation of a life that does not match what it is in my heart.