dailydatewithgod

We are used to seeing tags on our clothing.  The little piece of fabric provides all kinds of useful information. It informs us of what we are dealing with. The tag tells you what the materials comprise the article, the size, how to care for it, and what to avoid doing enabling you to get the most optimal use out of it, and where it was made.  In most cases, we read the tag once and then cut it off and throw it away. We glance at it, categorize it with others that are similar and wear it.  Seldom do we stop to reflect on who was involved in the making of it from the designer to the person who put the label on the clothing. I have often wondered if it would be helpful for people to have tags.  We certainly do a lot of labeling of each other without having any information.  It would helpful to have a label of correct information to verify our ideas.  How much more care would we have towards other people if we knew what they were made of, where they come from, how to best take care of them and so on. I know it sounds a lot like how we treat our animals but often we do a better job in how we take care of our animals than our fellow human beings. What kind of tags do we give ourselves?  What words or turns of phrase do we say without much thought when describing ourselves.  What kind of tag does that provide those around us so they know how to take care of us? Given that we are formed over time and we develop an outside appearance and an inner reality, what would a true tag tell the world about who we are?  Just like some clothing, it is not what it seems.  God invites us to notice what tags we are wearing that we have placed on ourselves, were given to us by others and may or may not be applicable any longer.   By pausing to notice our self-made tags given we don’t actually have physical ones, we get an idea of what we think and feel about ourselves.  Our own tags show the world where we come from, what we are made of, and how to care for us.  What do you want your tag to say?

Sometimes in a world of variability, it is hard to know what we can count on.  One of the beautiful elements of life is its variety and the opportunity for choice.  It is a privilege to be able to make a choice from so many options.  The greater question is, how do we choose among the staunch elements of our lives?   How do we make staunch choices which align with what we desire in our hearts and in our minds? First, it helps to identify what areas of our lives we perceive as needing to be staunch. There are the elements the world tells us must be staunch but the reality is everything changes. How in a world where everything changes do we find elements of staunchness?  On my daily dates with God, I have learned to turn the intensity of my attention from what the world is doing to what is happening within me.  Where can I find elements of staunchness in my own awareness?  How can I in my thoughts, feelings, and actions be a staunch presence for myself? How can I remember that no matter what happens or what changes, the presence of love which God created within me is always there?  I can try to deny it, hide it, run from it, or take it for granted but the moment I take a breath and open up the space around my heart I can reconnect.  It is the staunchest element of my existence because no matter what I try to do or think I succeed at doing, I cannot undo the work of God. How can I make choices from a place of remembering what is truly staunch in my life?

So what does it mean to have all our ducks in a row other than that we have a row of ducks?  I was always puzzled by that phrase as it did not make any sense.  Maybe that is why they call them idioms given that they sound idiotic when taken out of the cultural context in which they are accepted as turns of phrase.  When we look at how we prepare and arrange our lives sometimes we come to the realization that we are doing nothing more than organizing a group of ducks.  Sounds silly, doesn’t it?  Perhaps because when we start thinking that life will go as we planned because of our arrangements it is silly as well.  I am all for being organized and a good planner as they are two of my best qualities but even I recognize the limitations of arranging things.  It is good to have preferences and know how we like things but when it comes to arranging a whole life, that is more like a God job.  The best focus of my arranging comes in how I deal with what is right in front of me.  Not what is in front of you or God.  When I stay within my scope of arranging I can explore, be creative, push myself to stretch, and most importantly let go of thinking of arranging another or life as a whole.  We have all thought at one time or another, “everything would be fine if they or it went the way I suggested.”  Even when we have the outside all arranged and all can tell our ducks are in a nice row, it does not signify that we have done any arranging of our internal world.  When we find ourselves occupied by what is happening outside of us where we cannot arrange things or people the way we want, it is a sign we need to focus on arranging our insides.  There are no ducks in our hearts, and it will not necessarily go in a row, but the opportunity for exploration, creativity, and the courage to open ourselves more to the light of love which longs to shine through us.  Each day on my daily date with God I present what I am arranging in my life and God points me back to my heart.  God reminds me to get reacquainted with the arrangement of love placed in my heart upon which my spirit arranges itself with each breath.

It sounds funny to hear about groupthink. It is easily brushed aside as not something that occurs because we simply believe we could not get wrapped up in it.  We are individuals and free thinkers.  However, if the information we are using to formulate our thinking is coming from particular sources and others are not accessible, we are likely to get swept up in thinking like others think.  Groupthink runs the spectrum from harmless to dangerous and therefore must be kept in check.  On one level it is just easier to go along than to question something, or so we think.  Maybe that is the prevalent societal thought: “Don’t rock the boat.”  One of my favorites is: “Everybody else sees it this way.” Yet, how many people throughout history are the ones who woke us up to a new way of being because they questioned what was prevalent in our society?  Most history makers are the ones who do not accept the prevalence of a particular thought or idea.  They chose to ask questions about the prevalence of a particular way of being and operating in the world.  Often they are balked at and disregarded as silly and rebellious.  In some cases, they are seen as immature and needing to learn a lesson.  We can each do something even more valuable than question groupthink. We can start by questioning what we think.  We have so many thoughts which go through our mind and we attach our sense of self from them.  So many of the prevalent ones fly under the radar and we do not realize we are operating within them.  If we open up our hearts to observe the most prevalent ones we can often get at the root of what is causing us to behave in a manner we find baffling about ourselves.  Underlying the prevalent thoughts is the opportunity to look at what is working in our lives and if it is lined up the truth of us at our core. Groupthink which we chide on a societal level is only a magnification of the process of going along with the prevalent thoughts inside our own heads about who we are.  Questioning the prevalent thoughts with the compassion of the heart is the beginning of creating individual thinking which works regardless of whether it is prevalent or not.

We don’t get through this life on our own.  We can be very resourceful and figure things out but ultimately we will also benefit from interaction with others.  Given the design of the life of a human and how a baby cannot be self-sustaining, it makes sense that so much of our growth comes from interacting with others.  We learn from them, we grow from and with them, and we figure out who we are from our interplay with others. Our self-knowledge comes not because others tell us who we are but because we get to see who we are being when we are around them.  We do not live at the effect of others, we notice what it is about others which generates an energetic reaction.  We think that others make us feel or do things, but this is not so.  We may find ourselves in a reaction and not know how we got there, but somewhere along the way, we made a choice.  The choice may be hidden because it was patterned in us during a formative time of our lives, but it is ours now.  The reactions we are experiencing allow us to wake up and learn to investigate who we have become and how much it is aligned or misaligned with who we are at our core.  If the reaction lines up with our own internal truth then we can honor it and be grateful for it.  If it is not we can thank the reaction for occurring and ask God for the courage to take a deeper look at what it is designed to teach us. We think it is easier to blame it on others but that is a protective mechanism coming from a place of fear. A fear we most likely were taught in some way of drawing closer to ourselves and owning our power. God invites us to pause and look at our reactions-good, bad, or indifferent with the heart’s lens of curiosity.  When we can pause and take a breath, we begin to hear the heart’s desire to show us how to respond instead of reacting.

“Signs are everywhere.” It is a simple line we have all heard from one source or another at some point in our lives. Perhaps it is the inclination to make meaning out of everything we can but life does seem to be full of signs. There are the literal ones we see on billboards and roadways. We have signs on shelves of products in a store as well as above the aisles. There are signs on doors and buildings. We literally cannot get away from them. Some are signs of images or words or both. We also have internal signs generated by thoughts, feelings, and body processes. A funny and rather quirky element of life is how internal signs can sometimes show up externally. Signs inform, warn, and provide insight. Signs guide us, protect us, make us laugh, and help us make sense of the world. As we learn to connect to our own inner knowing we see how it too can guide, protect, inform, and help us make sense of our lives. Signs generate signals as we place meaning on them.  Turning to our breath and our heart moment by moment helps us to slow down and identify the internal signs which speak to who we are being. Our awareness of the signs from our heart, mind, and body speak invites us to get to know what meaning we are placing on the experiences of our lives.

The various ways in which we can and will grow are endless.  It is not linear by any means.  I used to think it was.  In my life I went from one grade up to the next grade.  I took one step on the ladder up and then the next. Growing as a person may have a particular intellectual ascent upward according to most school systems but life is more like a series of twists and turns on a roller coaster. It is somewhat beyond our comprehension given our conditioning in western culture to the drive for forward and upward motion of growth. If we look at how nature is, we see something different.  Nature is cyclical.  We are both nature and nurture.  We can adapt by being upward and forward-moving but there will be a pullback down to pause and reflect.  We will find ourselves pulled into cycles of refresh and renewal.  Our hearts will call us to beat fast, then slow, and to modulate our heart rate based on the circumstance of our being in the moment.  We can see ourselves as being a victim to the pulling of these different directions in life or we can hop along for the ride.  The mystery of life is dynamic and multifaceted. We can either be afraid because it does not pull us forward and upward all the time and make it personal like there is something wrong with us or we can connect with the pulling back and forth and all around between the nature and the nurturing of who we are becoming.  I have spent lots of time pushing and making and pursuing and driving myself to move forward and upward.  These are important experiences but they are not more important than surrendering to the pulling of my heart to pause and reflect, to rest and come back around to see something with new eyes.  The pulling does not need to be seen as something downward and backward unless we choose to see it that way.

Most of the time we are completely unaware of the thoughts roaming around in our head.  We have gotten so used to them we do not realize they are often the same ones just repeating themselves.  They are wandering around rent-free in our heads.  Many of them did not originate with us. The roaming thoughts come from people or experiences outside of ourselves that we adopted.  Somehow they made sense or we simply did not have an alternative. Many of the roaming thoughts began their rent-free experience in our minds before we had any other options.  We spend the first several years of our life on record.  We watch and see how those around us act and speak and we adopt it as a way of being and thinking for ourselves.  It is only upon the age of seven, referred to as the age of reason, that we stop to perhaps question or allow additional experiences to hold space along with the thoughts we already have.  The hardest concept for us to grasp is that we are not our thoughts.  Yes, we are having them and some we cannot seem to keep from having, but have you ever stopped yourself to ask, who is the one with the thoughts?  Given that with some distance we can see them happening one after another after another, are we the ones observing or the one who is roaming?  Maybe instead of allowing the thoughts to roam inside our heads rent-free we can question them and take a closer look.  We can start charging them so to speak instead of allowing them to live rent-free.  Obviously, some are helpful but most need at least to be evaluated to determine if they are useful in the present context.  The thoughts starting roaming in our heads long before we knew we could choose whether or not to identify with them.  The first step is to notice without judgment the roaming thought.  The next is to use the wisdom of our hearts which has some distance and knows the deeper truth of who we really are.  We can check in with our hearts when we see one of the roaming thoughts.  Pause, take a breath, let the thought roam through our mind while we place our hands on our hearts to see how it feels.  The prospect of doing this with all our roaming thoughts is overwhelming.  Deep down, we know which ones to start with.  The roaming thoughts which popped your mind as you started reading this blog is a good place to begin.

We all know what we are drawn to. It happens automatically.  Something or someone possesses a magnetism drawing us in.  Whether it is a topic, experience, or a person there is a part of us that wants to be closer to the magnet.  We may react to it with envy or jealousy.  We may try really hard to repel ourselves from it.  However, when we come in contact with the magnetism there is a part of us that feels connected. We mistakenly think it is the idea, the person or the experience.  It is actually the feeling and the sense of ourselves which become magnetized.  Paying attention to what magnets are captivating us gives us an insight into ourselves.  In some cases, it will reveal a darker side of who we are and do not want to see.  In other cases, it will highlight something in us we were not aware of and want to explore further.  It is less about the content of the magnet and more about the deeper sense of what the magnet stands for and opens up within us.  In the moments of a magnetizing experience, it is good to connect with our hearts so we can find out what the magnetic element is showing us about ourselves.  If we get stuck in what our reaction or what the magnet looks like or consists of we can be thrown off course.  The magnet serves as a message from something within us wanting to be seen and explored.  When we connect within we become aware of the vibration being created inside of us by the magnet.   It is an open invitation from life to get to know ourselves a bit more.

We recognize a physical bruise when we see it. It causes our skin to change color because the blood rushes to the surface because of a strike or some kind of pressure.   Immediately upon injury, our body’s systems step in to remedy the situation.  To deal with the impact of the pressure the body knows it needs to create a protective coating to make sure healing can take place.  It doesn’t always look nice but we are designed to create space for our own healing.  The same thing is within our capacity when it comes to other kinds of bruises.  The difference is we do not see something showing up physically, at least not right away.  We may tense our muscles or find ourselves looking for a mental distraction, but It requires us to stop and notice how we are feeling.  TWe can ask ourselves, in the moment of the bruising what was our experience of ourselves.? What words came to mind about who we are and what we are capable of?  We have grown deaf to our inner dialogue and honestly, would not talk to others the way we talk to ourselves. Instead of using our internal resources to provide the healing needed for the bruise we create more bruising.  God invites us to look at how we can connect to the courage and energy of our hearts to open up a space for healing. The same heart that pumps the needed blood to the physically bruised area also drives the healing of an emotional bruise.  It begins with the breath.  When we are bruised we want it to go away and not have to deal with it.  We perceive making space for the feelings that come up as potentially more pain. When we invite ourselves to take the pause allotted with breath it allows some new insight into how we can approach the needed healing of the bruise.  The breath engages the heart which holds the wisdom of the truth of who we are and what we need to keep going.  Bruises emotional or physical are not fun but when we are open to thinking of them as a chance to reconnect to our own power of healing and growing in love we see more of what we are truly made of.