Awareness – Page 537 – Mindfulbalance

Tonight we’re going to party….

December 30, 2010December 30, 2010 Karl Duffy1 Comment

The expectations which a new year creates can sometimes heighten the sense of disappointment or insecurity which we feel regarding where our life actually is.

There are a number of ways in which we can respond to this insecurity. One is to say “Tonight we are going to party like it’s ….” In other words, focus on what needs to be added to your life and throw yourself into something different. Convince yourself that what is required is to go out and find a party or new friends and surround yourself with life and music, get a new look and start all over again. In this way you can leave behind the past year/ person/ relationship/ bad patch (insert your own version here……….) and break free, finally, once and for all. Now, this not the worst of ideas, and I too will celebrate the evening in a party with friends. However, if the underlying causes are not faced most likely it just offers relief for a few hours. Most things started in haste or under pressure tend to pick up at the same level of development we are at when we jump into them, and thus can just prolong the same issues.

A different response is to turn on yourself, focus on what is lacking, feel bad about who you are, dissect the reasons as to why you have reached the end of another year and yet are no further on than last year, and push harder. This pushing can take the shape of finding the root causes for your problems, such as having too many unhealed problems since childhood. Or it can simply focus on now, demanding more, pushing harder, renewing your positive thoughts or ambitions for the next twelve months. This is the way to be more focused/ more balanced/have a better body/ find a new relationship (insert your own version here………..) However, pushing ourselves towards perfection is unrelenting, and, as hard as we try, we are unlikely to turn off the critical messages in our heads that say “this is never good enough” or “what will those looking at me say?” And any desire for change which is based on unrelenting standards towards ourselves tends to maintain the same division between the “I” that observes and the “I” that is not good enough and thus just perpetuates the same perspective into the future.

There are some strange contradictions inherent in change and happiness. Change comes from accepting ourselves – resting with our imperfections and recognizing that we are already enough – and seeing that we are worthy of love and belonging. All moving forward needs to be based on our capacity to sit still, accepting what we have. Happiness comes when we do not make it the focus of our efforts, but accepting that it comes even when we are not completely satisfied with where we are at any given moment.

Give up on yourself. Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator, or unhealthy, or lazy, or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die

Shoma Morita

Preparing for a new year

December 30, 2010December 30, 2010 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

As yesterday’s post said, people begin to look forward to the new year as an opportunity to start again. This is natural, but frequently does not lead to any real change, unless we understand the patterns within our own heart. Any lasting growth comes from an understanding of our heart, with all its needs and hopes, its vulnerabilities and wisdom. This means that we can drop all pretense and the need to blame others for what is lacking in our lives. In many cases the desire for change around this time is based on comparing our lives with others and feeling we are lacking. Instead of looking outward, we turn within and gently look forward – not based on fear of where we are now or criticism of this past year – but rather accepting who we are and opening to the new opportunities which will unfold.

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

C.G. Jung

In our darkest night

December 21, 2010December 20, 2010 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Being Irish, I always remember Newgrange on this day. It is an enormous burial tomb, built over 5000 years ago, before Stonehenge and the Pyramids. It has with a small, dark inner chamber where the light penetrates just once a year at the dawn of this day, to warm those who have died for a few moments.

The Ancient Celts knew intimately the passage of the sun and the sacredness of certain days. Today, the darkest and shortest day of the year, they ensured that the sun still touched where they were buried. For us too, no matter how dark our interior life becomes, or how deeply we feel buried, light can still enter and illuminate. No matter how frozen we feel or how we shut ourselves off in fear of expoitation by others, we can be warmed and opened.

May hope and light, in some way, touch us all today.

Peace comes dripping slow

December 18, 2010December 18, 2010 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

Some sense of longing seems to be a part and parcel of human nature, and will never go away. It comes from the fact, as John O’Donoghue wrote in Anam Chara, that the human person is a threshold where many infinities meet. This can explain why, for many of us, a deep lasting peace is very hard to find in a world which is finite.

We intuitively know it exists, and look to find it in many ways. However, it seems to me that true rest, in a lasting and definitive sense, is something which slips from our grasp. As much as we try to realize it and make it our own, it never seems to linger with us very long. It stays a while with us and then takes flight. We are restless and often struggle to find security within ourselves, to get our lives together, to create a real home for ourselves. However, even when we have fulfilling days, or a job that goes well, we can still go around with a subtle awareness that there are unfinished tasks, unrealized possibilities. We have a feeling that there is something else that we should have remembered, done, or said. An underground sense of being unfulfilled underlies our filled lives.

Some profound sense of restlessness remains and will always do so. Recognizing that a complete answer to our deepest longings cannot be found in how hard we work, or how much we possess, is a fundamental first step to attaining deeper peace. It means, paradoxically, accepting that we will always be somewhat unfinished.

However, there are real ways that we can increase our actual fulfillment and contentment in our day-to-day lives. Often it requires that we shift our focus, away from making life problem-free, to giving our ordinary, everyday life a depth and value. In a sense, we have to turn away from always looking for certainty and fulfillment, and instead, look more deeply at the reality of what is actually happening in our life. A focus on something external keeps us from resting on our own centre, leaving us outwardly turned and inwardly disconnected. If we imagine that others will be the source of our complete fulfillment we are attaching our hopes onto something that can lead to betrayal and let down. We have to stay with what actually is, not what we would like to be there. And not just the parts which we like. Because if we keep running away from what is unpleasant, thinking that we should only have pleasant, and put an emphasis on control, then we have a recipe for a a cycle of unhappiness and disappointment, which leads to us feeling weaker and weaker.

The ways and means vary as to how this peace comes to us, how we find it. Amidst the hectic activities of our days, and the rush of modern life, we try to clear some space to be alone, to still the chatter in our heads and to taste a little bit of solitude. Peace comes dripping slow, as Yeats reminds us. We cannot rush it by grasping after it.

Learning from whatever happens

December 15, 2010December 14, 2010 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

We also try to listen to whatever is going on in our lives, and whoever we encounter in a day. Opportunities for growth come in many shapes and sizes, sometimes unexpected or not quite what we would like.