growth – Page 73 – Mindfulbalance

Spring: The Narrative reappears

March 5, 2012March 27, 2013 Karl Duffy1 Comment

It might be liberating to think of human life as informed by losses and disappearances just as much as by gifted appearances, allowing a more present participation and witness to the difficulty of living. What is real can never be fully taken away; its essence always remains. It might set us a little freer to believe that there is no path in life – in the low valley, … or abroad in the mountain night, that does not lead to some form of heartbreak when the outer narrative disappears and then reappears in a different form. If we are sincere, every good marriage or relationship will break our hearts in order to enlarge our understanding of our self and that strange other with whom we have promised ourselves to the future. Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed. Following a vocation or an art form through decades of practice and understanding will break the idealistic heart that began the journey and replace it, if we sidestep the temptations of bitterness and self-pity, with something more malleable, compassionate and generous than the metaphysical organ with which we began the journey. We learn, grow and become compassionate and generous as much through exile as homecoming; as much through loss as gain, as much through giving things away as in receiving what we believe to be our due.

David Whyte, The Poetic Narrative Of Our Times

Appreciate the goodness within

March 2, 2012February 28, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

When you relax more and appreciate your body and mind, you begin to contact the fundamental notion of basic goodness in yourself. So it is extremely important to be willing to open yourself to yourself. Developing tenderness towards yourself allows you to see both your problems and your potential accurately. You don’t feel that you have to ignore your problems or exaggerate your potential. That kind of gentleness towards yourself and appreciation of yourself is very necessary. It provides the ground for helping yourself and others.

Chogyam Trungpa, Shambhala: Sacred Path of the Warrior

…And seeing problems as openings

March 1, 2012February 28, 2012 Karl DuffyLeave a comment

A hugely important distinction is made here, one which saves us from the deep tendency we have to find problems with who or where we are. It allows for a much more nuanced view on the setbacks we find in life and in our inner selves, seeing that growth often happens in roundabout ways.

Another problem with the idea of self-improvement is that it implies that there is something wrong with who we are. Everyone wants to be someone else, but getting to know yourself and love yourself means accepting who you are, complete with your inadequacies and irrationalities. Only by loving he soul in its entirety can we really love ourselves. This does not mean that we cannot hope to live a fuller life or become a better person, but there is a difference between self-improvement and the unfolding of the soul. In the latter we don’t take the attitude of perfection; rather we draw close to those things that we feel as imperfect and let them be the openings through which the potentiality of the soul enters into life.

Thomas Moore, Soul Mates

And letting go of our habitual fears

February 29, 2012February 28, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

The sense of splendidness arises from feeling our wealth. We have confidence in our inherent goodness — the beating heart of each individual and all humanity… The energy of splendidness comes from being fully present in whatever we do. My father, Chögyam Trungpa, put it this way: “You are not hiding anywhere.” Hiding means our splendidness is obscured by embedded habitual patterns. One characteristic of hiding is that we are always self-observing. Self-observing comes from not trusting our inherent goodness, and therefore keeping the reins tight on our mind. It is different from awareness or introspection because in observing ourselves this way, we are not really sensing or feeling the moment. We lack the lucidity to simply be splendid, so we tighten up and hide. We have half-thoughts and half-emotions. When we do experience something wholly and completely, it is disconcerting and disorienting.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Let it Shine!

What makes our roots strong

February 28, 2012February 27, 2012 Karl Duffy1 Comment

Challenges develop fortitude and strength…One of the biggest problems for astronauts living in space is the loss of bone mass due to zero-gravity. With no gravity to resist the astronauts become weaker. In the biological big-bubble experiment known as Biosphere 2, the trees eventually had to be attached by cables to the framework above. This is because there was no wind in the Biosphere , and with nothing to resist the trees became weak and needed support. Similarly, without something to work against – without situations of some gravity – our body and mind begin to atrophy. We need something to press against in life in order to stay strong and grow.

Andrew Holecek, The Power and the Pain: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy

Protection schemes

February 25, 2012February 22, 2012 Karl Duffy2 Comments

It’s important to recognize that all the emotional and psychological wounding we carry with us from the past is relational in nature: It has to do with not feeling fully loved. And it happened in our earliest relationships — with our caretakers — when our brain and body were totally soft and impressionable. As a result, the ego’s relational patterns have largely developed as protection schemes to insulate us from the vulnerable openness that love entails. In relationship the ego acts as a survival mechanism for getting needs met while fending off the threat of being hurt, manipulated, controlled, rejected, or abandoned in ways we were as a child. This is normal and totally understandable. Yet if it’s the main tenor of a relationship, it keeps us locked into complex strategies of defensiveness and control that undermine the possibility of deeper connection. Thus to gain greater access to the gold of our nature in relationship, a certain alchemy is required: the refining of our conditioned defensive patterns.