Tag: happy

If I let go will I float?

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Everything is meant to be let go of.

Meister Eckhard

Got some reminders today that changes of direction and endings are an inevitable part of our lives, touching our plans, our enthusiasms,  our things, our friendships. In fact, one of the core things we realize in meditation is that nothing is permanently satisfying or reliable. This challenges our need to be in control at all times, a need which is often driven by fear. The opposite of this need for control – of the future, our our plans, of others – is to trust, to let go. Deep down there is nothing to hang on to. Our mistake is that we look for certainty, for solid ground, when in actual fact, the deep reality which we come to accept is that nothing is really lasting or solid. Ironically, realizing that brings us the greatest freedom.

And to die, which is the letting go
of the ground we stand on and cling to every day,
is like the swan, when he nervously lets himself down
into the water, which receives him gaily
and which flows joyfully under
and after him, wave after wave,
while the swan, unmoving and marvelously calm,
is pleased to be carried, each moment more fully grown,
more like a king, further and further on.

Rilke

Hospitality

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I am at home in Ireland and have been struck by the welcome, ease and friendliness of people, in shops, taxis and at a football match. Early Celtic spirituality placed a huge emphasis on hospitality, and some of that has persisted to this day.

The focus of hospitality was especially directed toward strangers and the poor, and that still challenges us today, especially in our self-obsessed society. However, another reflection on openness and welcome which can be looked at, in the light of the last few posts, is how we offer hospitality to ourselves, to our fears, to the people and situations that scare us? We are sometimes easier on others than we are on ourselves. Can we turn towards those emotions that frighten us, rather than turn away?

May the blessing of light be on you – light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great  fire,
so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.
And may light shine out of your eyes,
like a candle set in the window of a house,
bidding the wanderer to come in out of the storm.

Early Scottish Prayer

How early fear still influences

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As said in yesterdays post, sometimes events, words or phrases can trigger unconscious patterns which were laid down in childhood. Thus we react to the current event with the fear that was associated with the situation from our past. Our brains, as has been said, are like velcro for negative experiences – they stick and are stored for quick recognition – but are teflon for positive experiences. Thus we have to work to counteract these strong patterns by firstly noticing them. One way is by encouraging positive experiences in order to balance the unconscious instinctive reactions which are stored deep in the cells of our brains.

Early fear was felt cellularly and was indeed real. Defensive postures were necessary, but defenses generalize cellularly in adulthood and do not expire. It takes conscious work to undo them. Ironically, as long as we keep using defenses, we actually maintain the original force of the fear.

David Richo

When we feel that we want to run away

Karl Duffy1 Comment

All relationships demand that we trust the other person. However, due to our personal history, this can sometimes prove a challenge. Our brains are wired to remember the risks that come from encounters with others, such as those in our childhood. Therefore certain words or situations may trigger deep felt unconscious memories and the brain automatically applies an expectation of danger to them. Our stress and anxiety rises, and we feel trapped. Our instinct is to run away. This happens even though our strengths and resources are greatly different now than what they were when we were little.

Thus it can help if we increase our capacity to see these fears as they arise in order not to be influenced by our automatic reactions to them. A way if doing so is outlined here:

Anxiety, dread, worry and even panic are just mental states like any other. Recognize fear when it arises, observe the feeling of it in your body – watch it try and convince you that you should be alarmed – see it change and move on. Verbally describe to yourself what you are feeling, to increase frontal lobe regulation of the limbic system. Notice how the awareness which contains fear is itself never fearful.  Keep separating from the fear; settle back into  the vast space of awareness through which fear passes like a cloud.

Rick Hanson, Buddha’s Brain

Using time wisely

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For those of us who live in nanosecond time, a moment becomes very, very short, and in each moment we ask how much we have gotten done. How much did I cram into it? Was I successful in multitasking? As one woman in a class I was working with said to me, “I have finally figured out how to relax. When I go from my job teaching to my consulting job and I’m driving in my car, I listen to a self-help tape, I eat lunch on the way, I talk on my cellular phone, and I relax at the same time.”

This approach to time management simply turns up the speed on the treadmill of our lives. I propose we evolve beyond time management to “timeshifting”-which is different from merely “downshifting.” The practice of timeshifting recognizes that every single moment has a particular rhythm to it, and that we have the capacity to expand or contract an individual moment as appropriate. One way to shift what’s going on in our world is not to try to rush to do more, but to allow ourselves to go deeper into that moment of being present. Our ability to shift gears, to shift our rhythm to meet that moment and be present in it, is what allows us to experience the fullness of life – to create our life in the way we want it to be.

Stephan Rechtschaffen.

Oh no, rain….

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It’s like lying in bed before dawn and hearing rain on the roof……..

This simple sound can be disappointing because we were planning a picnic. It can be pleasing because our garden is so dry. But the flexible mind  doesn’t draw conclusions of good or bad. It perceives the sound without adding anything extra, without judgments of happy or sad.

Pema Chodron, Comfortable with Uncertainty