Tag: heart

A practice for seeing difficulties differently today

Karl Duffy2 Comments

1. Consider that in order to build character the practice of patience is essential.

2. See that the best way to practice patience requires an enemy.

3. Understand that in this way enemies are very valuable for the opportunities they provide.

4. Decide that instead of getting angry with those who block your wishes, you will inwardly  respond with gratitude.

By seeing things this way you will change your attitude toward adversity. This is very difficult but very rewarding. For only when faced with the work of adversity can we discover real inner strength.

The Dalai Lama, How to be Compassionate, A Handbook for Creating Inner Peace and a Happier World

Facing into our avoidance

Karl Duffy4 Comments

We first learnt to reject our experience when we were growing up. As children our feelings were often too overwhelming for our fledgling nervous system to handle, much less understand. So when an experience was too much, and the adults in our environment could not help us relate to it, we learnt to contract our mind and body, shutting ourselves down, like a circuit breaker. This was our way of preserving and protecting oursleves…….In time, these contractions  form the nucleus of an overall style of avoidance and denial.

Thus our psychological distress is composed of at least three elements: the basic pain of feelings that seem overwhelming, the contracting of mind and body to avoid feeling this pain; and the stress of continually having to prop up and defend an identity based on this avoidance and denial.

John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening

Leaning into fear

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leaning into the windWhen emotional distress arises uninvited, we let the story line go and abide with the energy of that moment. This is a felt experience, not a verbal commentary on what is happening. We can feel the energy in our bodies. If we can stay with it, neither acting it out nor repressing it, it wakes us up.  Not abiding with our energy is a predictable human habit. Acting out and repressing are tactics we use to get away from our emotional pain. For instance most of us when we’re angry scream or act it out. We alternate expressions of rage with feeling ashamed of ourselves and wallowing in it. We become so stuck in repetitive behavior that we become experts at getting all worked up. In this way we continue to strengthen our conflicting emotions.

[So]…In sitting meditation we practice dropping whatever story we are telling ourselves and leaning into the emotions and the fear. Thus we train in opening the fearful heart to the restlessness of our own energy. We learn to abide with the experience of our emotional distress.

Pema Chodron, Meditation is relaxing with the truth

Photo taken from taragoestravelling blog

Sunday Quote: Fear and more than fear

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Our fear is great,

but greater yet is the truth of our connectedness.

The Buddha

Take time

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The theology of progress forces us to act before we are ready. We speak before we know what to say. We respond before we feel the truth of what we know. In the process, we inadvertently create suffering, heaping imprecision upon inaccuracy, until we are all buried under a mountain of misperception. But Sabbath says, Be still. Stop. There’s no rush to get to the end, because we are never finished. Take time to rest, and eat, and drink and be refreshed. And in the gentle rhythm of that refreshment, listen to the sound the heart makes as it speaks the quiet truth of what is needed. 

Wayne Muller, Sabbath

Choosing to disconnect

Karl Duffy2 Comments
It is now possible to always feel loved and cared for, thanks to the efficiency of our “comment walls” on Facebook and seamless connection with everyone we’ve ever known. Your confidence and self-esteem can quickly be reassured by checking your number of “followers” on Twitter or the number of “likes” garnered by your photographs and blog posts. The traction you are getting in your projects, or with your business, can now be measured and reported in real time. Our insatiable need to tune into information – at the expense of savoring our downtime – is a form of “work” (something I call “insecurity work”) that we do to reassure ourselves.
 
So what’s the solution; how do we reclaim our sacred spaces? Soon enough, planes, trains, subways, and, yes, even showers will offer the option of staying connected. Knowing that we cannot rely on spaces that force us to unplug to survive much longer, we must be proactive in creating these spaces for ourselves. And when we have a precious opportunity to NOT be connected, we should develop the capacity to use it and protect it.
Scott Belsky,  What Happened to Downtime? The Extinction of Deep Thinking & Sacred Space