Tag: wellbeing

Our stories

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File:Autobiography (1874).djvu

To ask, what is your story? is to be obliged to ask what are your stories, for we are no single narrative.  What is humbling is the acknowledgment through age, repetition and the growth of consciousness that we have less autonomy in the construction of our lives than we had fantasized.  In the end, the chief result of a long-term analysis is not a solution to our dilemma, for life is not a problem, but a progressive unfolding of mystery. The joyful discovery is that our lives become more interesting to us as we discern that we are part of a larger mystery.  This is a proper relocation of the ego from its imperial fantasy to its unique, personal place.  We become amazed witnesses of the great theater wherein we play our part, and are reminded of the progressive incarnation which occurs in even the most modest of moments.

James Hollis, Mythologems.

The myth of lives without challenges

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File:Rocky path on the Ben Nevis climb - geograph.org.uk - 856611.jpg

Pain is inevitable; lives come with pain. Suffering is not inevitable. If suffering is what happens when we struggle with our experience because of our inability to accept it, then suffering is an optional extra.

Sylvia Boorstein, It’s Easier than you Think

The common myth that is perpetuated in society is that the normal person is happy, balanced and integrated – otherwise there is something wrong with them; maybe they’re mentally unstable. We’re even alarmed by unhappy people. Everyone in the media is smiling and cheerful. The politicians are all smiling, cheerful. confident; funeral homes even make the corpses up to look smiling, cheerful and confident…… Unhappiness in Western culture is often treated as a sign of failure.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth

photo Stephen Sweeeney

Breaking problems down

Karl Duffy1 Comment

evening sun kildare

Gentle, slow, walking – best done  in nature – sends a signal to the brain and by slowing down the body we slow down the rushing mind.  It can put things in perspective and prevent us from living all the time in our heads:

In my room, the world is beyond my understanding;
 But when I walk I see that it consists of three or four
 hills and a cloud.

Wallace Stevens, Of the Surface of Things

Don’t rush past

Karl DuffyLeave a comment

File:A Typical Sky.jpg

If you notice the wonderful smell of the rain, instead of just moving quickly past the experience without deeply appreciating it, you can prolong your contact with this wonderful sensation. Pause for a moment and really let yourself experience the smell of the rain. If you are struck by the blueness of the sky, linger for a moment and breathe mindfully, taking in the wonderful blue color. Don’t rush past these marvelous experiences, treating them as if they are unimportant. To treat them as unimportant is ultimately to treat yourself as unimportant. This is your life: enjoy it!

Thomas Bien

photo bryancalabro

Remembering to stop today

Karl Duffy5 Comments

File:A pause (2418455126).jpg

The first step we take in developing mental well-being, and employing mind training, is remembering that in every moment we can choose how to direct our inner life. Most of us live our lives in reactive mode – we respond to things as they happen without considering our response. We are on automatic pilot. Lacking a sense  of inner control, we typically respond by trying to control the world and others. So step one is simply setting the intention to be aware. It is remembering to stop so you give ourself a choice in how to react. It is remembering that we are in control of our emotional life….Our inner experience may be positive, it may be mundane, or it may be disturbing, but we are the only ones in control of it.

Karuna Cayton, The Misleading Mind

The essential rhythm

Karl Duffy1 Comment

river allondon

Another short piece from poet Seamus Heaney,  whose funeral is taking place around this time in Dublin.

Getting started, keeping going, getting started again –

in art and in life,

it seems to me this is the essential rhythm .

Seamus Heaney