Source: Stand Back

Be still, my heart, these great trees are prayers. – Rabindranath Tagore

We can easily be in awe of something that is much larger than we are. Our sense of being smaller, much smaller, generates respect for what we are seeing. For just a moment, from the perspective of the ego, we realize that maybe our sense of being the center of the universe is unfounded, challenged in some way.

Many years ago, I experienced the majesty of the redwood trees of Sequoia National Park in California. Besides being in awe of them, I was curious about how they came to be so large and began wondering about their ancient roots. After my initial feeling of smallness, I lost the focus on myself and felt gratitude for the privilege of being alive in that space.  But, no matter how many times I tried to take in the full height of the trees, I could not. As their heights disappeared into the clouds, my neck strained as I leaned back further and further, trying to get a full view. It was a futile effort. I was too close to them.

As a result of my failed effort, I had to rely on photographs from an aerial view or from photos taken from a distance. They had to be made small in order for me to see them in their fullness.

I needed to have both a humbling close up view of the trees and then a view from the distance. Both vantage points helped me to find my place in the entire picture. But without the distant view, I would remain simply awed without a sense of connection.

There are times when we must stand back and other times when we must move closer to the truth. When we are willing to give up a fixed stance and move with grace inward and outward, toward an object of our attention and away from it, we can finally begin to understand our relative “place” in the universe.

The aerial view of the Earth from the Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990 is an example of this spatial elasticity. From the view of the spacecraft, the Earth is in Sagan’s words, ” a pale blue dot.” Yet, back on Earth, we walk among giant redwoods, commanding mountains, swelling oceans, and powerful bears, lions, and elephants. Negotiating those two vantage points provides the fullness of life. With a relative view of life, we are more likely to be humble in our perspectives, respectful of differences because we see all life as interconnected elements of a powerful universe. We may temper our desire for control because we are aware of both our smallness and our universal influence. Even a “pale blue dot” moves in its solar system and contributes to the evolution of species in the universe.

So when we are on the brink of a judgment of others, we can stand back, pausing to allow a different perspective. Then when we move closer to others we were tempted to judge, we have a full, less narrow view of their worthiness. When we are trying to make a decision among multiple, viable choices, we can stand back, pausing to allow the choice to come to us in all its facets. Then when we begin moving along a chosen path, we are aware of how we can incorporate the best of all choices into our plans. And when we are trying to allow faith to guide us and awareness to enlighten our experiences of life, we can stand back from the enlarged ego that encourages us to be “right,” pausing to notice the false stories about who we are, and move inward for an even greater expanse of being. Then we see life in its fullness, without biases and opinions, but instead with the peacefulness of impartiality, equanimity, and joy.

“If you love a flower, don’t pick it up, because it will die, and cease to be what you love. So if you love a flower, let it be. Love is not about possession. Love is about appreciation.” – Osho

Love is a tricky word. The Greeks helped us out a bit by differentiating various kinds of love: Agape (love for everyone), Eros (sexual passion), Philia (deep friendship), Ludus (playful love, as between children), Pragma (long-standing love), and Philautia (self-love). Sorting it out is not so easy. If I say “I love you,” the context becomes important; sometimes miscommunication occurs when the intention does not match the expectation. Then there’s the problem of whether or not we can embody love.
During my early religious education, I was comforted by the instruction and reminder that God is Love. So if God is Love, what aspect of love does God represent?

Spiritual leaders seem to struggle with this question, and religious dogma may attempt to regulate the different aspects of love, as if they are separate. Agape may be love for everyone, but people placed into the category of “sinners” may be excluded, unless they agree to some conditions. When we really love everyone, we do what the late Dr. Wayne Dyer suggests, ” Look for the innocence in everyone, and then make that the only thing you see.”Focusing on a person’s innocence makes it difficult to indict the person for some “wrong-doing.”

Then there’s Eros or erotic love. To some, any attention to this form of love is a recipe for disaster. The Puritans were particularly concerned about this kind of love, but they’re not alone. Today, sexual passion is repressed, secluded from view, categorized according to who’s involved, and embedded in acts of power and force. Sexual passion has been distorted, used as a weapon, and has become an area of shame and transgressions. In short, sex has taken on a meaning that has nothing to do with Eros.

The distortion of erotic love has in some cases made Philia or deep friendship suspect or difficult to develop. One person can genuinely love another without a desire for sex. Television shows have encouraged this experience of Philia, but some cultures or religious communities insist on rules of engagement. I am however reminded that I grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the city of “brotherly love.” The concept is still possible.

Ludus, playful love is restricted to children or young lovers, according to the Greeks. This restriction can keep us adults from finding the playful part of adulthood, and become closed and habitual; we sacrifice our creativity if we forget our playfulness.

Pragma, is the long-standing love, the deep understanding that develops between people in a long-term mature relationship. With these couples, what they have “between them”–memories, struggles, losses, triumphs — have established a special bond that is both loving and “pragmatic.”

Philautia is the often sought-after self-love. We struggle with appropriate ways to love ourselves, but we often feel more comfortable trying to love another person from a depleted sense of self-love. Such an undertaking rarely is sustainable. We have to love ourselves in order to love other people, because we cannot give away something we don’t have.

All of the six aspects of love create a full experience of love in life. God is in all these forms of love. When we are aware that All-That-Is, what we call God in some communities, cannot fall outside of any of these aspects of love, we are able to give up the labels and the false separations.

We are an expression of the Universal Intelligence that is love. The energy of love is All-That-Is. We are love in all its forms and the opportunity for Love to express itself in the world. If we deny any aspect of this love we are not fully aware of ourselves. Commit to being fully who you are. You are the love of everyone; the sexual passion of creation, the brotherly and sisterly love that produces compassion and comfort; the child’s play that puts you in touch with joy; the unconditional love of deep relationship; and the heart-opening awareness of the loving true self. You are that, all of it. Appreciate the love that you are.

Peace, love and blessings,
Ndidi

When our arteries are blocked with plaque, a cardiologist may recommend bypass surgery. But when our emotional heart is filled with blocked feelings, we also resort to bypass. The difference is that emotional bypass is not helpful.  I know that setting aside negative feelings and judgments only makes them stronger, and deeply wounding. Taming the mind for me is not denying my judgments but facing them, just as I try to notice when my ego gets in the way of enjoying the moment. I try not to get obsessed with being positive when I’m more authentically angry or frustrated. When I’m angry, I do not serve my pain to others, but instead I face my anger and decide how I will respond. When I pass judgment on someone or something, I face the pain and anguish of those judgments in myself, and then try to find out where they are coming from within my own mind and heart. I realize that to be alive is to have thoughts I don’t like, feelings that hurt, and behaviors that I regret. When I meet ” the plaque” I look deeply at what I am feeling. I stop and get still so that I can decide on a compassionate response, not just for others but also for my own clearing. I try not to beat myself up about what I do or think. Instead, I try to remove the plaque by not bypassing who I am or what I am experiencing in the moment.

Peace and blessings,

Ndidi

Source: The Inner Child is Crying Out

“The most potent muse of all is our inner child.” – Stephen Nachmanovitch

News of lives lost and sadness in response to painful events shakes my heart to the core. I have been meditating and encouraging peace and love in my posts on Facebook and Twitter, but my inner child is crying out for relief.  The perpetrators of these horrific acts were once innocent babies and toddlers who asked for something and did not receive it. They felt something and it was not pleasant. They tried to create from their core and the path seemed too difficult to manage. They were too young to understand that if they just stood still, what they wanted would come to them; the love we all seek is right here now.

Inside all of us sits an inner child that offered herself to the world and did not always get a good reception. We react in different ways to thwarted dreams and internalized aggression. We  bump around through life and try to create a life that we love as teenagers and adults, but that inner child keeps crying out. Some of us offer our talents and professional expertise, and when it seems rejected or questioned, we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep learning and trying. During these times, the inner child cries out again,” Please don’t abandon my innocence and my passion to create something unique in my life.” We hear it in our own way and feel it in our disappointment, like a heavy weight on our chest. For some of us, a compassionate hand or voice comforts us in these moments, and we find a way to carry on. For others of us, the pain remains, and the cries continue.

Stop for moment. Listen to the cries of your inner child. Offer forgiveness. Say, “Please forgive me for not always listening to your cries.” Tell your inner child that he  is loved; that love has always been present for him. Introduce your inner child to the present moment of peace, and reassure  her that peace is available any time it’s needed.  Honor your crying inner child. Offer to wipe away the tears, and invite that inner child to breathe deeply with you in the silence; and with a compassionate, soft voice, whisper to your inner child that the way to love is to be love, and that the universe hears all cries. Do this as a testament to the power of our oneness. The love you allow to emerge from your true self is the same power that honors the muse that is our inner child.

With much love,

Eleanor

Inner peace

Abundance

Contemplation

Like us on Facebook at eleanorhooksphd   Namaste.

Some of you may have given up on finding joy every day; it just seems unrealistic. With so may things going on in your life, joy is the last thing you think will happen to you.

I believe that when you find out who you really are, you find joy in every moment. In spite of my beliefs about the true self, the biggest challenge I face is worrying. When I forget who I am, I begin to worry, and soon I start throwing myself into the future. A series of “what-if’s” start invading my mind, and before I know it, I’ve completely forgotten about the present moment, where everything is just fine. I tell myself that worrying doesn’t change a thing: if I worry nothing changes, and if I don’t worry nothing changes, so worrying is useless. This rational thinking doesn’t seem to have an affect on how I feel.

When I stop for a moment, I come back to myself, and become aware of the futility of worry, but also how unnatural it feels. I remember that not worrying feels good. I also experience a calmness and sense of peace. I begin to notice what’s right in the world, not in a pollyanna kind of way of looking. I honestly notice what is happening that feels good. I become grateful for all the small things I miss when I get stressed. I start to reach out to friends to show them how much I appreciate them. In a brief moment of peace, I become energized, and begin to take some action that feels good: listening to music, writing, calling a friend, dancing, practicing qi gong.

What’s important here is that I don’t try to make myself feel better, I just feel better. I don’t try to think good thoughts; I just watch my thoughts come and go. I don’t try to be loving; I just become aware that I am love and then let it flow freely from me. I don’t imagine that all my challenges will disappear; I appreciate where I am now. Yes, I “breathe in the pain,” because Love is strong, and then I know that I can survive it, because like the exhale of my breath, whatever is not in alignment with who I am will soon fall away.

I was wondering, how do you open the door to joy when you begin to worry?

Sometimes we face loss and challenges and disengage from the usual activities in life; we intend to resume those activities when we feel better, but the disconnection gets longer and longer. The problem with the plan is that the conditions always change, even though we may continue to cling to them.
Almost 19 months ago, my daughter passed away. Six weeks before that devastating event, my sister in NJ passed away. Nine months before my sister in NJ passed away, my oldest sister passed away in SC. My body could not keep up with my feelings and thoughts. I retreated from the misalignment and grief; I disappeared into my writing, making brief appearances with friends.
After a few months, I yielded triumphantly to another loss, my hair, and shaved my head completely. My baldness became an unveiling, not a capitulation to the effects of alopecia. I celebrated my true self, regardless of my appearance, but the healing was not complete.
My painful thoughts turned into stress, and my body responded with ailments and perplexing aches that doctors tried to diagnose. The more I clung to my debilitating thoughts, the more I committed to suffering. When I finally let go of the story of my losses, I could feel myself rise like Phoenix from the ashes. I began to have more hours of gratitude and fewer hours of despair during the day. Joy had begun to be a stronger signature of my life story than fear and loss. It’s ironic that I was writing a book about joy as I discovered it more vividly in myself; writing is a journey inward.
Later, I found my voice again on my Facebook site that I rarely visited, and on Twitter; I realized that through all of the loss and illness, joy remained. It sat quietly waiting for me in the lonesome hours, when I realized that I am the last remaining member of my family of origin. Joy burst from my heart with each new person I met or “friended,” and I realized that I am never alone, not with 7 billion people on the earth!

I realized that I had more to say about joy than a book I published in 2012 called African Zen. I wanted others to know that life’s conditions, those sometimes overwhelming challenges, are survivable. Although I have meditated for 20 years, I learned to go within with a deeper consciousness of the joy beneath painful thoughts. Through all the new awarenesses, reawakenings, and comforting places of stillness, I came to love who I really am, my true self. So, I am back from the brink of despair, from my writing hermitage, from my story of loss.
I am joyful, grateful for my life as it is, appreciating peace in the sanctuary of my true self.

You will see evidence of my awareness on my Facebook page at Facebook.com/eleanorhooksphd and at my new author website at http://eleanorhooksphd.com. I have written a new book that will be released early next year. Life is good; it always has been, but finally my body has caught up with my emotions and thoughts. Everything changes.

Tom Hellum, a Norwegian TV producer launched with colleagues a new kind of documentary called slow TV. His longest continuously running documentary of a Norwegian ship’s journey through the country’s magnificent waters was more than 134 continuous hours! The everyday boredom, or perhaps understatement of Norwegians was enlivened with the majesty of the ordinary. As part of this “reality” TV, people tuned in to see themselves, their neighbors, and the beauty of their world, their reality. The slow TV gave them an opportunity to savor moments, notice small things, participate in life, their lives. The landscape and waters were not just something to see, but something to which they could connect in the present moment. I reflected on the opportunities we all have to immerse ourselves into our very own slow TV. I call it a place called boredom, an obvious reframing of a negative feeling or state.
If a kingdom is a place, why not regard boredom as a place — in our mind? Unlike most kingdoms, we are both the monarch and the subjects in that place called boredom. We rule over our feelings of depression, listlessness, resentment, anger, hopelessness and despair. We demand that sad feelings linger even though they beg to depart. We keep inviting them back again and again, so that we can feel the anguish. We can be a cruel monarch!
As subjects, we respond to those feeling guests with lack of motivation, negative thoughts and a refusal to matter to the world. We invite them to beat us up with untrue thoughts and melancholy. Boredom can be a sad story of our lives, a desperate tale of longing to be loved. It begins with a strong, uncomfortable feeling of separation from others, proceeds with dramatic attention to what’s not working, followed by scenes of the bruises of failure, shame and rejection. It ends badly.
There is another story: One that never ends, but allows joy every day, every moment.
Every kingdom has neighborhoods, sections that are safe and beautiful. In the place called boredom, there are neighborhoods as well. One is called imagination, another compassion. Yet another is called forgiveness, but the best is called awakening. In the neighborhood of imagination, we can dream of better times, or envision peace and tranquility, but if we linger too long in that neighborhood, we miss the present moment as we mortgage our present for the future.
In the neighborhood of compassion, we recognize suffering, our own and others, and commit to supporting others because we know that what we do for others, we do for ourselves. We choose to express compassion freely without an expectation of reward, and in that unconditional compassion, we experience happiness.
In the neighborhood called forgiveness, we release our pain and send love to ourselves and others. We heal the wounds laid bare with resentment and anger. But if our forgiveness is an empty dispensation without awakening to the spirit and innocence of ourselves and others, we can be vulnerable to future feelings of victimhood.
In the neighborhood of awakening, we are fully aware of every moment of our lives as a unique gift of presence. We turn our spiritual eyes inward and see more clearly that each moment is a treasure. Stillness murmurs lovingly to us as we wake up to the present moment in all its glory. In our awakened state, we see with new eyes; we experience joy and peace. We participate in life, instead of longing for something we already have.
In a place called boredom, we can choose our neighborhood if we just slow our gaze. We can then see that we are an integral expression of the divine in this life. We are love. We can live and breathe and have our being in this place, this kingdom within.