Posts Tagged ‘Spiritual Story’
2014: The Year of…
Thursday, January 2nd, 2014
Happy 2014! As each New Year begins, I take time to sit quietly and set intentions for the coming year. I listen to silence. I listen to nature. I listen to my heart. One clear intention is to follow the map of my heart.
As I started to meditate, I gazed at my bookcase. Joan Didion’s book, The Year of Magical Thinking, jumped out at me. I had read this book a few years after my mom passed away. (I highly recommend any Joan Didion book!) As I stared at that book, I felt like there was a message for me for 2014. I randomly opened to a page and read, “As a writer, even as a child, long before what I wrote began to be published, I developed a sense that meaning itself was resident in the rhythms of words and sentences and paragraphs…The way I write is who I am, or have become…” I returned the book and felt the rhythms of the words as it matched the rhythm of my breath.
I wrote the words: 2014 is the Year of Magical Being
This year will be about following the sacred path of the warrior and living from a place of being. It will BE a year of allowing serendipity to replace certainty. It will BE a year where I live from my heart. It will BE a year where feelings will be the map that guides me. 2014 will be a year of Magical BEING.
As a part of that beingness, I am also honing in a word for 2014: Metta.
The Pali word for lovingkindness, metta, means unconditional friendliness, warmth, love or care, and the Pali word for compassion, karuna, means to “feel with,” to bear suffering with an active sympathy. In his wisdom the Buddha realized that by purposefully awakening lovingkindness and compassion, we invite the alienated hurts and fears into consciousness, and free ourselves into a wholeness of being. (Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart)
My year of Magical Being will be tuning into loving-kindness towards myself and others. This loving-kindness will allow me to consciously stay awake in the world and turn shame, fear, and doubt into wholeness.
It’s a big journey and I know I don’t walk alone. I have many holy witnesses with me.
You are invited to take time and listen for your intention, your word, and your heart.
What does 2014 feel like for you?
True Refuge of the Heart
Wednesday, May 15th, 2013
“We can find our true refuge within our our hearts and minds —right here, right now, in the midst of our moment-to-moment lives. We find true refuge whenever we recognize the silent space of awareness behind our busy doing and striving. We find refuge whenever our hearts open with tenderness and love. We find refuge whenever we connect with the innate clarity and intelligence of our true nature.”
—Tara Brach, True Refuge: Finding Peace and Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart
What say you?
Where and how do you find your true refuge of the heart?
Learning Hope
Tuesday, December 4th, 2012
I woke up thinking about hope. I thought about areas of my life I am feeling hopeful. I was inspired by Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. In one of the chapters, Cultivating a Resilient Spirit, she writes about hopeful self-talk and the importance of remembering that even when things are difficult, it is important to remind ourselves that we can keep going. Brown writes, “We develop a hopeful mind-set when we understand that some worthy endeavors will be difficult and time consuming and not enjoyable at all. If we want to cultivate hopefulness, we have to be willing to be flexible and demonstrate perseverance.”
I looked up some of my favorite quotes on hope as a reminder of what is possible.
“Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops… at all.” ~Emily Dickinson
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” ~Anne Lamott
“Without hope the us’s give up. I know that you can’t live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you, and you, and you, and you have got to give them hope.” ~Harvey Milk
I am still learning and cultivating hope with each new personal and professional endeavor. What are your thoughts about hope?
{Photo taken by Mary Anne Flanagan}
The Wild Territory of the Heart
Thursday, September 13th, 2012
I have noticed how listening to my heart has yielded some changes. Rather than reacting, I am responding. I am no longer saying yes when I really want to say no. And I am opening to people and work that has meaning. It’s a path of uncertainty that I am opening to more and more. I feel like I am in the wild territory of my heart. I am an adventurer in my own life, digging deeper, exploring the unknown. The exploration of my wild heart has me curious, scared, vulnerable, humbled, hopeful, and grateful. It’s a journey of the heart and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
And you? What is the wild territory of your heart saying to you?
As Pema Chödrön said in her book, The Wisdom of No Escape, “Wholeheartedness is a precious gift, but no one can actually give it to you. You have to find the path that has heart and then walk it impeccably….It’s like someone laughing in your ear, challenging you to figure out what to do when you don’t know what to do. It humbles you. It opens your heart.”
Give and Receive
Wednesday, August 29th, 2012
My meditations have shifted from listening to receiving. I find it so much easier to give and have struggled with receiving. I have lived from a place that dreads asking for help. My role as a giver comes from my work as “a giver” and my role as a healer, a coach, a mentor, and a teacher. And now I am ready to shift it. It’s time to receive. I’m open to receiving.
As Byron Katie says, “Have you noticed how many times you try to control what comes in by giving rather than receiving? What happens when you just stand there and receive? The receiving is the giving. It’s the most genuine thing you can give back. When someone comes to hug me, I don’t have to hug them back. To receive it—you can die in that! To receive it is to die to pain, and to be born into love and laughter.”
How are you at receiving? What are you open to receiving?
Mantra: I am open to receiving as a form of giving.
And I am ready to receive a hug too!