Vision and Action
October 16th, 2012
Breathe in your visions.
Breathe out your actions.
Be a Message of Love – National Coming Out Day
October 11th, 2012
“We thought you were going to be a nun.” This was part of the conversation I had with my parents after coming out to them. My coming out came as a huge surprise to my parents as they thought I might enter religious life. When I asked myself how I wanted to live my life, I saw clearly that I had dreams of falling in love (with a woman). I knew I needed to love myself before I could fall in love with someone else. And knew I needed to proclaim who I am so I didn’t have to live in the shadows or live with shame. It wasn’t easy. It was very difficult for me to share and for my family to hear.
I am one of the lucky ones because I have a happy ending. My family loves me and my partner and vice-a-versa. For many gay people this isn’t true. There are still far too many people who can’t come out because it isn’t safe. There are far too many LGBT people who are beaten or suicidal. And so I encourage all of us to stand up and speak out on behalf of LGBT folks, especially young people.
Stand up. There are far too many messages of hate. We can send a message of love. We can be a message of love. I invite you to tell your LGBT friends you love them. You may think they know it, but trust me when I say they need to hear your support.
I love you.
Limitless Receiving
October 9th, 2012
When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it’s bottomless, that it doesn’t have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. ~Pema Chodron
I am allowing my heart to be in a state of receiving. How will you let your heart be touched?
Accepting Ourselves
October 3rd, 2012
At a gathering of some of Kobun Chino Roshi’s long-term students shortly before Kobun’s death, a student asked, “Kobun, why do we sit (meditate)?”
He replied: “We sit to make life meaningful. The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing. We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are. This can be very painful. Self-acceptance is the hardest thing to do. If we can’t accept ourselves, we are living in ignorance, this darkest night. We may still be awake, but we don‚t know where we are. We cannot see. The mind has no light. Practice is this candle in our very darkest room.”
Mantra: I accept myself as the light that I am.
And so it is.
Lessons from a Pity-Party
October 1st, 2012
It seems I have been having some big pity-parties lately. You know the ones – where negative self-talk and mental games fill the space in your head. There are some major changes ahead (all at the same time): new work projects that are filled with bureaucracy, unstable housing, and over a month of Vertigo that now requires more medical tests. So, I threw myself the best pity party ever!
I decided to sit quietly for an hour and just listen. Within minutes, I started sobbing and that opened me up to a beautiful meditation:
You feel like you have lost your anchor. It is true that all of your inner tools don’t seem sufficient nor are they going to move you past your challenges as you have outgrown them.
The peace path is a belief – you will return to YOURSELF. You will get up, accept help from others, sit quietly, thank Spirit, remember love, and laugh. Until then, are you willing to listen to the blahness that is guiding you knowing there is a lesson? You don’t need cheering up – rather, you can take time for cheering within. Magical thinking won’t change anything. Believing you will stay in this place is temporary. Deep down you know that this new growing edge of uncertainty will provide a necessary shift (on all levels).
You invited this in and you are the one who will know when this cranky and depressed energy has outlasted its invitation. You are being broken open and while some of these cracks hurt like hell, please know what is coming forth is more powerful than you could possibly describe in words. It’s a power that will bring your essence more fully into the world.
You are not alone. Look around and see all the amazing support that is showing up in new ways. Your support team comes in every form.
Your pity-party is not going to sustain change. So, move on. Get to work. The world is waiting for you. And more importantly, you are waiting for YOU.
Live Your Truth
September 27th, 2012
Meditation:
You are not here to chase someone else’s truth. You are here to discover your own truth. Trust that. Speak that. Live that. Be your truth, always.
Truth is found somewhere between two stories. Go to the space in between and live the truth that emanates from our heart. You have always known your truth. The world will celebrate your truth as you celebrate your Self.
It is time to express your truth.
Breathing into Our Divinity
September 25th, 2012
Take a nice breath in – allowing.
And a long breath out – releasing
Drop in just a little bit more, inside ourselves, inside the Divine.
Drop in now, and on your next breath, sit in the Divine place of you.
Where is your Divinity residing?
Just listen, notice, and be.
Breathing in, I am Divine.
Breathing Out, I am Divine.
There it is – Divinity.
There you are – the Divine.
Allow your breath to show you the way.
Remembering we are always one breath away from peace.
Welcome home. Welcome to your divine self.
Be peace.
Enjoy this Meditation on Your Divine Self.
You Are the Miracle You Have Been Waiting For
September 24th, 2012
Sitting in meditation I heard, “You are a miracle. Your healing work is a miracle. Your breath is a miracle. Your life is a miracle.”
You are the miracle you have been waiting for.
Right here. Right now.
Mantra: I am the miracle I have been waiting for.
Relaxing into the Unknown
September 20th, 2012
Welcome to the Unknown. As I sat in meditation this week, I was drawn to the unknown, unnamed, and unthought. As my mind started conjuring up fearful thoughts, my body fidgeted, I took a long inhale and exhale. I let silence fill me. And then my higher meditative self welcomed me home – welcomed me to the unknown. I am having a ‘reception’ for my unknown self. I am not ready to embrace it yet, but I will offer the unknown a toast.
As I read though my emails, there was a message to remind me just how much I can relax into the unknown. “It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.” Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change, Pema Chödrön
How are you with uncertainty? What ways have you embraced relaxing into the unknown?
Photo by Mary Anne Flanagan
The Teacher and Student
September 19th, 2012
“You Don’t Need a Guru. You ARE one. You are the Guru of your own life.” That line from a recent post by Jennifer Boykin felt like it hit me over the head.
I am the Guru of my own life.
I have sat with many, many amazing teachers over the years. And I still do. I, like many people, who facilitate and share their knowledge, hesitate when someone calls me their teacher. For years, I called myself “a guide.” I often feel like an air line stewardess who gives the necessary information needed and shares where the best escape route is located should you want to exit. I resisted being called “teacher.”
I was relieved when I read Jonathan Fields blog post, When Do You Know Enough to Teach? In his post he wrote:
It’s about being of service, helping others find ways to move forward without proclaiming yourself the sage or all-knowing guru. It’s about earning a living by opening your heart and sharing whatever learnings you’ve gleaned from your far-from-complete path with enough humility to inspire others to discover their own truths. It’s about the power of knowing the right questions, the right resources and the right primes, not just dropping the right answers.
As I sat and reread this I realized that being a teacher is about being of service; sharing what I have learned, what I have experienced, and what ideas have worked for me. At any given moment, I am the teacher and the student – the one guiding and the one learning. My work as a shaman and a life coach has taught me to help others discover a path of healing, to illuminate processes that allow for deeper understanding, and to ask powerful questions that ignite insights.
I don’t have the answers. I have many questions. I have lots of ideas. I am the teacher and student at the same time.
And yes, I am the Guru of my own life. If someone learns something from my life experiences, that is a gift.
I am the one I have been waiting for – I am the one I have been seeking and I am the one who I have been learning from all along.
What are your thoughts on being your own Guru? How are you a teacher for yourself?
Feel free to share your thoughts and comments.