Posts Tagged ‘Meditation’
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!
Empty the Bucket
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
As I traveled to Peru, I knew I needed to let go of some pre-conceived thoughts so I could make room for all the information and beauty I would encounter. I wrote in my journal, “I am willing to let go and let in.” There is no room if the bucket (of my mind) is full. I went to Peru with an empty bucket and it was filled with so much insight, joy, and laughter.
On my second day in Lima, I passed this little boy helping his father gather all the grass clippings and place them in the bucket. As soon as I took this photo, the little boy looked up and dumped the bucket of grass and smiled. His father quietly walked over with his broom and together they refilled the bucket.
As I smiled at the boy and his father, I was simply reminded: empty the bucket.
Empty the bucket and make room for more.
Over the next few weeks I will be posting my insights about my journey to Peru – after I empty the bucket of my mind.
Enjoy! Mary Anne
{Photo taken by Mary Anne Flanagan, Lima, Peru}
Lessons Learned from Uncertainty
Thursday, May 17th, 2012
I have been listening to the message of uncertainty lately. There is some uncertainty about some of my projects ending and where to grow in the next phase of my business. I have noticed that when I am in my head, I want immediate answers. And when I am in my heart, I allow the universe to show me where to go next. Blazing the next trail requires me to align my head and heart in both the knowing and unknowing parts of life.
And as always happens when I am open and willing to listen (without solving), the universe provides more clarity and a message. This time it came through my friend’s, Joe Monkman, blog post. He wrote this week:
“Are you open to believing that the next step awaits? Are you open to knowing that the path you have chosen is absolutely in line with your highest good? Are you open to continuing to forge what may seem to you and others to be an unusual path?
The unusual is calling. The extraordinary is beckoning. The road less traveled awaits.”
Yes, the unusual is calling me. I am certain of my uncertainty and open to seeing the next step that awaits. The road of more joy, growing edges, and bliss awaits me – for that I am certain!
Mary Anne
My Journey Inside the King’s Chamber
Wednesday, November 30th, 2011
On the last day of my spiritual journey in Egypt I awoke early as our group was going to have a private tour of the King’s Chamber inside the Great Pyramid in Giza. After going through tight security, we were escorted by local police to this ancient site. We were guided along the side of the Pyramid toward a small opening. I was given the keys and asked to open the lock. My hands shook as I placed the key in and opened the gate. We were invited to walk along the long flight of stairs that would lead us to the top where we would meditate alongside the King’s tomb – a red granite sarcophagus.
The entrance was a long, dark, narrow stairway. Had I allowed myself to think about where I was, I probably would have panicked or succumbed to claustrophobia. Yet, somehow I knew I had to keep walking inside the chamber. My eyes began to adjust to the dim light inside and I began climbing up the narrow steps, while holding onto the metal bars on the side, and hearing my own heavy breathing. I looked up to find others in my group, but all I could see were my own feet in front of me.
Was I climbing up? Climbing in? Climbing out? I wasn’t sure. I just knew I had to keep going – inside the Pyramid – inside myself – into the dark. I pushed past all the fears and kept walking. I crawled my way to the top of the King’s Chamber. The room was cold and dark with only a tomb inside. After some meditation, we were invited to lie inside the sarcophagus for as long as we wanted. I waited until I felt ready to step inside the tomb and lay down. With my eyes closed and arms crossed, I began to feel the ancient tomb beneath my body. I asked the tomb to liberate the burden of past lifetimes. The darkness I have feared – my own darkness, softened.
After more than ten minutes, I was ready to come out of the tomb. I was ready to climb out of my own tomb. What was inside the chamber?
Death. Life. Breath. Egypt. Home.
Mary Anne
Cultivate More Good
Friday, July 8th, 2011
I spent the holiday weekend reading Noah Levine’s new book, The Heart of the Revolution. It’s an incredible book about challenging ourselves to do the hard work of opening our minds and hearts to more compassion, more forgiveness, and more love. Levine refers to the spiritual 1%ers who are the ones willing to put in the effort of meditation and mindfulness. In one chapter, he uses a phrase cultivate the good. It became a mantra for the rest of the day and the weekend.
How do I cultivate the good? How can I cultivate more good? I sat in meditation and asked for a deeper understanding of cultivating the good. After 15 minutes, I wrote the following:
Cultivating the good starts with living your soul moments rather than your survival moments. It’s recognizing all the good in yourself and sharing it with the world. It’s stretching beyond all doubt and fear into the place of joy. You are bigger than any one moment. It’s releasing doubt. Anger is merely fear and fear is merely doubt. When did you stop believing love? Take a deeper look inside. What is your loving heart saying to you? Can you meet yourself with kindness?
Cultivate the good – grow a garden of love in your heart and remember to water it daily. Cultivate more good. Cultivate more love.
Today, I will meet myself with more kindness and cultivate the good.
Mary Anne
Walk On
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
Walk on
to the snow covered mountains
a view from a rear seat
of a new blazing sky
yet ignorant of the lessons
of that land
Teach me…walk on…
Arches
looking in or looking out
rested in your rocks
I could not shield myself
from the bitterness
shutting myself down
away from you
Heal me…walk on…
Raven
wings flapping
like window shutters
soaring above me
so I could see my God
my faith rebounding
Love me…walk on…
O Zion
praying to you
gave me unfamiliar faces
encouraging me to climb
up through the path
to the top or
to the beginning
Show me…walk on…
Bryce
your hoodoos captured
my heart and saved my soul
like the trees burnt
to ashes into the soil
by mighty lightening
Hold me…walk on…
Wisdom
a warming gift
of stories told and retold
the footprints are
a journey through land
a pathway to a healing heart
and an abandoned soul
Carry me…Walk with me…Walk on…
Walk on…
Mary Anne
(Written after traveling to Utah and hiking the National Parks)
Creating a “triZENbe” in 2010
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
As 2010 arrived with anticipation, so too did all the questions. What do I want to happen in 2010? What are the deepest contributions I can offer others this year? What is my focus/theme for 2010? What I am willing to do afraid?
At first, these questions became quite overwhelming. To answer them, I decided I would get still and just listen. I repeated the questions over and over as mantras. My focus for 2010 came to me with the words ZEN and TRIBE. I want the peace of stillness and the love from gathering people in welcoming, generous, and supportive ways.
Can I create a new energy of both ZEN and TRIBE? Yes, because it already exists inside of me. I am naming this new energy: triZENbe. This year I will focus on being still before leading, gathering people in whatever ways I can to generate more tribes, and creating community meditations. The triZENbe definition is still unfolding and it is very exciting. I hope you will join me on this journey.
What contribution will you offer yourself and others? What are some things you are willing to do afraid? Create your own triZENbe. Experience the whole you in 2010!
Here is to Zen filled peace and the fullness of gathering in tribes,
Mary Anne
What Are You DOING?
Friday, January 16th, 2009
“What are you doing?” was the question asked to me by a co-teacher while we were facilitating a weekend intensive. We had co-created our agenda and after lunch we were going to do a guided meditation with the whole group. The plan was for me to go to the center of the room and use a large white singing bowl to create an attunement and raise the vibrational tone to start the meditation. So, on cue, I went to the center of the room, and sat down on a seat cushion to prepare to play. My co-teacher began speaking, and suddenly looked down, saw me sitting, and asked, “What are you doing?” I looked up as if caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I responded, “Nothing.” She continued, “No, really, what are you doing?” I just stared up and was quiet. In my mind I was thinking, I am doing what we said we were going to do at this time, but remained silent. Meanwhile, the rest of the class looked on thinking this was either a skit we were performing or a way of engaging them in the next experience. Slowly and calmly, I picked up my seat cushion and returned to my space in the circle.
My co-teacher went on to explain a whole new exercise she thought would work better, but had not had the chance to explain to me about the change in schedule. In her mind, she knew what she was doing and I knew what I was doing. I realized a few things in that moment, other than it is a good idea to tell your co-teacher the agenda has changed. I realized I wasn’t “doing” anything. I allowed myself to become quiet and realized it had nothing to do with “doing”, that it is about “being.”
It was a lesson about how easy it is to get caught up in the doing and the defending. I could have easily voiced back that I was getting ready to lead the meditation like we agreed, but in that moment the real lesson was just being. Every day, there are so many things “to do”, that we can forget “to be.
In a recent conversation I was reminded again of a non-doing stance. I was struggling with all the doing and wanting to answer every question. The response that came was, “There is nothing to do…Nothing…I promise…Just breathe…Nothing at all to do…You are perfect as you are…IT is all good…Do nothing…It is not about DO-ing…Just feel and let it be what it is…”
So, the question now becomes, who are you being? Practice doing nothing. See what happens. Notice the stance of non-doing and the place of being and watching and feeling and allowing. Just watch.
What are you doing? It is perfect to not have an answer.
Mary Anne