Tag Archives: Consciousness

Surgery

A Beginner’s Guide To Dealing With Fear

In The DistanceFear, like any thought or emotion, cannot be picked up with the hands and thrown away.  But despite its intangibility, in these days leading up to my surgery I am learning things about fear I never knew before.

The undercurrent of fear that we all experience to some degree is more difficult to notice and release than big fear.  The little things I’m genuinely afraid of, like bugs, a lack of money, or my plans not working out, seem so normal that I can hardly imagine what it might feel like not to be afraid of them.  But this big event I’m experiencing, a major surgery, is so unknowable and uncontrollable that the fear of it cannot be brushed under the rug.  Big fear either forces surrender or causes excruciating suffering.

Another aspect of fear that I’ve been noticing is that it lessens with an increase of gratitude.  I’ve been realizing that I’m so grateful I can even have this healing surgery.  I’m grateful that I can go to a hospital and have people looking out for my health and caring for me.  I’m grateful beyond measure for the love and compassion I’ve been shown in the wake of this challenge.  The generosity of spirit that those around me have demonstrated has softened my heart towards humanity in a new and deeper way than ever before.  When given the opportunity to show compassion, each person can reveal an infinite wellspring from within their being, an insatiable desire to help.

I have also noticed that no matter my fears, what is simply is, and what will be simply will be.  This doesn’t mean my mind won’t take me to the thoughts that are most potent for spawning more fear and subsequently more thoughts, but when that happens there is always surrender, there is always the “For This Practice” game, there is always gratitude, and when all else fails there is always one more chance for surrender.

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Life

Uncertainty or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Now

HutRecently life has felt like one big question mark.  Instead of providing answers, life is providing me with more and more uncertainty.  While Eckhart Tolle would describe such a circumstance as space being created for something new, it feels more like I’m venturing into the woods at night without a flashlight.

The space being created is easily filled with thoughts of worry, doubt, and “what if” scenarios.  I keep asking myself what I can do to make each situation turn out favorably for me.  But whatever I do will only be half of the equation, the other half is made up of howI do whatever it is I choose to do.  Am I acting out of conscious awareness or out of fear?  Am I making choices based on my worries or from a place of trust?

Of course if I waited to act in life until I wasn’t afraid I probably wouldn’t make it past my front door in the morning, but there is another way for action to be in alignment with positive energy.  We can do this by first recognizing fear for what it is, a pattern of thought in the mind that translates to emotion in the body, and back to thoughts again.  There is nothing wrong with this being in your sphere of attention as long as it is noticed and not completely bought into.  The more you buy into it, the more suffering you experience.

Once the fear based thought and emotion pattern is seen from the light of your awareness you can choose not to buy into it, and instead choose to know that in reality each step you take is exactly what you need to experience at this moment. You can decide to live in each moment as if you had chosen it.

Know deep within, beyond thought, that each decision is leading you towards the highest aspirations of your being.  In this way the energy behind your actions is that of consciousness itself, and all that fear stuff is just hanging out to enjoy the scenery.  The time for fruitful action is always now, could there be any other?

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Inspiration

Remember This On Your Next Bad Day

Sunset

Each day feels different, carries different thoughts, bears witness to unique events. Whatever your new day carries, don’t forget that being in awe of the mystery unfolding before you is a natural response in any state of being.  It is that wonder that heals wounds, and guides you faithfully to the eternal light of the present and all the joy concealed therein.

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Peace

When To Accept, When To Change

SunriseI often find myself torn between attempts at surrendering to the present moment, and discerning my role in changing it.  This simple piece of wisdom from Sri Swami Satchidananda offers a higher vantage point from which life’s circumstances can be peacefully navigated:

“If we know that we are instruments, and nothing is in our hands, then accepting and changing are not in our hands either. It’s very simple. If you are prompted to accept, then accept it. If you are prompted to change, then change it. Even that will be prompted. Something will tell you, “Come on; go ahead and try to change it.” Then your answer should be, “Okay, God, if that’s what You want, let me do it with Your backing. You are prompting me, so I am doing it.” It’s super surrender, and life is really beautiful that way.

All you have to do is follow God’s lead. The brush never tells you, ‘Oh, touch here, touch there, use a broader stroke.’ It lets the painter use it. So, you simply be the brush, and let God paint whatever He wants. God is seeing the whole picture, and it will be a masterpiece.” Sri Swami Satchidananda

 

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Life

Where Your Friends Go When You’re Not Around

DesertI remember the dean of my high school most clearly for the two times I sat crying in his office, refusing to hand over the flip-phone I had long since usurped from my mother.  On both occasions a member of school staff had caught me in the bathroom hastily attempting to contact my older brother during what could only have been a five-minute break lest the teacher become suspicious.

My sophomore year of high school marked my older brother’s freshman year of college.  While he was still in Illinois, the gap between Highland Park and Urbana-Champaign felt as vast as the distance between the windows of my trigonometry classroom and the intangible clouds above that earned the majority of my attention that year.

For the first time I experienced the pain that came with loving someone who wasn’t physically present in my life. Even though my brother and I saw each other many times that first year of separation, I never quite shook the feeling that it was imperative to live near those I loved.  The fact that over ten years have gone by and I still live 45 minutes from my parents is a testament to that notion.

Over the years friends too have come and gone from the proximity that birthed our relationships, and to my surprise the world has continued to spin around its axis.  But I am now painfully reminded of the lessons I wasn’t quite able to grasp as a teenager who longed for her brother to come home, because I now have friends who live more than just a car ride away.

A couple posts ago I marveled at the overwhelming lesson I had learned from my travels in Israel: no matter where in the world, one can always be loved.  When such bonds of friendship are struck, more than just gratitude can arise. Any meaningful and joyful experience can also be a gateway for attachment.  I so missed my brother when he went to college, I long for my friends who have moved out of state, and I can’t fathom the distance between my newfound friends in Israel and my home in Chicago.

When attachment turns joy into sorrow a lesson is being offered in return; the joy and connection that you are pining for came from within yourself.  Right now I am missing my friends overseas.  But our relationships with other human beings are not outside of ourselves, as they seem from our physical experiences.  They originate within, and are born of the love each of us carry as our very being.  Our friends do not merely reside in our hearts when we are apart, they are an expression of our hearts, and are returning home to the space from which they came.

Next time you feel attachment gnawing away at your mind, remember that the love for which you pine has never left you, and will continue to reflect itself back to you in infinite, unimaginable ways.

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Life

There And Back Again

The AlchemistI’m back and gone all in an instant!  I recently returned home from a soul-soothing trip to Florida, only to embark tomorrow on a ten-day adventure in Israel.

While on the outside this might not look like the “right” time to travel to the Middle East, the opportunity is before me and I’ve accepted.  Most of life’s big leaps never have a “right” time, and waiting can turn into the ultimate comfort zone.  So instead of looking around outside of you to discern the precise moment to take action, take a look within.

In the eternal present of your inner life everything has already unfolded in a manner befitting the perfect organization of the universe that enabled your life to manifest.  If your mind is like mine, decision-making can be an agonizing process.  But beyond the mind, when you inhabit the space of the witness of your being, there are no decisions to be made.  There is only the pure potential for perfect action.

The ultimate security, in a world of unstable forms, is inner security.  Get to know the silence within. Sit back and get really comfortable in the resting place of your being.  From that vantage point the roller coaster of life has a visible track, you are strapped in tight, and each drop and turn is met with enjoyment.

Enjoy your next ten days, please keep me updated on what lessons life is giving you in the comments, and I’ll talk to you soon with quite a tale to tell.

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Life

An Ending, An Insight, And A Vacation

PeaceWhen space is created in your life it can seem as if something has been lost and you are left less than you were before. But contrary to the mind’s idea of space, that opening is the foundation of abundance.

When it comes down to it, an abundance of space is really just the platform on which abundance manifests. I say this as I move into what looks like a wide-open field of possibilities in my own life. My incredible teaching experience that was grant-funded these past four years has reached its end date, and I am humbled with gratitude. Whenever I feel an inner longing towards what was, I know I experienced something to be thankful for, and any bitter-sweetness changes to pure sweetness.

Over a year ago I began planning a vacation to Florida. While I didn’t know at the time what my life was going to look like a year later, the trip is arriving right on schedule. One week ago I had my last day of work, and in one day I leave for a ten-day excursion. The universal schedule is too vast to contain in a mind, but it is prompt and efficient nonetheless! Trusting in time is the same as trusting in the present moment, it is allowing life to exist as it is and consequently aligning your own experience with its perfect unfolding.

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spirituality

Note To Self

Tao of Pooh

When I find myself waiting for the present moment to be a certain way I think of all of the wisdom teachers throughout history in their infinite peace and joy.  I remember that the moment in which they experienced the profundity of existence in such magnitude is the exact same moment I am experiencing right now.  They are all pointing us toward the present, which regardless of form is the birthplace of all enlightenment, if only you let it be.

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Life

Joke’s On Me

RenewToday I had the great pleasure of visiting the DMV for the first time since I had my license renewed five years ago. Everything really had been going smoothly until I was called up to take my new license picture.

I looked at the blue dot and smiled.  A few seconds after sitting down in the waiting area the man who had taken my picture called out to me saying, “One of your eyes was closed in the picture.”  I stood up to retake the picture when he said, “You can’t retake it, it says right here all you need is one eye to be open for a valid picture.  Just don’t do that while you’re driving.”

I sat back down in utter defeat.  My brow furrowed, all I could think about were the looks on the faces of all the people who I would have to hand my license to. I looked as if I was about to cry.

A couple of minutes passed and my license finished printing.  I walked up to the counter, and the man handed me my license with a big grin on his face.  The joke was on me.  He was kidding.  The picture was just fine, and I laughed out loud.

Life had caught me taking it too seriously.  Getting upset about a bad license picture, really?  Getting upset about the prospect of a bad picture on your license is like getting upset about the prospect of having to listen to smooth jazz during call waiting.  It will probably happen, and it can do nothing to hurt you.  And sometimes, as in my case, you get a mixed message about a situation, when everything is fine all along. Either way, make sure to laugh about it.

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