Tag Archives: Thoughts

consciousness

Who are you, really?

flowering

If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn’t even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn’t know he is dreaming. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream. (Present Moment Reminder, Eckhart Tolle)

You are not thoughts.  After that seemingly simple realization you have “woken up.”  You have the power to experience your true being, and to see life as it really is from the vantage point of the watcher.  You have the power to change the situation, to be an active participant in creating your own reality. There can be no diminishment of even the smallest glimpse of awakening.  Once you know, experience, that you are not your thoughts but the one who perceives, you have initiated the flowering of your own existence.
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Ego

“Scarcity Culture”

airplaneWhat decisions does fear make for you?  How do you react when you feel like you’re not enough?  The ego lives life through you by making you believe you are the ego.  That you are not safe, that your existence is precarious.  It makes you believe others’ perceptions of you, along with objects and thoughts, validate your being.

Of course, this is all true of the ego!  The ego is the mind when it attaches itself to objects, and thought forms.  It needs that attachment for its existence.  Without it, you would take back your life, and the ego would cease.  What would a life free of fear, judgment, and attachment look like?

The “Scarcity Culture” that Dr. Brené Brown discusses with Oprah, on this episode of Super Soul Sunday, is an example of a world created by the ego.  A world created by attachment, fear, and separation.

 

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consciousness

Need a break from the voice in your head?

The world comes alive the moment the voice in your head ceases.  Can you remember any moments in your life when you weren’t thinking?  They are usually very memorable, because your awareness of the situation increases astronomically.

What is life like when your attention is not dominated by your thoughts?  While it is miraculous, the only way to truly know what will happen, is to try.  This video provides the all important “how” for silencing your thoughts:

Thank you Eckhart and Oprah for that wonderful Super Soul Sunday discussion! This next video I’m including as an example of how the direction of your attention drastically changes any situation.  In this simple video of a father asking his child questions when she is crying, the principle of anchoring your awareness can be easily identified.  

Eckhart taught us ways to shift our awareness from the voice in the head to our inner body.  For this child, when her attention shifts from crying to answering a question, she is no longer in the grip of reaction. An adult mind usually has too much momentum to cease when interrupted by a question, which is why anchoring your attention first within the body helps to slow thought.

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Inspiration

“I’ve Got A Golden Ticket!”

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My parking spot was stolen. Admittedly, that is not the most accurate sentence. I don’t actually own a parking spot, so strictly speaking nothing was stolen. But another driver did prevent me from parking in the spot I was attempting to back into. It was at that point, when I decided to give it up and drive away, that I allowed myself to cry hysterically for about a minute and a half.

Was this an overreaction? It was clearly a very strong response. But the parking spot was just a small nudge over the cliff I had been teetering on since I left work. I had received some information about pay and hours for the coming year that was not in alignment with my thoughts about how it should be. Usually that is where frustration starts. There is a disconnect between reality, and the mind’s ideas about reality.

Intellectually I am aware that the events that took place today were all working for my good. My brain still trusts the universe. But that wasn’t how I was feeling. I felt frustrated, and unnerved. So when “my” parking spot was “stolen” I decided it was time to let out the negative energy that had awoken within me. If I hadn’t allowed that energy to express itself, it would have lived on within my body, leaving me more susceptible to illness and further negative energy.

I then proceeded to find a parking spot, and walk home in the gloriously clear blue sky. I find that after a less-than-desirable experience, it is necessary to rev myself up again. Instead of letting the space created from purging my negative energy fill up with a reaction to another event, I feel it is more helpful to choose what I let in.

For a few minutes I danced and sang about how grateful and abundant my life was. Then I decided to watch an inspiring sermon on YouTube, but instead found myself watching clips from Willy Wonka. Wouldn’t you know it, it was just what I needed! The first video featured the song, “Golden Ticket,” which displayed exactly the level of energy I was attempting to reach. What was more, I heard the lyrics spoken straight from the universe itself:

I never had a chance to shine
Never a happy song to sing
But suddenly half the world is mine
What an amazing thing
‘Cause I’ve got a golden ticket (Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley)

When I let go of thought, observe the world around me, and sense my own beingness in connection with all that is, that is what it feels like! I’ve got a golden ticket and the world is mine, or rather, I am the world. Consciousness is the real golden ticket. God can speak to you with exactly the right words, through any vessel in the universe. All that is required, in the words of Willy Wonka, is to “simply look around and view it.”

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spirituality

Going, Going, Almost Gone

Katie and ChrisNext week I’m moving for the first time in five years. My boyfriend and I have loved living in this little studio apartment all these years, but several months ago (even before the bed bug incident) I began having a strong desire for something new. Something with a bedroom.

The last time I re-signed my current lease I had some doubts, the inkling that I might want to live somewhere new.  But I was comfortable living here, and the price was affordable for my boyfriend and I.  Then one day I watched an Oprah’s Next Chapter episode that took place in India and featured a family of five living in a studio apartment much smaller than ours, which I had previously considered tiny.  I took this as a sign that I should stay in the apartment, that it was relatively large, and more than enough for just the two of us.

One of the blessings of staying here for a fifth year, is that now moving feels like a gift.  I am infinitely grateful.  Yet, even as my dream is coming true before my eyes, I am still trying to figure out how it will be realized. I know come September 1st I’ll be sleeping in a different apartment, but I haven’t yet figured out how. There is a huge list of tasks that must be accomplished; I can’t keep track of them all.

Can you feel it? I’m right at that point where I can choose to react, or to allow. It would be easy to let the “how” take over the enjoyment of this highly anticipated change. This is a transition I have dreamt about for months, and I am grateful it is finally coming to pass. So no matter how impossible getting a dishwasher into a car and up a flight of stairs seems, I choose to let myself enjoy the experience.

Is there anything going on for you right now that you can surrender to? For me, moving is an experiment in letting go. The easiest way to tell if you’ve actually surrendered, and aligned yourself with your present experience, is to ask yourself if you feel peaceful or stressed out. If you’re feeling stressed, that is a compass letting you know you should turn around and go in a different direction. It gives you another chance to say, “I am going to allow this situation to be as it is,” and find out how life unfolds.

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spirituality

“Worry never helps anyone” – Swami Satchidananda

 

 

For the final day of the “1 new thing a day challenge,” I went to the Chicago Air and Water Show for the first time. This picture is courtesy of a fleet of skywriters.

For the final day of the “1 new thing a day challenge,” I went to the Chicago Air and Water Show for the first time. This picture is courtesy of a fleet of skywriters.

Human minds always have a “fall back.” The mind’s “fall back” is a pattern that it is used to, that has become habitual. For example, I would say that my mind’s “fall back” is worry. When something happens, whether it is an undesirable situation or an experience that cannot be understood, my mind will fall back into the worry pattern. It comes up with scenarios of increasingly disturbing outcomes.

Tonight my apartment buzzer rang and it was the UPS man. But when I got downstairs there was no package and no UPS man to be seen. Who had I buzzed into my apartment building? I did not have the answer to that question so my mind decided to fall back into its comfortable worry pattern. What is your mind’s “fall back?”

I took a nap, and realized I was still worried after I woke up. I then decided to ask the universe a question. Asking questions to God, the universe, the “field of potentiality” (as Pam Grout calls it), or whatever word you use, is a readily accessible life tool. I needed to know everything was okay. I asked, “Please give me a clear sign tonight, before I fall asleep, that everything is okay.” I proceeded to peruse ridiculously expensive couches on the internet, but still had my request in the background of my attention. A few hours later I checked my email per my usual routine. Right at the top of the list read the subject line, “Don’t Worry.” Inside was this message:

We worry over all kinds of things. If you can’t get the right nail polish color, you worry. Everything causes worry. You don’t have to have a crash in the stock market or some other financial crisis to make you miserable. Just one little pimple is enough to cause you to go into a tailspin—as if nobody has ever had it or it’s going to be there permanently. There seems to be so much stress in modern life: ‘I have to do this. I have to do that.’ Yes, you may have responsibilities, but the first and foremost responsibility is to take care of you. If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you take care of others? So, have faith and confidence: ‘I’m going to change the situation. I have the strength to face and overcome anything.’ Worry never helps anyone.

God bless you. Om Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. (Swami Satchidananda)

The email was from the Satchidananda Ashram which sends out “Weekly Words of Wisdom.” This one arrived right on time. The feelings of worry were transmuted into peace; the sign I received was sufficient to break my rapt attention on a mind in the midst of a worry cycle.

What is your “fall back?” Next time you notice the mind reverting to its habitual thinking patterns try asking a question. You can even just ask for help. While no one knows how the questions will be answered, it will be interesting to watch and find out.

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spirituality

The Human ATM

White Glove DanceAs I arrived at my place of work this morning I found the street full of huge trucks. It turned out a TV show was being filmed in the neighborhood. As I was walking home I ended up talking to a production assistant, who let me in on some of the woes of filming in residential neighborhoods. In his experience of filming in such locations he has found that people are always complaining, always angry, and always looking to get something for themselves. People want to park their cars outside their houses as usual and complain since they can’t, while at the same time they ask to watch and be a part of the show themselves. One of the most interesting insights from him, was that people always go up to the actors and want pictures, but never actually ask them any questions. All of this got me thinking about the nature of fame, image, and perception.

Why does being famous seem so fulfilling? Why does getting a ton of “likes” on a Facebook post seem important? Personally, I have had that desire for fame, for “likes” on Facebook, and admittedly, I check my blog stats all the time. When I first realized that there was a “stats” section on the blog I thought, “I shouldn’t make a habit of looking at this. After all, how many people read it has nothing to do with what I’m trying to accomplish.” What a noble thought! But to no avail. I still check the stats, and I still get that leap within when people “like” and comment on my Facebook posts. So as I speak to why these things seem so important, it is without judgment, but rather introspection.

When you’re around someone who you think has more than you, the mind will take one of two routes. It will downplay the success of the other person, and come up with reasons why they’re not so great anyway. Or it will go to the opposite end of the spectrum and feel bad about itself, coming up with a barrage of reasons why you, the thinker, are not good enough and should be better (but can’t). That approach to famous people is what I like to call “anything you can do, I can do better.” If the mind can’t come up with reasons why it is better than the other person, it will still manage to gain a sense of superiority by explaining why it is worse than the other person. Good or bad, the mind doesn’t care, as long as it can attach itself to a story.

The other approach to someone who you think has more than you, is to try to get something from them. I call this, “the human ATM.” This is when you see someone for what they can do for you. When it comes to being around famous people, “the human ATM” approach says that being around them will make you more than you currently are.

What these approaches have in common is that the ego, the mind when it identifies with things, is interacting with other perceived egos. There is no real human interaction here. It is merely ideas interacting with other ideas. The mind has an idea about who the other person is, and engages with that idea, rather than the actual person. So when a person really wants to take a picture with a famous person, but has nothing to say to them or any curiosity about them, it is really their mind attempting to attach itself to an object it sees as valuable. Or to post it on Facebook and receive “likes,” therefore making them more than they were before.  When a person is well known, it is easy to see only your own ideas about them, and not the actual human being.

On the flip side of this insanity, I had an amusing thought as I was walking home. Since everything around us is completely unified and whole, when we praise famous people it is like the universe praising itself! When I build up others, I know I am really just building up myself. This principle, however, is alien to the ego.  Having an intention when interacting with other people can help you to see them as they really are, and quell the ever avid ego. For example, as I was talking to the production assistant my ego would have loved to implement the “human ATM.” And I was one of the people getting their picture taken with the actors. But when I’m talking to people, especially if they’re telling me about things that are bothersome to them, it is my intention to spread consciousness, and leave them feeling great about themselves. I stay present by listening without talking in my head at the same time, and I offer helpful, loving remarks whenever appropriate. Asking questions and listening, without internal dialog, is a good indicator that you are having a human interaction and not an ego interaction. By no means am I always aligned with my intentions when interacting with others, but I attempt to remind myself of them when my ego starts to rear its ugly head. Experiencing other human beings without the mental screen of who you think they are, opens you up to a world the ego cannot conceive of. People are very different than the mind’s ideas about them. Next time your ego tries to take over an interaction, laugh at it, and then find out what happens when you see things as they really are!

“1 new thing a day challenge” update: Today, for day 6, I ate fried shrimp for the first time! For those who know me, you will appreciate the magnitude of this endeavor. I never eat anything that comes from the water, not fish, shrimp, lobster, literally nothing. This challenge has gotten me taking risks, and I am quite pleased I did! Not that I liked the shrimp, but I can finally say I’ve tried seafood. Now I don’t have to eat anything like that again (until the next challenge…). Yesterday,for day 5, I attempted a few new things. I am moving soon so I switched my address with the post office and other venues, and tried to set up the cooking gas service at my new place. I haven’t moved for five years, and didn’t have to do these things last time, so it made me feel quite the responsible person. What are your plans for the last day of the challenge?

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consciousness

The Stranger Who Killed My Ego

Happy Sign

One night a few summers back I went to the gym, and feeling quite proud of myself decided to walk home to keep the momentum going.  As I was briskly walking along, with my rainbow New Balances and a big grin on my face, a young artist who could’ve been my age asked me to look at his photographs.  I admired them, complimented his artistic eye, and was about to continue on my way home.  But before I could, he started asking me if I was going to buy them.  I told him I had no money on me but that I wished him good luck with his work.

Instead of the usual disappointed face and goodbye, I received a totally unexpected barrage of questions.  Did I really have no money at all?  Couldn’t I go to the ATM? Don’t I just live off my parents’ money anyway?  I admitted I was blessed and did in fact have some money to my name, but that I too was an artist, working part time.  He wouldn’t stop asking questions.  I could have made the choice to walk away.  In my mind it was important to just watch him and see him as a human being.  But when someone is completely taken over by the voice in their head, as he clearly was, the most helpful thing can be to choose a new situation, and exit.

Saying things like “I am blessed” and telling him how, as a poet, I understand how difficult it is to make money, set me up for a barrage of attacks on my religion, and my art.  “Oh yeah right, we’re all poets aren’t we?” he sarcastically remarked.  Along with, “If you really were religious you would go and get money right now but you’re not, so I guess you aren’t really what you say you are.”  On and on he went.  And I just stood there in awe, listening.

Eventually I gave it up as a bad job and walked away, tears streaming down my face.  He had attacked every identification I held dear.  He tore down all of the things I associated with to give me an identity.  He acted as if he could not see me at all, as if I were not a real person standing in front of him.  He may have appeared like many of my acquaintances from art school, with his hipster clothing and shaggy hair, but he didn’t seem to relate to me on any level.

I was in shambles the rest of my walk home; you would have thought something truly terrible had happened.  But I knew in the deep recesses of my consciousness that something terrible had not happened to me, it happened to my ego.  The part of me that attached itself to things and ideas had been belittled.  The voice in my head that demanded others take it seriously, and believe in what is says, had been attacked with no chance of retribution.  Not my true self, but the mind which seeks outside things to feel secure and to attain an identity, that ego self, had been greatly diminished.  He had claimed to know me better than myself.  He took everything I thought I was, and laughed at it, claimed it was all one big hoax.

Now I can say, thank God for this stranger.  Everything he said, all of the parts of me he attacked, were much too specific to be meaningless.  The universe is a beautiful being, who used this man, a person completely taken over by his ego, to show me the vestiges of my own ego.  The universe teaches lessons through joy, but it can also use negative people and situations for your good.

Since I couldn’t defend myself after parting ways with this stranger, my ego could not repair itself.  It couldn’t build itself back up, dig its heals in, and explain why it was what it said it was.  Whenever the ego is diminished without being repaired, space is created for your true self to emerge, that which is beyond thoughts and emotions.  Instead of defending my beliefs about who I was, I allowed myself to let go of what others thought of me, along with letting go of what I thought about of myself.  No thoughts, no labels, are who I am.  Nothing I can ever think about myself will ever come close to the reality of my being.  That stranger was a small flame of refining fire, burning up the egoic mind-made self, leaving room for my eternal being to live more fully through me.  It did not feel good.  I was amazed by how truly terrible it felt.  But through acceptance, the pain dissolved, along with the resilient attachments that are the ego, and I was still there.  Completely whole, undiminished, and open to life as it really was.  We don’t need others to define who we are.  We don’t need ourselves to define who we are.  Beyond definitions, we just are.

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consciousness, spirituality, Uncategorized

Wondrous Perception

When I really pay attention I can hear my mind labeling the things and situations it perceives.  It says things like, “Wow, the moon is so bright tonight,” and, “The sky is very blue today!”  But attaching words to my perceptions doesn’t mean I actually have any idea what I’m seeing.  Perception becomes miraculous and new when you can see without mentally labeling everything.  When labels are gone, we can see things for the wonders they truly are.

This video is a beautiful example of the magic of perception:

Thanks to Pilobolus for this amazing work, and thanks to Marc and Angel Hack Life for introducing me to this video!

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consciousness, spirituality

The Bed Bug Incident Part 2

I never found out what had been causing those bites for so many months. But the situation developed when I learned a couple apartments in my building had bed bugs and were having exterminations. I freaked out. Freaking out is a good sign that you are totally taken in by a circumstance and cannot view it at the higher vantage point of the true self, the watcher which is unaffected by what “happens” and is always whole. I wasn’t being the watcher, I was being a body threatened by outside forces. I took many precautions after learning my neighbors had bed bugs, putting things in trash bags, keeping the lights on at night, spraying poison around my door. But to the universe all of those precautions were really just me saying, “I’m afraid of something, this bothers me, I’m totally attached and identified with this situation.” That was the truth of the matter. I hadn’t let go. I was clinging to circumstance.

I was living in fear of bugs. For you this experience might have manifested in another form in your own life. About a month after the bed bug incident I thought I was in the clear. Everything was going to be fine. And when the thought that everything will be fine occupies your mind, that can be saying that you don’t feel fine in this moment, the only moment you will ever actually be experiencing. That very week I woke up with bug bites. These were very different from the ones I had been having all year. There were multiple bites and they were on my upper body not my legs. I even had bites on my fingers. The only thing familiar about them was the terrible allergic reaction. But the itching was even worse. I called the exterminator to inspect, and sure enough I had bed bugs.

The morning I found out I fell to pieces. You would have thought a real tragedy had struck. I was distraught, beside myself. I felt completely contaminated, as if everywhere I went would become infected by bed bugs. I didn’t want to tell anyone, I didn’t want to hang out at other apartments. Mostly, I never wanted to return to my apartment ever again. I no longer cared about my stuff, I did not want any of it anymore. In my eyes, the place would be forever contaminated.

This is a great example of a strong reaction. My reaction was a clear message of the feelings, fears, and beliefs I had been holding onto ever since my first bad bite from October. It was now May, and there was no more fooling myself. I was completely attached to my outer circumstance, and when my outer circumstance did not fit with the picture I had in my head of what I needed to feel safe, comfortable, and at ease, I caused immense suffering for myself. Suffering is often created by the outer circumstance not matching up with your thought’s picture of how things “should” be. This cannot be reconciled by more thoughts. The only way to stop the self created suffering is to recognize the thoughts and how they operate. The thougths don’t really want problems to be solved, even though that is what they claim. They want to keep thinking, that is their whole life up there in your head. They just want to stay alive. So when the outer circumstance doesn’t match with the thoughts’ visions, your mind will take that opportunity and run with it. Literally run, you know how thoughts run on and on in your mind. It loves doing that. But you are the observer of your thoughts, you have the ultimate control once you recognize that they are not helpful and in no way actually improve the uncontrollable circumstance.

When you have thoughts like this that keep running and cause you great emotional suffering, become very alert. Say to yourself, “what is my next thought going to be?” and then watch your mind until one comes in (a great tool from Tolle’s The Power of Now). Don’t judge the thoughts, allow them, give them your fullest attention. In this way the light of your presence will shine through the illusion that your thoughts can help you with their insane ramblings. Another way to quiet down an insane thought pattern is to bring complete inner acceptance to your outer circumstance even though your thoughts don’t want you to. Allow a situation to be. It will be the end of the mind using you, and the beginning of you using the mind.

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