The following information is from: https://chopracentermeditation.com/resource/1-prepare_for_meditation Deepak Defines Meditation – Everyone thinks that the purpose of meditation is to handle stress, to tune out, to get away from it all. While that’s partially true, the real purpose of meditation is actually … Continue reading
You have set my soul on fire.
You have set my soul on fire. When I saw you again it all came back to me. The last several months have been something incredible. You set my soul on fire. I don’t know what else to say. I’m alive again because of you. I forgot how much it hurts. Thank you for reminding me why I ended it all in the first place. Lesson Learned. Namaste
Normalcy. What is that exactly? For me it is being in close contact with my grown children, my momma, & my sister. It is getting up in the morning with a plan, albeit a flexible one, but a plan nonetheless.
I haven’t been blogging much this past year. I just haven’t been interested & that is NOT normal for me! I have lots to say, lots to share, & I love doing that.
Today in meditation I focused on Trust and Acceptance. The trust thingy has been a huge roadblock for me since I was a young child. I am getting better & better at trusting my intuition; better at heeding that still small voice of God. Acceptance? I am fairly accepting in most areas of my life. Why fight? I have found it to be fruitless to fight the flow of life and so I flow in acceptance of it. I am training myself to live more & more in the NOW of life instead of in my dreams & wishes.
Trust & Acceptance meditation (Deepak Chopra)
Let Go and Trust
Today I will trust the unknown. The known is a prison of the past.
Today I will relinquish the known.
Today I will step into the unknown and in every moment I will lay my trust in the field infinite of possibilities.
By trusting the unknown I will find creativity, imagination, inspiration, intuition, insight, and conscious choice making.
Today I will step into the unknown.
Today I will relinquish the known. I will realize that the known is a prison of my past conditioning. By stepping into the unknown in every moment, I will enter the field of infinite possibilities.
Today I will trust the unknown and enter the field of infinite possibilities.
When I got on facebook today I saw a post from a woman I follow….Maggie Perkins (http://frommaggiesfarm.blogspot.com/2014/01/change-is-in-air-new-directions-from.html?spref=fb). She posted a quote by Gilda Radner (Roseanne Roseannadanna….lol)
My Values
I recently re-looked at one of the many values/personality/skills tests I often take. It seems I am on a continuous quest to understand who I am. However, I am finding that it is not I whom I want to understand. I want to be UNDERSTOOD! And I want to understand others.
Not long ago I went through a romantic relationship break-up. I am the one who broke it off and yet it seems I am the one having trouble letting it go. I don’t like that part of me. I know why I ended it. I wasn’t happy. I felt taken for granted. I had to beg for sex, for crying out loud!!! We had a quasi-polyamorous relationship. I say quasi because he is in a committed relationship with someone and I have other lovers and he knows about them and they know about him. I am a huge proponent of No Secrets! She, however, pretends I do not exist most of the time. Of course there are the times when our relationship is put before her. She goes through his phone and sees that we still talk. Then there is the ensuing flurry of hate-filled phone calls and texts from her until he persuades her to stop. Then it’s back to business as usual. This has been going on for almost 2 ½ years and became excruciatingly tiresome.
He lies. He lies to both of us about a myriad of things. His last foray into the Liar Kingdom was simply the straw that broke the camels’ back for me. And so, I ended it and I didn’t do it gracefully. I stumbled like a clumsy oaf through it all; the proverbial bull in a china shop. How appropriate since I am a Taurus after all. It was acrimonious and so ugly! I am embarrassed by the way I handled the whole thing. I wish I could take it back and behave how I really feel in my heart and not allow my ego to have full reign. Alas, I cannot so I dissect the crap out of what I did and didn’t do and try, ever so valiantly, to NOT beat myself up.
As I dissect, I try to understand my motives. That is what has led me to read the book I am reading by Don Miguel Ruiz, “The Mastery of Love, A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship”. Perhaps you have read one of his previous works, The Four Agreements, an excellent missive of Toltec wisdom. I often refer to it, especially when troubled by a personal event, such as this current break-up. The first agreement, Be Impeccable with Your Word, has been coming up quite often recently; not only with my lover, but with my former roommate & his brother. Apparently it is something I need refreshed in my own life and that is why it continues to come up. The simple way of saying this is, “Do What You Say You Are Going to Do”. An online personality, Danielle LaPorte, has also been putting this out there. My father taught me this principle as a young child and he reiterated it quite often through my life. He was a person whose “word” you could take to the bank, as the saying goes. My father taught me to detest lying and the lying liars who tell them. The thing is we all lie at some point for a host of reasons; most of which are just to save face so we won’t be embarrassed. Be Impeccable With Your Word.
Was I not in my past relationship? Am I not in life? The Word. Very powerful stuff, that. The Bible tells us that God created all of creation with just that…His Word. In the New Testament Jesus is spoken of as The Word…In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and The Word is God. (paraphrased from John 1:1) Yes indeed, our words create the world in which we live. Many people will say it is the Vibration of our thoughts that create the world we live in, but I believe our words are just as powerful as our thoughts, our feelings, & our vibrations. People have no clue what we are thinking until we speak. They can guess, they can surmise, & they can assume, but until you actually speak, we’re all fumbling in the dark.
I am thinking I was totally impeccable with my word with my lover. I tried to be on most occasions, however, I sometimes held back. I didn’t fully speak my mind out of fear I wouldn’t be understood. Did he ever really know what I was talking about? He once told me that conversation with me was almost as good as the sex we shared…almost. I wonder if he truly knew how much that affected my feelings for him and how it strengthened our relationship and actually kept it going longer than it should have.
Oh how I miss him, but because I love myself more than I wanted the relationship I left it. I left it because I felt that to continue sent signals to him that it was alright for him to keep lying to ‘her; alright to make promises and constantly break them…no call, no show, no explanation. I was supposed to accept that??? Why? Why would any self-respecting person put up with such contempt or value of their time? The thing is, no SELF respecting person would. I put very little expectation into this relationship because he lied to me from the very beginning of it. Because I had just ended a very abusive relationship and need validating I put up with it. I traded sex for companionship. I traded sex for conversation. I did as many women do, I traded sex for validation.
It is said the lesson will keep coming to you until you learn it. I broke it off with this lover many times before. What makes today different? I REMEMBERED the lesson I had learned at the end of my marriage. I do not need anyone to validate me. I am worthy of love. I am worthy of truth. I am awesome & I know it. I am Strong. I am Powerful. I am Beautiful. All I NEED in this world is to remember that I am wonderfully made and my Creators love me more than I could ever ask or imagine. Now I say yes. Yes to me and yes to life.
Just last week my current roommates’ lover tried to set me up. He felt bad that I am alone. He equates being alone with lonely. I told him that I am not lonely and that I actually enjoy my own company. I am using this time to heal the wounds; to learn more about myself AND others. I am using this time to re-connect to the things that bring me joy. I am using this time to discover all the barriers within myself that keep me from having the love I deserve and the life I want to live. I feel good. Do I miss my lover? Hell yes! We had awesome sex and conversation. But in the end it was all built on lies. The lies he told and the lies I told myself. Never compromise your values. In the end you will be so unhappy with that decision. Be Impeccable With Your WORD.
Non-judging—taking the stance of the impartial witness to your own experience.
Patience—employing the wisdom that things must unfold in their own time.
Beginner’s mind—Cultivating a mind that is willing to see everything as if for the first
time.
Trust— Developing a basic trust in one’s own self, intuition, and feelings.
Non-striving—Allowing anything and everything we experience to be here, because it
already is.
Acceptance—Seeing things as they actually are in the present.
Letting Go—Letting be, allowing things to be, accepting things as they are.
Full Catastrophe Living
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D
This Tantra vision is one of the greatest visions ever dreamed by man: a religion without the priest, a religion without the temple, a religion without the organization; a religion which does not destroy the individual but respects individuality tremendously, a religion which trusts in the ordinary man and woman. And this trust goes very deep. Tantra trusts in your body; no other religion trusts in your body. And when religions don’t trust in your body, they create a split between you and your body. They make you senses of your bodies, they start destroying the wisdom of the body.
“Tantra trusts in your body. Tantra trusts in your senses. Tantra trusts in your energy. Tantra trusts in you – in toto. Tantra does not deny anything but transforms everything.
“How to attain to this Tantra vision? This is the map to turn you on, and to turn you in, and to turn you beyond.
Life Lessons and quotes from ‘Peaceful Warrior’I watched the movie ‘Peaceful Warrior’ a third time last night and wrote down all the life lessons and quotes I noticed. I am sure I missed a few and they might mean something else to you than to me. The main reason why I love sharing these, it is to keep myself on track and learn to master them myself.
Life Lessons and quotes from Peaceful Warrior:
I…
have wonderful people skills
am sensual and sexual
enjoy harmony and balance
have very high standards
can be difficult to please
like to do everything myself
easily tell people what they are doing wrong
am a natural teacher planner and organizer
am always caring and helpful – sometimes to my detriment
am an adrenalin junky of note
like things to happen fast
enjoy travel
can be quite critical and sharp-tongued
am a natural leader
point cup and mug handles in same direction
and clothes hangers
may even color-code my undies
will be relieved to hear that this is not OCD
I have an interesting balancing act to perform . . .
– on the one hand I am the outgoing extrovert sexpot
– on the other hand I am the introverted wallflower
I have a very private side and do not easily share my innermost thoughts and feelings; relationships can be a challenge; body issues may present
My greatest challenge in life is letting go . . . on all levels
2012 is a year of inner learning and can be quiet socially
In order to solve the problem of sex, we will have to approach it, not on any one level of thought, but from every direction, from every side – the educational, religious, and moral.
Why has sex become a problem? Obviously, the more intellectual you are, the more sexual you are. Have you not noticed that? And the more there is of emotion, of kindliness, of affection, the less there is of sex. Because our whole social, moral, and educational culture is based on the cultivation of the intellect, sex has become a problem full of confusion and conflict. So, the solution of the problem of sex lies in understanding the cultivation of the intellect.
I am afraid it is only the empty people who know sex because sex then is an escape, a mere release. I call him empty who has no love, and for him sex becomes a problem, an issue, a thing to be avoided or to be indulged. The heart is empty when the mind is full of its own ideas, fabrications and mechanization. Because the mind is full, the heart is empty, and it is only the empty heart that knows sex.
A mind that is not alert, vital, a heart that is not affectionate, full, how can it be creative? And not being creative, you seek stimulation through sex, through amusement, cinemas, theaters, through watching others play while you remain a spectator; others paint the scene or dance, and you yourself are but an observer.
This problem of sex will exist as long as there is no creative release. There can be no creative release, religiously, if you accept authority, whether of tradition, the sacred books, or the priest; for authority compels, distorts, perverts. Where there is authority there is compulsion, and you accept authority because you hope through religion to have security; and while the mind is seeking security, intellectually or religiously, there can be no creative understanding, there can be no creative release.
In every field, in every activity, you are indulging and emphasizing yourself, your importance, your prestige, your security. Therefore, there is only one source of self-forgetfulness, which is sex, and that is why the woman or the man becomes all-important to you and why you must possess. So, you build a society which enforces that possession, guarantees you that possession, and naturally sex becomes the all-important problem when everywhere else the self is the important thing
Why has sex become so important a problem in your life? Is not the sexual act, the feeling, a way of self-forgetfulness? Do you understand what I mean? In that act there is complete fusion; at that moment there is complete cessation of all conflict; you feel supremely happy because you no longer feel the need as a separate entity, and you are not consumed with fear. That is, for a moment there is an ending of self-consciousness, and you feel the clarity of self-forgetfulness, the joy of self-abnegation. So, sex has become important because in every other direction you are living a life of conflict, of self-aggrandizement, and frustration.
There is chastity only when there is love. When there is love, the problem of sex ceases; and without love, to pursue the ideal of bramacharya is an absurdity because the ideal is unreal. The real is that which you are, and if you don’t understand your own mind, the workings of your own mind, you will not understand sex because sex is a thing of the mind.
We are not happy people, we are not vital, joyous; at home, in business, at church, at school, we never experience a creative state of being, there is no deep release in our daily thought and action. Caught and held from all sides, naturally sex becomes our only outlet, an experience to be sought again and again because it momentarily offers that state of happiness which comes when there is absence of self. It is not sex that constitutes a problem, but the desire to recapture the state of happiness, to gain and maintain pleasure, whether sexual or any other.
It is only when we understand the pursuit of sensation, which is one of the major activities of the mind, that pleasure, excitement and violence cease to be a dominant feature in our lives. It is because we do not love, that sex, the pursuit of sensation, has become a consuming problem. When there is love, there is chastity; but he who tries to be chaste, is not. Virtue comes with freedom, it comes when there is an understanding of what is.
When there is love, sex is never a problem – it is the lack of love that creates the problem.
To most people, sex has become an extraordinarily important problem. Being uncreative, afraid, enclosed, cut off in all other 
directions, sex is the only thing through which most people can find a release, the one act in which the self is momentarily absent. In that brief state of abnegation when the self, the ‘me’, with all its troubles, confusions, and worries, is absent, there is great happiness. Through self-forgetfulness there is a sense of quietness, a release, and because we are uncreative religiously, economically, and in every other direction, sex becomes an overwhelmingly important problem.
As long as the mind, which is the result, the focal point of sensation, regards sex as a means of its release, sex must be a problem, and that problem will continue as long as we are incapable of being creative comprehensively, totally, and not merely in one particular direction. Creativeness has nothing to do with sensation. Sex is of the mind, and creation is not of the mind. Creation is never a product of the mind, a product of thought, and in that sense, sex, which is sensation, can never be creative. It may produce babies, but that is obviously not creativeness. As long as we depend for release on sensation, on stimulation in any form, there must be frustration, because the mind becomes incapable of realizing what creativeness is.
When there is no love in your heart, you have only one thing left, which is pleasure; and that pleasure is sex, and therefore it becomes a mountainous problem. To resolve it, you have to understand it. When you understand it, you begin to face the mind – don’t be afraid, you are human beings, not driven cattle. Then, out of that freedom, comes a beauty in everything, and nothing becomes a problem.
Wisdom ~ Beaver
The building of a community is entirely dependent on gifts given to each member by the creator and how these gifts are used. The Beaver’s example of using his sharp teeth for cutting trees and branches to build his dams and lodges expresses this teaching. If he did not use his teeth, the teeth would continue to grow until they became useless, ultimately making it impossible for him to sustain himself. The same can be said for human beings. One’s spirit will grow weak if it is not fulfilling its use. When used properly however, these gifts contribute to the development of a peaceful and healthy community.
Love ~ Eagle
To feel true love is to know the Creator. Therefore, it is expected that one’s first love is to be the Great Spirit. He is considered the father of all children, and the giver of human life. Love given to the Great Spirit is expressed through love of oneself, and it is understood that if one cannot love oneself, it is impossible to love anyone else.
The Eagle was chosen by the Great Spirit to represent this law, as the Eagle can reach the highest out of all the creatures in bringing pure vision to the seeker. Though the purveyor of the greatest and most powerful medicine, love can also be the most elusive of the teachings, as it depends upon a world that acknowledges the importance of spirituality.
Respect ~ Buffalo
The Buffalo, through giving it’s life and sharing every part of it’s being, showed the deep respect it had for the people. No animal was more important to the existence of Indigenous families than this animal, and it’s gift provided shelter, clothing and utensils for daily living. Native people believed themselves to be true caretakers of the great herds, and developed a sustainable relationship with the Buffalo resulting in a relationship that was a true expression of respect.
Courage/Bravery ~ Bear
The Bear provides many lessons in the way it lives, but courage is the most important teaching it offers. Though gentle by nature, the ferociousness of a mother Bear when one of her cubs is approached is the true definition of courage. To have the mental and moral strength to overcome fears that prevent us from living our true spirit as human beings is a great challenge that must be met with the same vigor and intensity as a mother Bear protecting her cub. Living of the heart and living of the spirit is difficult, but the Bear’s example shows us how to face any danger to achieve these goals.
Honesty ~ Sasquatch
Humility ~ Wolf
Recognizing and acknowledging that there is a higher power than man and it is known as the Creator is to be deemed truly humble. To express deference or submission to the Creator through the acceptance that all beings are equal is to capture the spirit of humility. The expression of this humility is manifested through the consideration of others before ourselves. In this way, the Wolf became the teacher of this lesson. He bows his head in the presence of others out of deference, and once hunted, will not take of the food until it can be shared with the pack. His lack of arrogance and respect for his community is a hard lesson, but integral in the Aboriginal way.
Truth ~ Turtle
To know truth is to know and understand all of the original laws as given by the Creator- and to remain faithful to them. It is said that in the beginning, when the Creator made man and gave him the seven sacred laws, the Grandmother Turtle was present to ensure that the laws would never be lost or forgotten. On the back of a Turtle are the 13 moon, each representing the truth of one cycle of the Earth’s rotations around the sun. The 28 markings on her back represent the cycle of the moon an of a woman’s body. The shell of the Turtle represents the body real events as created by the Higher Power, and serves as a reminder of the Creator’s will and teachings.
Exploration of the Sacred & Conscious; including Sexuality 