When I was old enough to realize that my family of origin was slightly more damaged than was functional I made a vow to myself. I swore that I would be the last person in our genetic line to deal with life the way my parents and the generations before them had. And I have spent the better part of the last 15 years (the vow came well before my ability to do anything about it) pursuing ways to heal.

At first, it was a lot of sit down and talk therapy. It was validating and for the longest time that may have been the only thing to which I could respond. But gradually, I got bored. This in itself was huge because I am one of those people who can spin a story in three seconds flat and I knew that to get bored with story meant that I was ready for the next level.

For the longest time, I thought that dealing with issues meant just that, dealing with the issue. Talking it over, thinking it out, wearing it (and myself) down like a stone in a current. I thought it took effort and pain and often reliving emotions. And while all of this can be cathartic, for me, it never really seemed to help me go beyond that issue. I would deal with my anger over something and then the next day or week I would be dealing with that same anger over that same issue.

So when Melanie told me that Spiritual Technology and PEAT work were nothing like that, I was skeptical and intrigued. Could I really be done with an issue in a session of this work and not be triggered by it again? As if I had packed it in a suitcase and left it by the side of my road?

My answer is yes. When I left her office after my first PEAT session, I noticed right away that colors seemed brighter and lines sharper. It seemed as though a film had been lifted away from my eyes. So I tested it.

The issue Melanie had been helping me integrate was one of letting go of an old relationship. It was an issue that still held a lot of my energy and I wanted to finally be done with it. So I thought of him. And I thought of him when we were happy and when we hated each other. And it was like watching a movie.
The good, the bad, and the in-between all simply were. I didn’t feel angry or bitter where I had before over certain memories; nor did I feel that sadness that came with feeling as though I had lost the good stuff.

It was not a process of years of talking and dealing. It was a thirty minute session where I closed my eyes and breathed. Melanie led me through a series of questions and answers until we reached the intention I had placed at the beginning: peace.

thanks to Ed Bolden for the photo

Have you ever noticed that when you are trying to make a decision and if you try to make that decision based solely on what you think someone else thinks you kind of throw yourself off?  That’s not to say that considering other points of view is a bad thing.  In fact, I think it would serve us all to be able to slide into another point of view, and allow other points of view to impact us.  Nonetheless, each of us has a point of view.

Reflecting on “what is my point of view?” can open up a world of creativity and confidence.  Instead, many of us get stuck in a bit of mechanical or habitual thinking when it comes to point of view.  We get stuck in unconscious impressions about what our point of view should be or even aligning with what it used to be, rather than opening to the current moment by moment experience of the preciousness of who we are now.

Lately I’ve been noticing how some of my artist clients get thrown off course when they lose their point of view.  When an artist loses his or her point of view, something magical about their art is lost.  In that case, we all lose.  For artists help us all see things from a different perspective and in that seeing, there’s an expansion of Awareness.

Not just artists, but each of us has a unique point of view.  Moreover, if we consider each being to be a manifestation of Divine Consciousness, our unique point of view a precious perspective.  When we deny or compare points of view, from my perspective, we are denying some bit of Spirit peeking out through our eyes.  When we compare our points of view with judgment— one is bad, the other is good, we are only becoming more entrenched in the illusory world of duality and missing out on glimpsing something more Divine.

Imagine the possibilities of fully standing in your point of view while respecting another person’s point of view though it might be different than yours.  What if, instead of having to convince someone else that our point of view was the right one, we approached different points of view as yet another mysterious way that Consciousness reveals itself – no right, no wrong, just a different perspective?  How might that change our relationships with ourselves and each other?

I have a cracked flower pot on my front porch.  It’s far from perfect.  Yet, there is some beauty in its imperfection that fills my heart.  It reminds me of the sweet container that is my body.  Less than perfect.

My body at 52 can no longer do all the cool stuff it could do without effort in my twenties, thirties and even forties.  Yet, still it carries me around everyday.  It is a container for my life that sometimes feels like a cracked pot.  It carries old injuries and is the container for current pleasures.  Everyday, without fail, it carries me.

I have mourned the loss of former capacities.  I’ve rid myself of the old expectations of what this body can do, much like pulling old flowers that have long past offered their last blossom.  The last year or so I’ve embraced new ways of being with my body that honor where I am now, rather than where I was.  I’m learning to plant new flowers and pleasures into the container of my life.

Looking at this flowerpot reminds me to love and live where I am rather than where I was and where I might be later.  How do you remember to live where you are?  With what blossoms are you filling the container of your life as it is now?

Thich Nhat Hanh a contemporary Buddhist monk, writes with great elegance of the joy to be found in bringing our awareness to the present moment.  He encourages us to be so completely immersed in the task at hand that it becomes to us the most important thing in our life.

In The Miracle of Mindfulness, he writes, “While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.”

When I look into the lives of spiritually awake people across spiritual traditions, there seems to be a common thread.  Each lived or lives deliberately with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each moment, each circumstance, each person.

Each of us can let each moment become a moment of deliberate, conscious living.  Each of us can learn, with practice, patience, and perseverance, to greet the Presence of God, of Consciousness, of Spirit, of Shakti and welcome that formless Presence regardless of the form.  Each of us can let each moment’s experience become a way of seeking out God’s Presence and increasing our love for that Presence.

Living in such a way, we become the artists of our own life.  We can sculpt, paint, and dance our way through each day.  We need only to pick up and use the tools at our disposal and one of these tools is the practice of the present moment.

Of course, we cannot shape each circumstances of our lives, though there is debate about that.  We can, however, completely shape our response to Life circumstances and embrace the Presence in each unfolding moment.  With Grace, we step aside from the thoughts that lead us to believe Grace is somewhere other than the present.

This may seem obvious, ridiculous or perhaps overwhelming.  Yet, in practice it becomes sublime and poetic.  It may be that searching out the sacred in each day, looking for holiness in a single moment over the course of a single day feels more attainable than the seemingly monumental task of recognizing the sacredness of each and every moment.

However you approach such a practice, the practice is one of slowing down for the moment, by doing one thing at a time.  A neighbor of mine once summed this up for me with beautiful simplicity, “when walking, walk.”

The integration of centering practices is a meaningful way of enriching your experience of the Presence in the present.  If you are interested in deepening your experience of centering practice, consider investing in my new 21 day audio program - Reclaim Your Life and Learn to Live in Balance.

Photo courtesy of a friend

I really appreciate a beautiful garden.  I love checking out books on gardening from the library and reading them on my couch, while my yard goes neglected.  As an army brat, I never learned and really don’t know the first thing about where you even start when you want to create beauty in the yard.

That’s all changing.  In fact, I now understand that it’s not about creating beauty, it’s about revealing the beauty that’s already there.  I owe this new found wisdom to, Shar, my gardening mentor/tutor/teacher.

I’ve long wanted to play with someone outside, someone who could teach me, but wasn’t really uptight about how things should be.  How do you find someone like that?  How does a grown woman ask another grown up, “Wanna come over and play in my yard?”

That’s just what I did.  And, Shar said, “yes.”

One of the things I’ve learned from her so far is how easy it is to create little pockets of beauty by “eliminating the negative.”  For example, I live in the woods, lots of shade and lots of tree debris.  Recently, Shar and I were playing in the yard and she was delighted to find a stump that I’d thought was an unsightly mess.  After cleaning away the debris in the stump, we filled it with some dirt, added some moss from another part of the yard, a few rocks and VOILA!  A little pocket of beauty.

Where are there hidden pockets of beauty in your life?  What might you eliminate to add to the beauty of your life?  Perhaps there are old habits, ways of being or thinking that you could eliminate.  Perhaps there are virtues you could cultivate.  Or maybe a little pocket of beauty could be revealed by your cleaning and rearranging a shelf or a cabinet or your state of mind.

Post a comment and share your little pockets of insight and beauty on my blog.

Things don’t always unfold as I think they should.  Does that ever happen to you?  Come on, you can tell me.

Long ago, for Lent, I gave up having expectations, not that I’m Catholic or Episcopalian.  I just like the idea of Lent.  (Note to Self, write about Lent, during Lent!)  I found that I was not so successful at completely letting go of expectations, but it sure did make me more aware of the role expectations play in Life.

What brings this to mind is my recent trip to the mountains of North Carolina.  Let’s give a shout out to 75 degree weather!  Anyway, we were staying on the border of the Pisgah National Forest, where I fell in love, again, with trees.

What do trees have to do with expectations?

Expectations, if we hold them too tightly rob us of delight and peace in the unfolding moment.  Whereas, trees, ahhhhh, trees ~ their very existence demands that they be flexible.  The wind blows, they bend,  The snow falls, they bend.  They don’t seem to mind the wind and the snow.

In fact, the wind seems to empty them of their dead branches, revealing even more beauty.  So, they flow with the wind and let go of what is no longer alive.

I think we can learn from trees.

Where might you need to bend a little?

Where might flexibility open the door to delight or peace in the unfolding moment?

What expectation might you be holding on a little too tightly?

How might being a bit more flexible enrich the forest of your life?

Finally, what ideas or beliefs might you release like so many dead branches if you bent with what is, rather than with what you think should be?

I love love love ‘follow my nose days.’  I aim to have a ‘follow my nose days’ at least once a week.  These days were inspired by one of my long time favorite books, “The Secret River” by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

These are the days I wander through my life, following my nose.  It feels like finding and re-aligning with the Current of Life moving through me in the present moment—rather than setting out to accomplish a set of prescribed tasks.

Following your nose if the mindful practice of sensing the impulse of Life within, mindfully attending to whatever I’m doing until that impulse leads me elsewhere.  Being while doing.

Humans are a hidden stream whose source is hidden. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

On one recent ‘follow my nose days,’ I felt drawn to unload the dishes, mindfully.  This lead me to cleaning out underneath the sink, mindfully.  This lead me to deep cleaning my laundry room, mindfully.  On any other day, I might have called these activities ‘chores.’  On this day, these activities led me to a state of bliss.  I kid you not.

On other ‘follow my nose days,’ I’ve read, walked, played with the dogs, rolled around on the floor and stretched.  The trick is to do whatever you are doing with complete attention and when you feel drawn to do something else, do that, EVEN if the thing you started is not finished.  There are no rules, no shoulds.

In fact, following your nose frees you ‘should’ and teaches you to release the tension of ‘should’ in each moment.  These are the days I practice living as Brother Lawrence, as if there were no one but Thee and Me in the world.

The perfectly precious gift of following my nose is realigning myself with the Current of Life in me.  The bonus prize is the pure peace that comes from aligning with that Current.

If you can’t take a full day, take a morning or an afternoon.

If you can’t take a morning or an afternoon, take an hour.

If you can’t take an hour, take a half hour.

Follow your nose.  What happens?  What Wisdom flows to you when you are aligned with the Current of Life in you?  Can you sense the Source of your stream?  I’d love to hear your stories.

Personal Peace – YUMMMMMMM.  Sometimes it seems so very far away, yet the key is as close as your next breath.  When you realize that and take full ownership of your experience in life, you are in for a pretty sweet ride.

When I was in my twenties, I spent several summers as a guide on the Colorado River in southern Utah.  I’m still unpacking what I learned on the river and from the desert in those summers.  One perfectly obvious lesson came from packing and unpacking my boat.  I was responsible for my boat.  Of course, I could ask for help and it was there in a skinny minute.  But when it came time to get on the river, the oars were in MY hands.

It was up to me to make sure that the boat was balanced.  And we all know that a balanced boat makes for a smoother ride.  It was up to me to stay in the current and navigate the rapids.  How this translates today is that I can pack the boat of my life with all kinds of activities, people, and thoughts that take me out of the current of my life.  And, before I know it, I’m trying my darnedest to paddle my way out of some eddie or I’m rowing backwards through some rapid.

Or, I can get conscious about what I’m putting in the boat of my life — today.  I can make sure that my boat is balanced with the three essential keys to life balance and personal peace – centering practice, self reflection and body care.  I can anticipate any rapids that I might be approaching and make the necessary adjustments to navigate those life challenges with greater equipoise and greater peace.  This is made so much easier if I’m already rowing along with centering practice, self reflection and body care.

When I’m taking care of myself through regular centering practice, self reflection and body care – the boat of my life floats along life’s current with much greater ease.  If I neglect one of these, I’m sunk.    Though I’d really like to unpack this topic more completely, a blog post just doesn’t lend itself to this exploration.  That’s why I created the Reclaim Your Life 21 Day Challenge.  Stay tuned.  I’ll tell you more later.

In the meantime, what about you?  How’s the boat of your life packed today?  Are you making sure to pack your boat well?  What one thing can you do today that will help you feel more centered?

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but suffering in life is not going away.  I’m reminded of this for many reasons.  And, no the suffering in my life is not one of them.  Just turn on the news or talk with someone for whom you care.  Suffering in our very human lives is here to stay.  Still reading?

Here’s the good news, not all of life is suffering.  What this means in terms of being in life with more equipoise, with greater equanimity,  is that as you practice being in life with friendly detachment, the ups and downs of life’s storms – - – even the emotional storms have less power over you.

Rarely does an emotional storm just hit.  Imagine you are standing in your doorway looking out on a bright sunny day and then all of a sudden, I mean in an instant, you are swept out of your doorway into the broiling fury of a hurricane.

Storms don’t really work like that.  First you might notice a cool wind, then the clouds start to shift, then the sky gets dark, then it starts drizzling, then it starts raining.  Then the thunder and lightening, then maybe there’s hail and furious winds, by now, you should be taking cover, right?  Gradually, the storm dissipates.  The thunder and lightening rolls away, the rain lessons and then becomes a sprinkle and soon the sun is back out with it’s warmth and promise.

Emotionally, it’s much the same.  Notice the choice points every step of the way.  There are choice points where you can notice the thought (maybe it has something to do with attraction or aversion), you can right then practice being with the thought and the emotion while it’s a breeze before it becomes a wind.  As a physician friend said, you begin to activate Heisenberg’s Principle (I think that’s correct).  Watching changes what you are watching.  Wanna read that again?  Watching, changes what you are watching.  When you observe something, what you are observing changes.

I think of this as kind of naming the beast of whatever you are experiencing.  You name it.  Then just practice being with it — as the ocean is with it’s own waves.  It’s not upset that there’s a wave.  It’s just there.  It’s part of the ocean, but it’s not the whole ocean.  So it is with our own upsets.  So it is with the circumstances of our lives.

This is much much much easier to do if you have a formal meditation practice.  I know I tend to get on a soap box about this.  So I’ll not rant too long.  If you don’t meditate or engage in some centering practice.  Start.  You will be so happy you did.  I’ve got a couple of free recordings under free stuff to help you get started.  Soon, I’ll have more resources so stay tuned.

Then there’s all the times we just don’t want to do the work – there’s the play of aversion in having to work at being in our life with greater ease.  Again, EVERYONE on the planet has some thing in their life that they just don’t want to do.  We all get  tired of doing — there is aversion to one experience and attraction to another.  Be easy with yourself in these times.  Be a kind friend to yourself.

I don’t think that the attraction and aversion play is really the problem.  I think it’s our holding on to our attractions and aversions that create problems.  Just play with noticing the play of attraction and aversion in your life.  Notice how you are attracted to one experience and averse to another.  You needn’t try to change it.  It’s a natural part of human life.  And, these moments of being attracted to one experience and averse to another contribute to our feeling off — not quite centered.  Notice, and practice letting go.

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I’m facilitating a women’s retreat very soon in France.  (Wanna come?  We have ONE opening!).  Anyway, last night, I was looking for airfare and noticed my shoulders beginning to hunch up, there was a tightness setting in around my mouth and eyes.  Then there were the barest of responses to my loving and patient husband.  My aversion to the high airfare was starting to get the best of me.

Can you see how it’s not only the big aversions that throw us off.  It’s the little aversions and attractions as well.

After a while, after spending a little too long in this play between my frustration because of being caught up in the attraction to easy low fare and the aversion to high fares, I took a deep breath and closed my lap top.  With practice,  maybe next time, I’ll just watch the attraction and aversion like waves in the ocean of my experience and book a flight.

There is a beautiful story by Leo Tolstoy that further illustrates the sublime practice of the present moment, “The Emperor’s Three Questions.”  This story is replete with teachings about recognizing and serving the Divine in each other as well as practicing the present moment to experience the Presence.  In Tolstoy’s story, the emperor sent out the decree that he would richly reward the one who answered these questions to his satisfaction;

1.  When is the best time to do each thing?

2.  Who are the most important people to work with?

3.  What is the most important thing to do at all times?

Many, many people tried and failed to answer these seemingly simple questions.  The emperor set off in search of the answers himself.  He was told of a holy man who lived as a hermit and decided to find the hermit.  Surely, such a man would be able to answer the questions.

When he finally reached the holy man, the emperor found him stooped, working in his garden.  The hermit listened attentively to his questions, patted the emperor on the shoulder, and continued digging.  The emperor, although perplexed by the hermit’s indifference to him, offered to help the old man.  The hermit rested while the emperor dug.  Many hours passed this way.

After some time, a wounded man approached.  The emperor helped him, and dressed his wounds.  In the morning, the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for water, which the emperor promptly fetched from the stream.

To the surprise of the emperor, the wounded man asked for the emperor’s forgiveness.  The wounded man explained that he was a sworn enemy of the emperor who had killed his brother and seized his property.  He had set off to kill the emperor but was caught by the emperor’s attendants who wounded him.  After hearing the wounded man’s story, the emperor and the wounded man reconciled and the emperor ordered his attendants to return the man safely to his home.

The emperor approached the hermit, again asked his questions.  The hermit smiled telling the emperor that his questions had already been answered.

The most important time was the time spent digging in the garden.  For had the emperor not stopped and helped the old man by digging in the garden, he would have been attacked.

The most important person was the hermit and the most important pursuit was to help the hermit.  Later, the most important time was the time spent helping the wounded man.

The most important person was of course the wounded man.

And the most important pursuit was dressing his wounds, for had he not done that the emperor would never have had the chance to reconcile with the man.

The old holy man told the emperor, “Remember that there is only one important time and that is now.  The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.  The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future.  The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” (From Leo Tolstoy’s short story The Three Questions)

It seems that in order to discover the wisdom hidden in such a story (as well as the stories of our own lives) and drink the nectarean wisdom infused throughout such tales, we must slow down and contemplate the story.

The obvious message for being present and giving oneself fully to each unfolding moment offers an enticing entry into such contemplation.  Yet, simply glancing at the notion that the “pursuit of life” is solely to bring happiness to the person at our side can raise the hackles of most of us who have been immersed in the pop psychology literature of the last couple of decades.

When I first read the story I felt myself bristle at the notion of trying to make another happy, after all, we are each responsible for ourselves, and our state of mind.  However, upon considering how I would be with the person at my side if I knew her to be God, if he revealed himself to me as the essence of Divine Consciousness.  Might then my pursuit indeed be to bring the Lord happiness?  Only with a quiet mind have I glimpse the purity of such a pursuit.  Again, I’m reminded of the value of a daily meditation practice.

Each one of us is faced with the challenge to slow down the rushing activity of the mind and the body and taste the nectar of the moments that make up daily life.  For only in the present moment does Love, does the Greatest Mystery, reveal Itself.  Only in the present can we glimpse Grace sneaking in.

As I mentioned in a previous Sacred Threads post, I sometimes feel as though I am playing a great game of hide and seek with God.  If I let myself be still enough even in the midst of activity, I spot God and find mySelf at Home, in Heaven, in my heart.  Enough of these moments strung together are like perfect pearls joining to form an exquisitely simple yet beautifully elegant strand of jeweled moments that make up the garland of my life.