Do I Exist?

Somewhere I heard the reason that we have primary relationships is to prove that we exist.  I am not sure I would go so far as to say that is why we have those relationships, but, at least in my marriage, that was an important function.  He encouraged, celebrated, commiserated, and a lot of other things with me, all of which had the function of "proving my existence."

As a woman of a certain age who has been single for nearly 20 years, I have had moments, especially when I was both living and working alone, when I wondered if it were true.  Did I exist or was I just a figment of my imagination?  Of course, physicists would tell us from a physical perspective nothing really exists, but those in the spiritual world would say the only parts that matter are our souls and spirits.  Clearly, they exist, and yet, we can't prove it.

I've mentioned the set of eight affirmations that I am working on.  I repeat them on my way to work, like saying the rosary.  Over and over again, I repeat them. My first two are:

•  I am Love.
• The Truth is: we are all Love.

This morning as I was changing trains at rush hour and after having repeated the set several times, a question just popped into my mind in the middle of all those people:  is this what it means to not exist...in a good way? 

I was having a conversation earlier this week with a colleague who has a new painting in her office.  The painting is of an aspen grove.  I've been fascinated with aspen groves ever since learning that, although they may look like a lot of individual trees, in fact that are a single tree.  As the common root system spreads out, it sends up shoots that look like independent trees, but they are in fact a unified whole. 

I am beginning to "get" that this is how it is with Love.  Love is to humankind as the common root structure is to the grove of aspen.  Love gives us life.  Love provides us with sustenance.  Love connects all of us. Love makes us One. And, when we are connected to the Ultimate Love Source, we are safe and peaceful.  All we need to remember is that we are safe, and then we will have peace.

That is why I think I don't exist...and it is a good thing.  And, maybe that is what a primary relationship is about and how it proves that we exist: it gives us a reflection into our whole that we couldn't see otherwise.  When it works right, it is a daily reminder and reflection that we are Love...we are all Love.

Remembering to Pray

When I finish this blog at the end of most days and then head to bed, I find I often have an Aha! moment.  So it was last night, as the night before.  As I was writing my gratitude list--things that I have to be grateful for at the end of each day--there were two things for which I was most thankful.  First, I was grateful for having spoken truth to power.  Almost as I had that thought, I remembered early in the day I had prayed for courage to do so, and then I had promptly forgotten about the prayer.  I am sure it was why I finally said what I should have said a year ago.

As I reflected about this little miracle (or maybe not so little,) I "got" on a deeper level than before about prayers being answered.  I tend to pray gratitude and for guidance.  I rarely pray for help.  Now, I know that just by simply asking in the morning, and then "letting it go," made a huge difference to me. 

Why then have I rarely asked for help? It is a good question. Maybe it feels selfish to ask for something for me.  Perhaps, as the author of a book on courage, I think I should be able to muster my own courage without help.  The truth is that I don't think I am very good about asking for help in anything from anyone--human or divine. 

I could blame my reticence on events of my childhood that made me fiercely independent, since asking for help just doesn't seem very independent.  I might say that all those years of education trained me to take care of myself. Even that my generation of women thought they had to be superwomen to claim our place in the work world. However, I think more likely is that I am terrified that if I surrendered even a chink in my armor of independence that I might just not exist.

Many years ago I heard an essay which proposed that the four most powerful words in any language were, "I need your help."  At all of 5'1" tall, I often find myself looking for tall shoppers in the grocery store to reach items on top shelves that are far higher than my fingers can stretch.  Over the years when I've needed assistance, I find people are often genuinely happy to help. I asked a friend to pick me up after a recent surgery because the surgery center wouldn't let me leave on my own.  How silly!  My friend was happy to help and good enough to tuck me in before I drifted back to sleep. Asking for help out of anything except sheer necessity has mostly been absent in my life. Why? I have no idea.

Dear God, I do need your help: I need your help remembering to pray.  I need your help to just allow myself to collapse in the warmth of your love and to know that you will be there with me and for me.
Always!

Celebrating little successes

A pilot once explained to me what happens when I fly from one major city to another, say from New York to San Francisco.  Although the pictures in the airline magazines draw the route as a nice arc from one city to the other, the journey is really anything but a perfect arc.  Imagine a zigzag arc, like it was cut with pinking shears. While the aviator is going east to west, there are many north and south adjustments to keep the plane on course.

After yesterday's post, I headed to bed thinking about how hard I am on myself sometimes for not getting "it"--whatever it is--perfectly.  Sometimes I miss my target a little in one direction.  Then I adjust and miss it a little in the other.  All in all, I like to think that similar to the course of the airplane, I know where I want to go but doing so on an arc that looks a bit like it was cut with the pinking shears.

What I hope is most important is that I am attempting to live a conscious life.  I sincerely want to connect with others, heart to heart.  I yearn to have this planet be a more loving place.  Whether I go on autopilot for part of each day and miss opportunities to connect with others is less crucial than that I actually did so three times today.  Today, I celebrate the little successes and know that most of the time, I am headed in the direction of love.

The Sleeping State That Men Call Waking

I want to start this post with an apology.  On behalf of all the spiritual writers, myself included among them, who make it sound like evolving oneself is easy, I want to say "I'm sorry."  It isn't.  For those of us who work full-time, have household and family responsibilities, and hope just every now and then to do something that is fun, staying present can be exceedingly hard.  Without being awake, we cannot do any of the things that will evolve us spiritually, which may explain why so many writers across the centuries have indicated that being conscious is the most important thing to the spiritual journey.

When I had my business, I worked way more hours than I do now, but I was driving the car called my life.  If I wanted to take a little extra time to connect with a clerk in the store, I didn't have a boss waiting to say I was AWOL (absent without leave) because I was a few minutes late. If I wanted to take extra time to workout and de-stress during my lunch hour or even linger longer enjoying the sun, I knew my trade-off was working later, and I could make that trade. It was wrong of me to have written with a "just-do-it" tone.  I had just forgotten how hard it is to be present when life is framed by the expectations of others.

During the week, it feels like I step on a treadmill that goes faster and faster until I drop off exhausted at the end of the week...and I don't even have kids to pick up and drop off at school and a host of growth activities.  (My hat's off to those of you who have those things in your daily routine.)

I didn't totally go to sleep today because I remembered after two opportunities that I'd missed that I didn't make the heart connection for The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13.)  I celebrate that I didn't just snooze through the whole opportunity.   Even when I threw a couple dollars in a busker's case, I did so as I walked by rather than making a connection. However, I stopped at an art exhibit on the way home from work, and I did remember to make connection there. Yeah!!

The Hindu sacred text the Upanishads refers to "the sleeping state that men call waking."  When I first read it, a stunned knowing came over me.  "Yes! That is exactly what it is like," I thought.  I am walking around, and most people observing me would say I am awake.  I even believe myself to be awake. Yet as I autopilot through life, I really am asleep at the wheel of this car called my life.  I snooze through opportunities to connect.  I doze through appreciating the wonder around me. I forget to feel  gratitude for all the gifts with which I am blessed.  I miss the opportunity to show true appreciation to the busker singing a great rendition of "Hotel California."

In my effort to truly show up for my life, one time I put random reminders on my Outlook calendar  to remind me to wake up, but I became so accustomed to them that I began to sleep through them as well.

So, I am sorry for making this journey to consciousness seem easy.  I find solace that at least back as far as 2,600 years when the Upanishads were written, men and women have struggled to stay awake.  For that 2,600 years, people like you and me have shared "the sleeping state that men call waking," and they have periodically actually been awake.  For that, we can celebrate. 

And, each day we begin anew on the journey to the waking state that men call waking.  I like to think that suddenly one day, it will just happen--being awake, that is.  I will go through a whole day, totally attuned to what is going on around me.  Until then, I will be delighted at widening the margins on my autopilot life.  Ten percent one day, and maybe 25 the next.  Though I may backslide, as I clearly have done, holding the intention of moving to higher levels of consciousness feels to me like real progress.

What goes around comes around

In my blog on gratitude (9/24/13), I described keeping a daily record of gifts I received and those I'd given.  No matter how hard I tried to keep up with what I received, I just couldn't.  A funny thing has happened over the last few days since I have been playing The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13) again.
What has been occurring parallels what happens with the gratitude lists.  The more I try to connect with others, heart to heart, the more people do and say kind things to me. 

I have been pondering this and what it means.  I really think that what we put out does come back to us, but I am pretty confident that it cannot be put out for the purpose of bringing things to us.  A giving heart is pure in motivation.  If something comes back to me, I am grateful, but I shouldn't give for the purpose of getting. 

So I believe it is with connecting, heart to heart, with people.  If something comes back to me, that is nice, but if I connect with the purpose of getting something in return, I have put up a wall between my heart and that of the person with whom I wish to connect.

There is an old expression: "what goes around comes around."  It suggests that how we live in the world is how we will experience the world around us.  We really plant the seeds for what we want in our own hearts, reflected in our actions.  When we give gifts or connection, that is what we attract to ourselves.  If it is done for selfish reasons--hoping to get something back, selfishness is what we will experience coming back.  If we do from pureness of heart, that too is what we will receive.

Seeds of Faith

This is my first full year in my apartment, and I am still planting my balcony garden. Thursday a box full of plants and bulbs was waiting for me when I got home.  For me there is something therapeutic about getting my fingers in the soil, so when I embarked on the chore of planting, I did so with much joy.

Fall is a time when I become most consciously aware of faith.  As I put out the plants that will grace my home next spring, I do so with a great deal of faith.  I trust that if I do my part--plant them right, fertilize, and then water them regularly--they will do their part. 

The magic isn't limited to my balcony.  In the park behind my home, seeds are or have been dropped and are working their way into the ground to grow roots.  Fruits and vegetables left too long in the field have broken open and dispersed their seeds.  Wild flowers have gone to seed. The wind has scattered their seeds as well. In something of a mystery, during the winter when the elements seem most inhospitable to fostering life, a magical process of starting life is going on.

This mysterious cycle of life occurs so regularly that it is easy to lose touch with the wonder of what is occurring.  In many ways, what occurs in our own spiritual development parallels what happens in nature.  Each day as I attempt to grow more whole, whether it be in how I eat or exercise or in my focus on creating heart connections with the clerks in the grocery store. 

I take actions each day, not because I expect something will miraculously change in an instant.  I take actions in alignment with my intentions for who I am becoming because I have faith that if I do those actions to which I've committed every day, then a few months down the road in what seems like an overnight success, the seeds I've been planting will spring forth in a new me.

Spiritual growth, like planting my garden, is an act of faith. If I act consistently over time, I will grow into a new person, as surely as the tulip bulbs I planted yesterday will blossom in shades of purple and pink. I have faith that I will grow into more wholeness, and by so doing, I will plant seeds for a better world.

The Grocery Store Game

Back in the day when I was conducting Intentional Living Intensives with clients, I often encouraged them to play a game that I used to play.  It is a most enlightening (literally) game.  Last night after writing in this blog about connecting, heart to heart, with people one at a time, I was reminded of the game that I haven't played for years.  I decided to try it again. 

Here's how to play.  The purpose of the game it to make a heart connection with people that are often "invisible" in our lives.  They are grocery checkers, waiters, sales clerks, taxi drivers, baristas, the receptionist in a doctor's office, and anyone else with whom we transact business, often so closely that the only thing that separates us is the thickness of a dollar bill or credit card receipt, but most of the time we don't really see them.

In order to make a connection, it is essential that the "player" be focused only on the object of our heart connection.  Slowing down is essential. Eye contact helps. Most of them are not accustomed to being noticed, so it is important to just allow them time to be noticed.  The words that I exchange are said in a way that says I really mean them and not the typical, "Have a good day," said to lots of people without really thinking about them.  "You've been most helpful today.  I really appreciate it."  Often, at that point, they will break into a smile, but they will give you some indication that you've made a connection.  You've scored in The Grocery Store Game. 

I encouraged clients to make at least one connection each day to start with and to work up to the point where they made a connection at every transaction point.  When we "compared notes," what I often heard was they started out thinking they were going to do something for people in their transactions.  To a person, my clients ended up finding the connection was a gift to themselves.

Like my clients, I remember how good it used to feel to walk away from the check stand with my heart vibrating from that connection. I also remember how stress-reducing those encounters were.  They forced me to stop, still my mind and be present. How did I let that slip?  I'm not sure, but as I went to bed last night, I decided it was time to start playing again.

My day started with a smartphone which wouldn't work and me running late to a doctor's appointment, so I admit that I missed several opportunities in the doctor's office and the first two shopping stops before I was jarred from my autopilot life.  But as I set out to visit my service provider on the first of two visits, a little bell went off: this will be an opportunity to connect. 

When I was assigned to a technician, I recognized him from a couple earlier visits more than a year ago.  Before we talked about my problem, I took a moment to say I remembered how helpful he had been in the past and how grateful I was that I had the opportunity to have him support me again.  He looked delighted that I had not only remembered him, but had remembered that he had given me good service.

Sadly, the first visit didn't solve my problem, but when I went back, I used the opportunity to make another connection.  This was a much longer visit, and when I arrived at 6:30 p.m., I was tired, hungry, and frustrated. But to make the connection, I had to let go of all that. I just relaxed and partnered with this technician.  When I finally left at least an hour later, I looked her in the eyes and thanked her for being so helpful.  I said it had been a frustrating day, and she had made this very easy for me.  (My frustrating day!  Really!  This girl had been dealing with frustrated customers all day.)

She looked me right back in the eyes and started to tell me how much she'd enjoyed working with me. Then she went on to tell me how much I reminded her of her mother and how much she loved her mother.  The encounter ended with tears trying to well in her eyes.  When I left, I was still tired and hungry, but instead of the frustration I'd felt earlier, I just felt warm all over.  There was a spring in my step.  Life is good, and I like to think that both of us spread love out into the world around us.

Warmth

Washington is finally experiencing some serious fall weather with temperatures predicted into the 30s tonight.  A serious chill brought shivers to my jaw as I walked to dinner in the city this evening. Yet, I am warm--warm in a way that, regrettably, I have rarely been in recent past. 

I've just spent three hours with special friends.  We've been friends since college, and that was more than a few years ago. It has probably been over three years since two of us were together, and more likely a dozen since all of us were together.  We did the usual catching up on our day-to-day lives, shared stories of health challenges, and talked about what we thought the next chapter in our lives would be. They got a brief tour of my new home. It was a fun evening.

Sometime early in the evening, I realized that I had been wrong in this blog yesterday.  I can let love in.  I can feel that warm vibration in my heart with other humans.  I felt it tonight.  It was wonderful, and I want to let more of love into my life.  What could be more important?

If the world works like I am pretty sure it is supposed to, this heart-to-heart warmth should be normal all the time.  People connecting to people connecting to people in a ribbon of love that connects the whole world.  I've advocated for it. I've believed it could be.  I've even talked about how important it is that those of us who want to change humankind focus on staying in that spot until we build critical mass to global transformation.  I couldn't quite get there myself.  Or maybe I could at some time in the past, but not yesterday or the day before or the day before that.

At what point between two days ago and several decades ago did I lose the ability to let love in? Does it matter?  What really matters is that today--this one miraculous day--my heart opened.  I really believe that if I can do that tomorrow, the day after that, and 100 days after that, we can change the world.  I am confident that is why I am here in this world.  I am pretty sure that is why we are all here.  Seems like changing the world is pretty easy...as soon as the heart creaks open to just one person. I think the first is the hardest.  Tomorrow, I will open again.

Everything is Planned to Teach Me Love

Some days as I go through my affirmations, one will particularly resonate with me, and then it hangs in the back of my mind all day. Today when I got to "Everything is planned to teach me love," the statement wouldn't let go of me and whispered to me all day.

Even before I got to the office, I was pondering, "Why does something need to teach me love?"  The immediate answer seemed to be that I don't know love.  When I focus on breathing into my heart, I am sure the "vibration" that I feel is God's love.  By extension, since I believe that we are all connected through God's love, I am sure that it should be the same or similar.

Yet, I don't know that I've experienced that feeling with any human being when I know I should feel it with all human beings.  Hmmm...  Maybe I don't know love, or don't know how to feel love.  Or, just maybe, I've guarded myself so that I shut others out.  Ouch!  That again.

I believe that part of our basic equipment as humans is to be able to give and receive love.  Is it possible that my equipment is so under-used and rusted that it has forgotten what is basically human?

One of my favorite little books is one that has been around for awhile, called The Knight in Rusty Armor (Robert Fisher.) The book relates a parable about a knight who has lived in his armor so long that he can no longer take it off at the end of the day when he is done doing battle.  Only when he weeps at not being able to hug his family do his tears cause pieces of his armor to drop off. 

I sense his experience may be similar to what occurs to well guarded hearts, like mine.  I haven't cried...yet. I have been overwhelmed with a deep sense of loss about all the people I have "loved" intellectually in my life but for whom I have thought it was just too risky to really open my heart. Well, I didn't really "think" the risk part in a conscious sort of way.  I am pretty certain, though, that it was happening in a less-than-conscious way. Now I realize that whatever damage I thought might be done to my heart could only be exceed by the sadness at not having really let "my people" in. 

I feel like a toddler at this, taking my first wobbly steps.  I am certain that I need something to hang onto as I steady myself, and my heart tells me that something will be God's love--it will be my compass teaching me love.

The Peace That Passes All Understanding

As I was making myself something for dinner this evening, I began to think about what I might write in my blog tonight.  Well, of course, that is all wrong.  There I go thinking again:  my writing is supposed to come from my heart and not my head.

Nonetheless, almost like an earworm, for the last 90 minutes, the phrase from the Christian New Testament of Philippians "the peace that passes all understanding" has been playing over and over again, echoing behind cooking sounds, the radio, the TV, and even as I ran water to wash my face and brush my teeth.

"The peace that passes all understanding."  I thought it was a topic.  Now, my heart knows it is a process.  Just allow myself to sink into peace and let the words flow through me.  Why the repetition?  It was almost as if my soul was meditating me instead of me meditating.  I've often talked with coaching clients about letting their prayers pray them.  Like a mantra, the phrase "the peace that passes all understanding" meditated me. 

The point of letting prayers pray us is to just listen deeply to what our soul wants to pray and to let go of the clutter with which our brains would clutter our communication channels.  When I've prayed this way with clients, it is very slow, and the words just gently float out. Mostly what floats out are words of gratitude, and gratitude for such little things that most of us would never think to include in our prayers.   It has been such a long time since I've let my prayers pray me.  I think it is time.  Our souls are so wise.

Feeling My Heart

In less than a minute, I can transform my world.  All I need to do is to close my eyes, concentrate on my heart space, and "breathe into my heart."  I can't really explain how I "breathe into my heart."  I understand the physiology of breathing which involves nose, mouth, windpipe, bronchial tubes, lungs, and diaphragm.  There may be other parts, but I am fairly confident that the heart isn't one of them.

Yet, as I concentrate on my heart while I am breathing, something magical happens, my heart seems to get bigger and "vibrates"--a warm and wonderful sensation that defies description.  Even more remarkable is when I imagine the breath coming through the front of my body directly into my heart.  All I need to do is 3-5 of these "heart breaths" while saying "I AM."  It reminds me that I am here to reflect God.

Every bit of tension melts from my body, my jaw relaxes, and suddenly I am able to be present only to what is in front of me. 

What is really remarkable, other than a part of my body that isn't supposed to be involved in respiration actually "breathing" is that I don't do this more often during the day.  I am back to work again today, and as much as I had pledged to stay present--to reflect God and receive God from others--I quickly slipped into autopilot.  I was nearly home when I noticed the tension in my shoulders reminding me to breathe into my heart.  Almost as fast as I had the thought and started to breathe, the magic happened, as it always does.

This should be a no-brainer, but clearly the only "no brain" part of it for me is no brain between my ears engaged in remembering how simple it is to connect.  Another choice point for me--that time and place when I become conscious, recognize that I have a choice, and choose differently...in this moment.  For this moment, I am choosing differently.

BEing the Nature of God

Back in the day when I owned an automobile, I enjoyed taking road trips.  As I drove alone down the highway, I often slipped into repeating a mantra or affirmation of something I wanted to bring into my life.  I would repeat it hundreds of times during my trip.  What was quite remarkable was how often a deeper level of understanding would just gently float into my awareness during the repetitions--Aha! moments. 

I really don't remember what the mantra that generated it was, but I do recall having a thought toward the end of a trip about 15 years ago that continues to both inspire and terrify me.  The thought was that the only way humans have to experience God is through each other.  If we want others to know God's Love, we need to demonstrate it to them: they will know it through our behaviors.  If we want others to know God's Forgiveness, we need to demonstrate it to them: they will know it through our behaviors.  God Nature is reflected through each of us to all human kind.

What a concept!  That I could allow everyone with whom I come in touch to experience God by how I relate to them is inspiring me.  I hope that it is equally clear why that is so terrifying.  As much as I try, I know the frequency with which my behaviors reflect what I want others to know of God isn't near what I would like it to be. I think that I am usually a good person, but I do get irritable and impatient from time to time.  Perhaps even more embarrassing is how much of my life proceeds on autopilot.  I'd hate to think that God puts us on autopilot.  Even more uncomfortable for me, the author of a book about "BEing" is how often I "do" things with people instead of "BE" with them. 

Since retyping The Game Called Life a couple weeks ago, this whole thing about BEing the Nature of God has been with me.  What "floated in" today is not how I reflect God (though for me that is still a concern,) but how I receive God from others.  In my autopiloting through life what wonders that God wanted to share with me have I blown off because I wasn't paying attention.  In my "doingness" how often have I missed the opportunity to "just BE" with God through another human being who is reflecting the nature of God.

Today I have new understanding of the Sanskrit greeting--"Namaste," still used in India and Nepal. "I bow to the God within you."  When I bow to the God within you, and you bow to the God within me, it is said, "We are One."  What if I just took responsibility both to be a reflection of the Nature of God and to be present to the reflection of the Nature of God in those around me?  What a ripple I could create.

Pinpricks in My Integrity

When the government closed on the first of October, I pledged that I was using my furlough to reboot my life.  I was going to meditate, exercise, and write daily, and I was going to give up sugar.  I've done well on the meditation, writing, and exercise (except for one very rainy day.)  The sugar has been a real struggle.  It's not that sugar is such a bad thing...for most people.  For me, sugar is an addiction.  Just a little bit and I have to have more: it controls me.  It is a slippery slope. 

A week ago I made and took a chocolate cake to another function, and I ate it when it was served. There have been other "little cheats." It is the 19th, and I made brownies.  I will take them to a function I am attending tomorrow, but I knew when I decided to make them that I'd lick beaters and need to sample to make sure they tasted OK.  I lied to myself.  In The Game Called Life Lizzie called them pinpricks in her integrity--miniscule lies that we tell ourselves to justify other lies, and, as she continued to say, "I have enough pinpricks in my integrity that if they were all put together they would be as big as the hole in the Titanic."

I debated a friend once about whether it was out of integrity to exceed the speed limit, even if everyone else is driving five miles over the limit too.  My argument was that when I applied for a driver's license, I had agreed to obey the laws of the state.  That included driving the speed limit, even if almost everyone else was speeding.

Driving the speed limit is a no-brainer for me. I really attempt to act in integrity all the time.  I even moved into a house once that already had cable connected, and the former owners had been getting cable service for years without paying for it. I knew it was stealing from the cable company to take the service without paying for it.  I went to the cable company, explained the situation, and said I wanted to start paying for it.  That was a no-brainer for me, too.

Integrity is the very most important thing to me, and I know that I have not always been in such deep integrity.  Yet I really try.  I've wrestled with my addiction to sugar for my integrity for years.  I'd like to think we all have an Achilles heel--something that nags at us painfully.  It really doesn't matter if everyone has something.  What matters is that I keep my own commitment to myself. 

When I cut the brownies up and put them in a container to take to my function, I started to hold back two, cut in half.  I was going to put them in the freezer, and I would have four little desserts I could bring out.  That is when I started thinking about the pinpricks in my integrity.  I added a second tier to my potluck container and put the ones I was going to hold back in it.  I am holding nothing back in this fight.

That brings me back to forgiveness. I slip...on sugar, and on other things.  In each moment I face a choice point--a point in time when I am conscious, when I can forgive myself, and when I can start over--choosing to be in integrity.  When I tune in to my heart, I know that being in that choice point and choosing consciously, whether it is a 100 times or a 1,000 or 10,000, is how I will galvanize my integrity.

"If a Tree Falls,..."

There is an oft-quoted question, "If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" (George Berkeley)  There are those who would say that if there is no one to witness the fall, the tree falling down doesn't make a sound.  Others would argue that, of course, a tree falling makes a sound; whether someone hears it is moot.  We will never know for sure.  The heart of the matter is whether something exists without a witness.

For me, on this day, this is a poignant question.  For over a month, I've been keeping my commitment to write a daily post to this blog, exploring the spiritual questions and bits of wisdom I encounter on my path.  It has been rich for me.  It is a spiritual practice. 

Today it has been 10 days since anyone has read my blog.  Without witnesses, like the tree falling in the forest, I wonder if my Voice has been muted.  Is my exercise a vain one? There are really two answers to this question.  Both start with "no."

Answer One: No; it is not a vain exercise.  Spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has talked about having a "prayer chakra," something like a prayer bank account.  If we faithfully make deposits every day, someday when we really need it and call on God for help, we will have a well-tuned connection.  I am faithfully showing up, and will continue to faithfully show up, to make deposits. Think of writing this blog as not only developing my writing muscle, but making deposits to my spiritual bank account.

Answer Two: No; it is not a vain exercise.  My soul has been greatly enriched.  Each day I learn, or more often remember, things I didn't know or had forgotten.  I am becoming truer to myself.  I have been awakened from my autopilot existence.  If no one ever reads it, writing the blog is doing the three things that Helen in The Game Called Life said that life was really about.  It is helping me to develop my gifts, in this case for writing.  It is helping me to grow spiritually and learn spiritual lessons. It is available to be of service to the evolution of the Universe when the time is right.  Writing this blog is why I am here...in this life.  That is real.

I have no idea about that tree falling in the forest, but I do know that whatever we do to help ourselves be more whole is enough.  The very act of writing and becoming more whole is having an impact on the world.  So, I will keep writing....

Celebrating the Ordinary

Just minutes after midnight with the stroke of President Obama’s pen, I got my job (and my paycheck) back.  Something has been different all day. My usual workday wake-up call at 5:20 a.m. didn’t seem as painfully early as it usually does.  Despite some confusing communication relating to calling us back to work, my morning routine was, well, routine.  I walked out of the door at almost the same time I always do, joyfully accepted my free tabloid paper from the distributor, and jumped on the escalator down to the train.  I waited about two minutes for my train, changed trains at the normal station, and arrived at work to say “Good morning!” to the same security guard who frequently greets me.  While my computer was booting up, I took my lunch to the refrigerator.  I headed to a meeting that I normally just tolerate.

It was at that point that I began to notice something different this first day back after a 16-day furlough.  Although I was doing all the same things, I was consciously appreciative that I was getting to do them today.  After returning to my office and the stacks that awaited me, I smiled to myself as I joyfully jumped in to another routine task.  Sometimes it takes a jolt out of the routine to make me appreciate the ordinary.  Today I am celebrating the ordinary.

Choosing Peace

In his powerful little book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl wrote about surviving a German concentration camp.  "Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you became the plaything of circumstance....It is this spiritual freedom--which cannot be taken away--that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

I first read Frankl's words so many years ago that my yellow highlighting now fades into the yellowing of the pages themselves.  Yet as I read them, they are still as profound as they were then. That someone who survived the Holocaust could write about the experience as spiritual freedom still leaves me in awe.

Over half a century later, I recently heard the articulate Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped at knife point and held captive for many months earlier this century, talk about moving beyond her experience.  Although she was only 14 at the time of her capture and subjugation, she described a conversation with her mother the day after she was rescued by police.  Her mother encouraged her that the best way to get back at her kidnapper was to have a happy life.  Now 25, Smart has done that. 

There are things that happen in our lives over which we have little or no control, but we always have control over our experience. I think of Frankl and Smart, I am once again certain that having peace is a choice, and it is a choice that we make, as Frankl said, every day and every hour.

Money

Unless a person is "off the grid," we need money for basic survival in our world, and even those off the grid need money from time to time.  What then is the proper spiritual relationship with money?

Different religious traditions and mythology teach a variety of lessons about money from the lowest level of hell being reserved for those who are constantly in the chase for more money to the New Age treatment of God as what one speaker called, "the great carhop in the sky" bringing us anything and everything we could possibly desire. 

I have not committed exhaustive research to the topic. Yet, I have pondered the question of the proper spiritual relationship with money periodically for most of my life. I recently recalled to a friend junior high school assignment to write an essay, saying what we would do if we won $1 million.  (Back then $1 million was serious money.) 

When we read our essays, my classmates had bought all manner of "stuff." I thought I'd gotten the assignment wrong because I had given my million to a poor tribe of Native Americans for education, healthcare, and basic life needs.  With the wisdom of a few years, I actually think I was the one who got it right. I said to my friend that I really regretted that I hadn't been more financially successful because I would have really enjoyed doing good with my money.

Since it came out in 1991, and I discovered it shortly thereafter, Money and the Meaning of Life (Jacob Needleman) has been among my favorite books.  I wouldn't even venture a guess at how many times I've read it.  As I understand it, Professor Needleman's thesis is that the reason to have money is to use it to help us learn.   

In my own The Game Called Life, Lizzie is confronted with the information that the game she has been playing -- to have a nice house, take nice vacations, and fund a solid retirement account -- is the wrong one.  She is told that The Game Called Life is about being of service, growing spiritually, and developing our gifts and talents completely. 

Yet my own financial planner advised me that the results of using money for learning and service are that I will probably never be able to retire. She sent me to find federal employment because it was secure and would provide me some income in my old age.  That's not working out so well for me.

My furloughed status and dwindling bank account have brought me to the money question again.  What is the proper spiritual relationship to money?  Should I consider my use of my savings to write, meditate, and get exercise during the furlough to be a higher use of my money than saving it for my old age?  Does earning money that is killing me spiritually mean that is a bad source? What am I to learning from feeling more alive than I did two weeks ago. 

For many years, Needleman's learning theory, laced with my own The Game Called Life guidance, became a tenet in my approach to spending.  I never questioned that if I would be learning something, especially if I could use it to help others, that I should do it.  That is at least until recent years. As resources became tighter, I found myself passing on learning opportunities.

I've been cleaning off my desk, and there is an advertisement that has been in the stack. It describes a year-long learning opportunity that I know would grow me personally and spiritually, and I am quite certain that it would further develop my gifts and increase my ability to serve.  Using the Needleman/Gilley guidelines for spiritual use of money, signing up should be a no-brainer. But, the tuition and travel expenses are a significant expenditure for my income.

My commitment to deal with everything on my desk, rather than shuffling the ad into a stack which will grow on my desk again, has me soul-searching about the proper spiritual use of money....yet again.  What I know in my heart is that enrolling in the class is the right thing to do.  I am taking a deep breath and remembering what I wrote about the River of Peace yesterday.  Maybe therein lies the answer to the question about the proper spiritual relationship with money.  Will the learning bring me peace, love, and joy?  Will I let my fears about money take me from that river?

The River of Peace

Back in the day before blogs, my regular writing gigs were columns in business publications.  I've never had difficulty writing, once I had a topic, but there have been times that I stared at the computer screen for a while, waiting for inspiration.  I remember encountering a friend who had just finished reading Leading from the Heart on one of those days. 

"Hey!" I said.  "What really stands out to you from the book?" 

Without a hesitation, he responded, "The River of Peace."  We chatted a bit about the topic, and when I headed back to the office and computer, I knew that would be the topic of that week's column. 

In the book, I described what Joseph Campbell called The River of Peace, which flows between the banks of Fear and Desire.  As he described it, we can float through life in peace as long as there is neither anything we fear nor anything we desire enough to leave our place of peace.

Then, as I've drawn on many a flip-chart, I added to The River of Peace, making it The River of Peace, Love, and Joy, those consummate spiritual qualities for which most of us yearn.  As I talk about the banks, I "X" through the word "Desire," because I say that most things that we desire enough to leave The River of Peace are actually driven by fear.  So, I say, The River of Peace, Love, and Joy actually lies between two banks of fear.

Today, I ponder The River of Peace.

After two weeks of furlough, we finally have glimmers of hope that the government may soon be open again.  As I compare my dwindling checking account to the monthly bills that have arrived, part of me is quite joyful.  The fear of not being able to pay my bills and what that might mean clearly underlies the desire to pay my bills.  Far greater are other fears. 

As I've written in this blog, I've reclaimed the woman I had been until recent employment.  I am the creative, the writer, the coach, and the speaker. I am smart and have a sense of humor. I am joyful. I take care of myself.  I love my life.  What I really fear is that the darkness that consumed me so totally that it took nine days of furlough to reclaim my being will eat me alive again.  Having almost birthed an e-book from a hard copy book and germinated at least two new books, I am terrified that my creative self will be subsumed by "Just follow orders!" or "No one asked what you thought."

AND, I want peace, love and joy even more.  I want to embrace my work with the passion and creativity that I brought to it for almost three decades.  I want to jump out of bed, looking forward to helping people work together better. I want to love my colleagues and laugh with them throughout the day. I know that is what awaits me in The River of Peace, Love, and Joy. My spiritual work: stay in the river.  Staying in the river implies staying present...in the present.  That's it!  That's all there is.  :-)  That's all...

Coming Together in Warmth

Yesterday I wrote about the special kind of friends with whom we can be open about our hopes and fears, and they will sit with us in total acceptance.  Today I want to write about other kinds of friends.  In a few minutes I will leave to have brunch with several women with whom I share an occasional lunch, dinner, and today brunch.  One is a current work colleague, but sadly most are now former colleagues. 

The occasion for today's celebration is a visit by one who moved back to her native state of California, and most of us haven't seen her for 15 months.  Among us there will be warmth, joy, and laughter. There will be curiosity about what has been going on in our lives. There will be concern and support. Perhaps mostly, there will be connection born of a time and place when we collaborated together on a common mission: to make life at our agency better for the people work there. 

In Leading from the Heart I wrote about the experience of people coming together every day to produce a newspaper, the business in which I spent 10 years of my career.  I think it matters not whether it is a federal agency or the newspaper business or any one of 22 other industries in which I have worked over the years; what matters is the magic that happens when a group of people share a mission.  Together we are more than the sum of our parts. We are able to accomplish something in community that the same people working alone could not accomplish.  It connects us.

Over the years, I have made friends at many of the career stops I've made along the way.  There is still something about that magic that continues to connect us 20-30 years later.  Today I look forward to coming together in warmth with a special group and sharing our connection.

What Does It Mean to be a Friend?

Today I have been in intense exploration of the question, "What does it mean to be a friend?"  Although I say "today," because today it has been very focused, I believe that I've been playing with this question for almost a week.  Last Sunday I watched Brene Brown on OWN's Lifeclass.  She is a prominent researcher on "vulnerability" and "shame."  She said that in a lifetime, we should count ourselves lucky to have one or two friends with whom we can totally share who we are--to whom we can open our hearts, and they are willing to just empathize with us.  She calls it opening our "arena" to that person and letting them in to our vulnerability.

"Wow!" I thought.  One or two in a life time.  I must be very fortunate indeed with so many friends.  That is when the pondering began.  I have people I do things with. I have people I turn to for spirited discourse. I have people that I strategize with.  I have people I know I can depend on and who know they can depend on me.  But, do I truly have people in my life that I can totally open my heart to and with whom I can share my "shame"?  Do I have people who can just sit there and be with me and ride through it with me without trying to "fix" me or somehow move me around my vulnerability?  I am not sure that I do...and I have a really evolved group of friends, well populated from the "helping professions."

I am a staunch believer in when I am pointing my finger at others, I should notice three other fingers pointing back at me.  So I noticed.  Could I really sit with one of my "friends" and ride with them into their shame and vulnerability?  I'd like to think that I could, but the truth is that I am more likely to help them reframe, excuse, justify, strategize, or encourage than to just sit with them in their vulnerability. 

Have I unconsciously invited a group of people into my life that could function with me at a superficial level because that is my comfort zone?  They don't show their vulnerability, and I don't show my own, and we can safely avoid the discomfort of just being empathetic with each other.  That hurts.  But, what to do about it? Do I need new people?  I hope not. Can I change the fundamental nature of my relationship with the people in my lives?  I hope so, but wonder. 

I am tired of hiding behind a wall that I've built to keep others from knowing who I am in my heart, and I am terrified at coming from behind the wall.  But the wall is built of stuff I need to forgive myself and others for.  The wall is built of the past and keeps me from the present.  The wall is what keeps me from being fully who I am.  What I know in my heart is that if I can find the courage to come behind the wall, "my people" will be there for me.  The question for me is can I forgive, be in the present, and be fully who I am?  Now that is the question.

What is Surrendering the Past...Really?

During this morning's meditation, the thought of surrendering the past continued to be with me.  What does it really mean to surrender the past?  Then, it was there as clear as a "Duh!" moment.  Surrendering the past is total forgiveness.  We can only harbor anger and resentment or shame, guilt, and self-blame in the past because in the present only love exists. 

For many years, I ended my meditation with the words, "Help me to raise the level of love on the planet today."  My focus was always on the love rather than what separates us from love.  I now see that there is nothing more I could do that would raise the level of love in our world than surrender the past and with it allow total forgiveness.

Birthing the Intentions of Spring

After a week typing it and completing the first proofreading of The Game Called Life manuscript yesterday, I decided I needed to do something different today.  With a steady downpour outside, a long walk was not an option I chose.

My desk is stacked and sadly overflowing, so cleaning my desk seemed in order.  I've been at it for about five hours now, and I can truthfully say that I cannot tell that I've done anything.  Really!  Much of the sorting that I've been doing has been turning handwritten notes from meditations and retreats into word documents that I could file and refer to.  Other pages in the stacks have been thoughts for various books that I am working on. 

Among the pages of notes, I found intentions for the rest of the year from my spring retreat.  While I am still without a life partner again for almost 20 years, I am amazed at how much on the list is gradually becoming reality.  The summer must have been a germination period, because since my mid-September retreat and thanks to both this blog and the government shutdown and my furlough, my intentions have been in fast-forward.  Making a contribution to the healing of the world, using my voice, and writing daily have become a reality.  I hope this blog is making a difference, and I am confident that when The Game Called Life is an e-book, it will dramatically contribute to the healing of our world.

At the end of the page of intentions, I had printed in larger letters "WHAT IS MY INTENTION?"  I believe that referred to what my single underlying intention was from all the others.  I had a drawing and the words "living at the choice point."  Choice Point is a book that I wrote in the late 90s but has never been published. It is about living in conscious communion, moment-by-moment, with All That Is. For me that means, following what I know to be true in my heart. I call the process "living a prayer."  As I looked over the list, it was true: the only way I could do anything on the list is by living a prayer. 

I definitely am not there, but I am markedly farther along than I was six months ago when I wrote this.  I truly believe that I have planted seeds over the summer and in this furlough that predict I will be still farther along the path when I cross the one-year anniversary of my last spring retreat.  And, that's what it is all about--consciously attempting to do better and better at living a spiritually rich life.  In my heart I know that is where I am intended to be.

Surrendering the Past

 A couple weeks ago I wrote about "being present"--really being awake in our lives and fully conscious of our spiritual growth opportunities.  Ever since the other "being present" has been gnawing at me: being in the present.    Being in the present means not being in the past and not being in the future, but being in the moment--in present time.

One of the affirmations I'm working this six-month cycle is "I surrender the past, leaving only the present."  Surrender is an interesting word.  Surrender implies that we are willing to fight till we have nothing left to prevent giving something up.  For many, if not most, of us, we go to the mat to hang on to what has been.  Hanging onto the past robs us of the present, and the present is the only place that we can make change in our lives.  Hanging onto the past prevents us from moving forward.

Spiritual discipline is the very act of choosing to be present...again, and again, and again.  Spiritual discipline--being the student--means choosing to try something that is hard that we've tried before in the past and maybe failed at once or many times.  But today, we can start new.  Today we have a clean slate.  Today is the day that we can rewrite our stories to be the person that we are becoming.

In The Alchemy of Fear I wrote that our "has been" engage in all out battle with  our "becoming."  As who we are becoming gains strength, our "has been" fights to retain who we have been in the past. The present is uncharted territory.  In the present we can start afresh each day.  Our "becoming" in the present holds out the lure of success.  Only if we lose sight of what we are becoming can we slip backwards into the past. 

I said yesterday that I finally had recaptured the vision of the author, spiritual guide/coach, and professional speaker that I was for so many years.  That is what I am "becoming" again.  Even though that was a life I had before, I know it will be different this time--even better than I can imagine.  I eagerly surrender who I have been  to embrace who I AM "becoming" in the present.

Remembering Who I AM

We are now seven days into the government shutdown.  Can it only be seven days?  I feel like September 30, my last worked day, was a different lifetime ago. In many ways, it was.  Just a quick review of what these seven days have brought to me: regular exercise and meditation, healthier eating, sufficient sleep, and a week up close and personal with my last book -- The Game Called Life. 

A week ago I was numb.  Intuitively, I knew what I needed to do to reawaken, but I had so lost touch with Kay Gilley, the human being, that there were times I could hardly remember who she was.  I knew that I felt most alive when I was writing.  I could recall the deep satisfaction of coaching people on their spiritual paths.  An image of myself on stage delivering my last speech--maybe my best ever--was emblazoned on my brain, but so distantly that I struggled to think that it was really me.  Yet, no matter what I tried, I couldn't find that person again. 

I had taken leave to write several times over the last couple of years, but nothing came.  How could it be? Words used to come tumbling out of me like a gushing waterfall after a heavy spring rain. Once there was a list of titles for books that I wanted to write some day.  But, I would sit and stare at my computer, and nothing came.

Then I was furloughed.

The work on The Game Called Life has helped me awaken the spiritual coach/guide/mentor.  Writing this blog has gotten the words flowing again.

As I have been doing since the Jewish New Year, this morning I started my mediation with the affirmation with "I am Love." An "almost echo" came back at me: "I AM."  In the stillness, I repeated "I AM."  After a few moments of repeating "I AM," I saw Kay again.  I saw myself on the keynote stage again, delivering a keynote address that brought the audience to joyful tears as they remembered who they were.  In a line of the speech was born a new book.  Then came another. 

I remembered who I AM. I am not sure how I lost her, but there is one thing about which I am absolutely certain now:  I am Kay Gilley--author, speaker, spiritual coach. 

The Game Called Life Clears First Hurdle

Just a few minutes after 5 p.m. today I finished retyping The Game Called Life.  I am delighted to have spent a week up close and person with that book.  Every time I read it I learn something, or probably more appropriately I remember something that I knew and had slipped from consciousness.  I am also reenergized about my decision to  release it as an e-book. 

Not long before finishing my typing project this afternoon, a reader called.  She's had the book for several years and says it has a special place on her book shelf.  I took that as affirmation that this book has special value in the hearts and minds of those who have read it and will with electronic readers as well.  (I am not sure what the Kindle version of a special place on the book shelf is, but I am listening.)

There is a deep sense of relief at having gotten The Game Called Life this far on the journey to e-bookdom, and I know that tomorrow the proof-reading begins.  For now, I celebrate having made it over the first hurdle.

Spiritual discipline

I know that I said yesterday that today I was going to write about what happens when I don't ask and/or don't listen to my guidance.  However, my guidance today was to write something different. 

Today a passage of scripture from the Christian New Testament Gospel of Luke (17:1-4) guided worship. At the beginning of the passage, The Teacher talks about forgiveness.  The lesson says that if someone transgresses against us even as many as seven times in a day and asks for forgiveness that we are to forgive them. 

A couple days ago I wrote about doing the first two parts of a forgiveness exercise.  I forgave those that I felt I needed to forgive, but I am certain that several of them would not have asked for forgiveness.   Yet, I have forgiven them, and that I am not carrying resentment any longer is a gift for me.  I also meditationally asked others for forgiveness.  Since I was asking, I assume that qualifies me for forgiveness. 

In each of those exercises what was amazing was that as soon as forgiveness was given either way, there would be a wave of positive memories about that person, which the lack of forgiveness had blocked.  As I worked through the list, my heart felt more and more full.  I realize that the lesson today really was about opening our hearts. No matter how many times that we must forgive, doing so is a gift we give ourselves--the gift of the open heart.

What I haven't written about was the third part of the exercise, which I completed a day later.  The third column was comprised of things for which I needed to forgive myself.  As I thought about that list this morning, I recalled the impatience I felt about needing to forgive myself for the umpteenth time for not asking for guidance before I did something, not following the guidance I got, or following the guidance when it was so delinquent that it no longer had efficacy. 

It is much easier for me to forgive people who have done some pretty nasty things to me than it was to forgive myself.  Many of the times that I'd forgotten to check in with my heart occurred months or years apart.  Could I forgive myself seven times in a day? 

The word "discipline" derives from the Greek for "disciple" which means "student."  A spiritual discipline implies that it is our way of learning to be closer to our spirits.  For me, that means following what is written on my heart and messaged to me through listening to my heart. 

I realize that I have an unduly harsh standard for myself when it comes to being a spiritual student.  Somehow, even though I know we are all beginners, I expect myself to be perfect. However, the word "sin" was an archery term which meant the archer missed the bulls-eye: missed the mark. The implication was that the archer needed to adjust his/her aim. "Sin" isn't an arbitrary standard of judgment but rather a teaching term about how to get it better--not perfect--the next time.  That is what a spiritual discipline is about: aiming over and again until we hit the mark.

Now I realize that I did end up writing about what happens when I didn't follow my guidance, but it hasn't ended up looking like I expected.  That is what happens when we listen to the wisdom of our hearts.

Yes, I have failed to ask for guidance from my heart, and I have failed to follow in a timely way.  The results weren't as rewarding as those I wrote about yesterday and hundreds of other stories I could have written. AND, I have aimed again.  Now, I will recall that I should have forgive me...even seven times a day, if needed.

Ahhh!

Partnering with our hearts

In order to evolve spiritually, we need to listen to our hearts. They are encrypted with a unique code that tells each one of us what we should be doing at any time in order to grow, perform service, and to use our gifts and talents. If we frequently take just a second to ask, "What would you have me do?" we will unfailingly be guided to accomplish what we are here to accomplish. 

Two challenges haunt me as I attempt to live this way.  The first is just remembering to check in.  It seems that I am tuned in one second and on autopilot the next doing what I'd planned to so.  The second is doing exactly what I am told when I am told to do it.  Now that flies right in the face of most of what we have been taught.  We are supposed to set goals, plan ahead, and fill our calendars, often months in advance.  The current thinking is that we don't set out to do something unless we know how to accomplish it and how we are going to pay for it, and rarely do our hearts give us a fully developed strategy and step-by-step plan to follow.  In fact, more often than not, we are only told the first step. If we keep checking in at each step, we will be guided flawlessly without ever knowing more than one step ahead.  Being in the mystery is what it is about.

Consider this story.  A number of years ago when I was living in the rainy Pacific Northwest, I decided I needed to live in a sunnier place.  I asked my heart for guidance.  (I often clarify, "Send me a sign--a real clear sign that even I can get."  Within the next 18 hours, I received six very clear messages that North Carolina was my place, beginning within five minutes when I walked in a bookstore and overheard a conversation, "I hear North Carolina is a great place to live."  The last of the six was the banner headline of my Oregon newspaper the next morning shouting, "NC best place to live."

I had my sign.  What next?  I had received no additional guidance, until I was awakened at 3 a.m. with a dream that made it clear that I was supposed to be in North Carolina on October 19.  I got up in the middle of the night and made my reservation.  Over the next nine months, a path as easy as the parting of the Red Sea opened for me.  I met someone at a conference in San Francisco, who was instrumental in meeting a realtor and business contacts. I met someone else at a conference in South Carolina who introduced me to what would be my inner circle of friends during the first years I was in NC.  Even the house that I bought became available in the middle of the day on the day I was told to shop for a house.  I've had moves across town that were harder than this cross-country move.

With all that said, when I arrived in Durham, N. C., on July 31, 1995, I had no job and all the clients of my consulting business were about as far from me as they could be and still be in the US.  However, I was certain that this was going to work out.  Within three days of my arrival, I had two major pieces of business back in Oregon that were willing to pay travel expenses, and the contracts were sufficient to support me for my first 10 months.  Furthermore, a couple months later, a client with work in China hired me, and I was able to extend my monthly trip to the West Coast on to Beijing.  Even though I hadn't known how known how I would support myself when I arrived, my first year living in NC ended up being the best revenue year since starting my business.

I could share many stories like the one above in which doors I couldn't have anticipated just miraculously opened when I listened and followed. I haven't always understood how things were going to work out or even why I was supposed to do certain things, but never once when I was following my heart, have I been misled.

That's not to say things have always worked out perfectly, but those times happened when I either didn't ask or didn't follow or didn't follow in a timely way.  More about that tomorrow.

Helpers

I've learned a lot this week from working on the book I wrote.  Almost every page has seemed to offer a spiritual lesson that I'd been choosing to ignore.  Just yesterday I was reading/writing about spiritual helpers--those people who are in our lives to help us learn spiritual lessons, to perform spiritual service, and to encourage development and use our gifts and talents. 

Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way.  My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!

Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle.  I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name.  I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.

Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives.  I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.

Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such.  They are just people in our lives.  Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time.  Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other.  We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed.  He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business.  Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.

The miracle occurred as I spoke with him.  I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart.  I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him.  As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out.  Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago. 

When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing.  But, then there is that money thing.  I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again.  That's all I need to know for now.  I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.

Forgiveness

Meditation truly is a gift I give myself.  This morning I took my 20 minutes and extended it by 30.  I was wrestling with understanding what is Truth.  As I went deeper and deeper, the contradictions became more intense and then they melted away.

I have written previously about the several spiritual statements or affirmations that I recently adopted.  This morning as I meditated I found myself lingering on one: "Forgiveness is how I return to God/Love."  I thought I'd forgiven those in my life for what they'd done to me. Then the questions came. Have I really forgiven if I still carry resentment? Have I really forgiven if I still guard myself or am wary?  Of course not.

Then I attempted to forgive; I wanted to get to the place where I could feel nothing but unconditional love. As I went deeper, I found that in each of the two relationships I lingered with I had accountability. Hmmpf.  :-) Did I not know this part? 

For several years I provided spiritual coaching in three-day, one-on-one intentional living intensives.  Each was unique to the person with whom I was working, and my guides would give me unique coaching questions and exercises for that person.  Most were used only once.  However, for most a similar exercise on forgiveness was given to me.  It always involved three levels of forgiveness: acts which the client needed to forgive others for, acts for which the client needed to ask for forgiveness, and acts for which the client needed to forgive him- or herself.  Finally, we'd explore the gifts that had resulted from hurtful circumstances.

As I meditated on forgiveness this morning, these three levels kept intertwining. Back and forth, I went from offering forgiveness to asking for forgiveness to forgiving myself and back again. Then I drifted deeper.  I'd written two books on fear and courage: were fear and courage not really about forgiveness?  If there were always gifts, why would I not have courage?  Why would I be afraid?

Almost when I felt like I'd gotten to the bottom of understanding the relationship between fear and courage and forgiveness, I found myself going broader.  I've always thought that my purpose was to help people find the place of pure Love that dwells inside themselves and connect to the place of pure Love that dwells in each of their fellow human beings.  When I had been meditating on my new affirmations a few weeks ago, what had come was that my purpose was the forgiveness of all human kind.  I thought I'd just go with it since that is what came, but thought my real purpose was connect us to and through Love. 

Only this morning in this meditation did I realize that they were the same.  Only this morning did I realize that the reason the forgiveness exercise was always given to me for clients while other exercises were unique was that my purpose was forgiveness.  These clients wouldn't have been brought to me if they didn't need to learn forgiveness. The Aha! moment for me was that forgiveness is my gateway to Love; it is the gateway through which I lead others to find pure Love. Without forgiveness, we will never find that place in ourselves where we are Love, and we certainly will never find that place in others where they are pure Love.

This knowing didn't come printed on bulletin boards: it came from listening to what I know in my heart. This wisdom came because I showed up to listen and floated through lots of clutter to the crystal clarity of what I know.

What a difference a day makes

When I wrote my post yesterday morning, the reality of being without job and paycheck during the government shutdown was just sinking in.  Treating this experience as a gift, I set out to focus my intentions on three things that I have wanted to increase in my life.  I wanted more exercise and healthier eating, more meditation, and to e-publish at least one of my books--The Game Called Life.

I am already feeling even better than usual.  Maybe eating healthfully is a bit like riding a bike: our bodies remember.  As soon as I passed up sugar a couple times, I found myself craving certain vegetables that I haven't bought for a while.  When I wanted a mid-afternoon snack, raw nuts came to mind for the first time in months.  Yet, this is a journey.  I would be less than honest if I didn't say that when I sat down for dinner, I did miss my glass of red wine, abandoned because alcohol contains sugar, but having brewed a pitcher of fresh iced tea in the afternoon, wine was quickly out of mind.

Skipping the train, I walked 70 minutes while running errands on foot yesterday and 40 today so far. The chemicals that our brains release when we exercise kicked in right away, and by the time I was back, I was energized and joyful to get to work on my e-book. 

After working a while, I took a meditation break.  For over 20 years, I've meditated, and for much of that time, it was 20 minutes a day.  In 2008 my life seemed to be thrust into fast-forward with many travel days ending with me falling asleep on my computer.  Most of that time I still meditated 20 minutes a day, but at some point the exhaustion got the better part of me.  I'd regularly fall asleep during my meditation, so I started staying in bed another 15 minutes.  I'd still take 5 minutes to center myself before leaving my hotel room.  The schedules and reasons have changed over the last 5 years, but the pace has not.

Occasionally, meditation has slipped, but most of the time it has been more like taking 5 or 10 minutes before I raced off to work.  Yesterday, I took my full 20 minutes.  Like taking a hot soak at the end of a hard day, I was enveloped in the warmth of Love from All That Is.  How could I ever have imagined that skipping this was serving me?  Only some kind of warped rationality could have convinced me that abandoning this in the middle of the craziness was a good idea.

I made good progress on the e-book yesterday and this morning.  As a "project," it is definitely a success, but I am most certain that thinking it is a project is only an illusion.  I write spiritual books--books that are written to help readers get back on their paths and to stay on them.  I couldn't have imagined the impact of being up close and personal with this book--I have to touch every single word--that I've read at least 8-10 times since I wrote it would have on me.

There is a joke about turning one's life over to God.  It goes something like this:  When you turn your life over to God, the first thing you hear is, "Thank you!"  The second thing that you hear is "Hold on!"

I am in "Hold on!" right now.  Every page seems to give me a lesson that I need to re-member--to make a conscious part of me again.  Perhaps most important right now is that The Game Called Life is a game and the point of the game is spiritual growth.  Every thing that happens in our lives is an opportunity to grow, including furloughs, and every person that passes through, even for a brief time, is a spiritual learning partner, even trying bosses.  I must have been spiritually comatose to have forgotten that when the busyness of my life distracted me from the things that matter most in my life--health, mediation, writing and spiritual growth.  These are things that I truly know in my heart, but I've just not been listening enough lately.

The Game Called Life will continue to jar me from "the sleeping state that men call waking."  (The Upanishads) And, I am holding on to see what other changes will be wrought in my life during this unplanned spiritual adventure.

Embracing the gifts

This morning I am officially unemployed for the first time in almost 30 years.  I have to admit that my first reaction was to contact a friend to do something.  Thankfully, she was not available today.  Then I did what the very thing I should have done first:  turn to my heart.

"What are your intentions?" is the question it had for me.  Ah. 

Suddenly, the floodgates opened to all those things that I've been saying I really want to do but don't have time.  While cleaning my very cluttered desk might have been one of them, that is a "should," not a "really want."  What is the difference?  A "should" is something that comes from outside of me.  I "should" clean my desk so if someone comes to visit, they won't think I'm a slob.  (Probably wouldn't happen anyway because generally I am a neatnik except at my desk.)  The cluttered desk only bothers me when I start looking for something that I can't find, and amazingly, most of the time I am able to find things.

A "really want" is something that I want in my heart.  A "really want" is something I really yearn for.  When I started writing this blog, it was because writing again was a "really want" for me.  I felt like part of my soul was being ripped from me every day I didn't write.  When I started writing this blog,  I almost immediately experienced deep peace and satisfaction.  I truly cannot explain how wonderful it has been for me.

What are my "really wants" right now?  Three things came immediately:

• Take better care of my body.  Start exercising regularly again and get rid of sugar which really has negative effects on me.  For over 25 years, I exercised almost every day, and I felt great.  However, in the craziness of my life in recent years, I acted different priorities than what I know in my heart.  I am going to start acting on what I know to be true for me: exercising regularly makes me feel great.  And, the sugar...I give it up every year at Lent and really notice the difference how much better I feel, but my sweet tooth never takes long to lure me back.  I know--truly know--that I am happier and more peaceful without it.
• Meditate every day--really meditate for a full 20 minutes.  When my life was working better, exercise and meditation were rituals.  They were the centerpieces around which I fit my life instead of vice versa.
• E-publish at least The Game Called Life.  I started to do this a few months ago and the word document had totally gone missing from my computer.  I can't find it anywhere--on my computer, on memory sticks, or on my back up hard drive.  I am going to put it in my computer again (and back it up several places!)  I sense that I really need to be up close and personal with this book again.  Every time I read it, I am impacted by it.  I think it is time to really have a relationship with it.  If the government shutdown continues, I have a couple other books I've been wanting to get out there.  Who knows?  By the end of the furlough, I may have a whole library out there.

I will write, take a break and exercise, write more, take a break and meditate.  What a gift this unemployment is giving me. Yes, I am scared  that I won't be able to pay my bills, but fear separates us from what our hearts want us to know.  I am listening to what I know in my heart instead of fear... and taking one day at a time.