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.