Looking for Possibilities

I'm a bit puzzled when people ask me how I feel about global warming. People have a lot of energy, a lot of charge about being on one side of the issue or the other. I haven't been able to find myself on that polarized spectrum. Which isn't to say that there isn't an issue worthy of exploration. How about it if we talk about solutions, possibilities instead of who's right or wrong on the issue.

Let's look more at the creative solutions, the possibilities. That's what appeals to me in situation slike this. I'm not interested in positions that ring of doom and gloom or the destruction of the world as we know it. Let's instead unite our create capacities to find unique and exciting solutions to the problems that face us. Let's find ways to bring those solutions to market.

Let's take for example the Tesla, the 100% electric car that can go from 0-60 in 4 seconds and can drive 200 miles on one charge. Now, that's great ingenuity. At the moment there have only been 100 Tesla's produced - and yes, at a steep price, $100,000 (okay, I'm exaggerating, it's really $98,950.) But the company is committed to finding a way to bring the same technology to a more moderately priced car. What's intriguing is that if they can do this for an expensive car, and if there's demand, there will be moderately priced cars out there soon, running only on electricity.

Or, let's look at what's been going on the the International Development Design Summit at MIT. This group is a collection of 50 students, teachers, and community partners who are looking for solutions for some of the world's poorest people. It's quite moving to see what they're coming up with. One solution is a transparent plastic backpack that uses the sun's heat and ultraviolet rays to disinfect the water inside the backpack. This allows the water to be carried much more easily than in a heavy pot on your head as many women in poor rural regions do. In addition to having to carry such weight over often long distances, the United Nations says that almost one-fifth of the worlds population doesn't have access to safe drinking water. This little gadget would disinfects the water on the way home. All for $5. How ingenious is that!

And then there's the charcoal briquettes made from sugar cane refuse intended to provide fuel for the poor in Haiti. These were created by Amy Smith, a MacArthur Fellowship "genius" award winner who wanted to find alternative fuel sources to help alleviate Haiti's deforestation and lack of afforable fuel. She was also concerned with how existing charcoals create respiratory problems. The solution: these sugar cane refuse briquettes. I love that they're made from "refuse" the throw away parts of another product - sugar cane.

Finding out about solutions like these give me a sense of hope, excite me with possibility, stimulate the creative ideas of what else can be. There is an antidote to hopelessness. It lies in looking for possibilities in the midst of what looks dark and empty. It lies in believing in what's next. There's always something else emerging.

Coming Home to Yourself

You believe in something, don’t you?” clients have asked me over the years. I do, it’s true. Even though there are times, like this past week, when I can spin into a crisis of doubt and confusion about what I do believe in. I do believe in goodness, that the world is basically veers toward kindness, that we can change and grow and become more loving. I believe that compassion can encompass all. And yet, like this past week, I cycle into criticizing myself for being so simplistic and overly hopeful, and can’t I see how much pain and suffering there is. I have a part that will soundly rail at me saying, "Who do you think you are…..." After years of living intimately with these parts, I know how easily theses parts can hijacked me into pain. disgust, hurt, or betrayal. More and more, though, I hear an instinctive response of compassion rising to meet those parts. I was actually startled to see myself responding so seemingly effortless to myself with a soft note of compassion. First there was surprise, and then a sinking into the compassion, an opening in my heart, and a relief. Absolute relief. Maybe, I marveled, compassion and kindness is becoming a habit. That kind of habit is what I want more of. Thich Nhat Han says that meditation is really a process of coming home to yourself. Interpreting that psychologically, when our parts relax and give us some internal room, we’re left with our true nature. Our true nature, many of the great spiritual teachers say, is one of quiet, confidence, kindness, clarity, softness, and compassion. One of my clients said it so beautifully today. We were talking about some of Thich Nhat Han's teachings. She said she realized that when Thich Nhat Han says “I am the flower” he isn't separate from that essence. She said, laughingly, that when she sits to imagine the flower, she has to conjure up the image and then become the flower. How nice, she imagined, to arrive at a state inside when she would know that she simply was essence, instead of having to work so hard to become it. I couldn't agree more.

Courageous Moments

For some reason this morning I told a client the story of my mother’s passing. On reflection, it was because this woman had been struggling for twenty years to accept a devastating experience in her life. She hadn’t accepted it twenty years ago and still couldn’t come to terms with it, all these years later. She hated what it had done to her life.

During our conversation, I flashed to my mother’s passing three years ago and decided to tell my client the story. My mother had had a massive heart attack and had lost half her heart. Unable to breathe on her own, she was put on a respirator while we waited for the rest of the family to arrive. My dad wanted to make the decision with all five kids there. So we waited in that limbo space with her, with him, with all of us. When we were all there my dad gave the order to have the tube removed. It took some time for my mother to regain consciousness. When she did, she looked around, blinking, and with a scratchy voice asked, “What happened?”

That moment will live as the defining courageous and humble moment of my life. My dad, my Irish Catholic, not very talkative dad, looked at my mother and spoke without embellishment or elaboration. The clarity defined the moment. “Dorothy, you’re dying.” He let the words hang in the air. I felt myself explode into the grandness of the moment. The immense reality had been spoken. There was no dissonance there.

My mother, trying to grasp it, spoke the question back, “I’m dying?” “Yes, Dorothy, you’re dying. You had a heart attack and you won’t recover.” No “ifs,” “buts,” or any confusion. There it was. The reality of the moment. My father opened us to reality and allowed us to enter this sacred journey with my mother as she left her body.

The story led my client and me into a larger question: How often do we let ourselves be with reality as it is? Mostly we seem to want to change it, alter it, shift it, bargain with it. What courage it takes to be with it. Soften into it. Allow it to be there, talk to us, communicate with us and alter us. My client thanked me for the story. I thanked myself actually. The memory always alters me. The inquiry invites me into quiet reflection. Mostly I thank my father for the courage of his being.

The Mermaid Chair

“I felt amazed at the choosing one had to do, over and over, a million times daily – choosing love, then choosing it again, how loving and being in love could be so different.”

It is as though life is about making those small, moment to moment choices to love to step into that dance. Sue Monk Kidd wrote her novel, The Mermaid Chair about a woman Jessie who travels into her life to re-find what the love that is precious to her. Along the way Jessie dives deeply into herself and begins to dance again, stepping into the dance of the divine running rampant.

“Sometimes I experience God like this Beautiful Nothing…and it seems then as though the whole point of life is just to rest in it. To contemplate it and love it and eventually disappear into it. And then other times it’s just the opposite. God feels like a presence that engorges everything. I come out here, and it seems the divine is running rampant. That the marsh, the whole of Creation, is some dance God is doing, and we’re meant to step into it, that’s all.”

On"Mattering" and Being Aligned

Not being much of a celebrity watcher I had never seen Reese Witherspoon do much until she accepted her Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as June Carter in the movie, Walk The Line. After watching the Academy Awards (which I love since I love seeing people being acknowledged, more than I care about the films) I heard that she was commanding the highest fee (supposedly $29 million) for women in film, equaling that of the top men. In her speech that night, Reese spoke of her parents, "I am so blessed to have my family here tonight. My mother and my father are here. And I just want to say thank you so much for everything, for being so proud of me. It didn't matter if I was making my bed or making a movie. They never hesitated to say how proud they were of me. And that means so very much to a child."

Imagine having someone proud of you for every little thing you did. It's easy to be proud of someone for getting an award or doing something that is obviously successful. It's much harder to remember to be proud of others, or ourselves, for the simple things, like making your bed. I reflect on the lives of most of my clients. They haven't had the experience of someone being consistently proud of them for the big things, let along the little things.

Watching Reese accept her award that night, I could see the "energetic" difference that made in her. She held herself with a certain clarity that was solid and yet clean. Knowing she has a "good" image in the press, I could see why. She looks like someone who doesn't attract "icky" stuff. She seems to radiate goodness and ease and a certain comfort level.

Reese also spoke of the impact her grandmother had on her, "My grandmother was one of the biggest inspirations in my life. She taught me how to be a real woman to have strength and self respect, and to never give those things away. And those are a lot of qualities I saw in June Carter. People used to ask June how she was doing, and she used to say -- "I'm just trying to matter." And I know what she means. You know, I'm just trying to matter, and live a good life and make work that means something to somebody."

How simple that statement is, "I'm just trying to matter." Seeing that desire to matter in Reese combined with the internal, psychological platform of growing up knowing what she does matters to others (like making her bed!) shows up in her energetic alignment. What was/is, so striking is how she has that sense of being completely aligned inside. All the internal pieces line up (hence her ability to command a terrific fee for each movie). The inside lines up with the external reality.

It's so much easier to have that kind of alignment when you had a childhood that laid those positive pieces down. But not having it earlier on doesn't mean we can't have it now! Reese gave us in her speech keys to doing it for ourselves: having our lives matter and being proud of every little thing we do. Sometimes the teachings come in interesting ways!

Finding New Thoughts?

It’s hard to find something to be uplifted about when our minds have been bogged down with negativity for a long time. I saw that this morning as I watched a client this morning come in feeling lousy, heavy, despondant. Having centered myself before she came I wanted some shift to occur and was willing to wait patiently for the opening to support the shift in happening. We explored the anger and hatred that fills her like the tree roots spread deep through her system. Feeling like that how could she change she asked? We tried some techniques to support her shift, especially Internal Family Systems. That worked a little bit.

And then we fell to talking. She expressed how she couldn’t even imagine feeling good each day. She hasn’t felt like that in 20 years. I challenged that thought, after all I knew there were tiny, overlooked moments in every day where she had a laugh or felt a tiny bit better. I told her it only takes seconds built on other seconds for each moment to shift. She had seen the movie, What the Bleep? and loved it. I thought it a handy moment to remind her about Candace Pert’s work and how these little synapse get reinforced with each thought that we have. Each thought builds on the other, sending neurons firing in one direction. The more we repeat the thought the more habituated the synapse are. That path is so familiar and easy. The thoughts come without thinking.

Finding new thoughts can feel more difficult. Thinking about the work of Abraham I suggested we take 20 seconds to feel good. Just 20 seconds. No big deal, I’d help her I told her. I asked her what happens in her body when she imagined her son seeing her feeling good and doing better in life. Relief she says. How’s that feel in your body? Better. Let’s think of other thoughts to help you move in that direction. For the next minute we sat there and felt the relief and the ease and how good it would feel if he saw her that way. Happened easily and effortlessly. Only 60 seconds. Sounds like a miniscule amount of time, but you know, we all know, that when we are feeling bad, shifting those thoughts is not the easiest thing to do.

It’s really the razor’s edge. Shifting our thoughts. Bob Proctor has an excerpt on his website called the Razor’s Edge. He reminds us that there’s can sometimes be not much difference between one person and the other. Often it’s just those little thoughts that over time tip in one direction or the other.

Thinking about that my client told me that she and her son like to watch American Idol. I had actually caught 20 minutes of the show last night so I could be somewhat intelligent about it. They love watching it and seeing what makes the difference between one kid that wins and one that gets told it’s the end of the road. I asked her if she remembered the kid on the show, Kevin Covais, the one that looks nerdy, with the really short, stubby hair and glasses. Ah, yes! She lights up. Her son loves him. Feels that kids is the underdog and identifies with him. I asked her how a kid like that could have such good energy. Right away she’s nodding. She knows exactly what I mean. This kid wouldn’t be on the show without whatever light he has inside him. He feels like such a good kid. Makes you just want to love him.

She got it. I asked her how she felt inside. Relaxed, happy, pleased. Not like she came in. It’s not anything I did. She did it. All she had to do was remember what makes her feel good and expound on it. Second upon second, minute after minute, until it becomre more of a habit than the anger and pain she’s been living with.

She left smiling. Feeling inspired. Gotta say, I did too.
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Belonging

One of my clients spoke of it today. Was it just that I was listening for it? I’d been thinking about it for weeks now. Is that why the topic showed up? Or is it just that much more present in the world than I had thought? She spoke of needing to find something to belong to. Having been unemployed for well over a year now she no longer wanted to belong to that world, she wanted to work, to find her beloningness in another realm. It’s not, as she said to me, that she doesn’t belong to her partner, her mother, her family, but she wanted more. She wanted more.

I thought once again of a conversation I had had many years ago with the poet David Whyte. We were talking about my work with trauma survivors. He pointed out that everyone belongs to something, even if it’s their depression, their rage, their commitment that nothing good happens to them. David gave me a gift that day. In pointing out that we all belong to something, the psychic itch to support people to belong in more empowering ways began.

“….this is where I want
to love all the things
it has taken me so long
to learn to love.”

David Whyte wrote those lines in a poem, The House of Belonging. It speaks of the necessary shift to love the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. How often I hear clients long for this life they haven’t yet learned to live. It’s just as often that I hear clients, and myself, riveted to their stories of what isn’t there, what isn’t working, and why it can’t, and won’t, work in the future.

What does it take to learn to love, to belong to something more meaningful?

Over the years, as I listen to clients and hear their profound longing, I marvel at our world which has us live so disconnected from the energy of life that springs unbidden. I watch as people struggle to let go of what they’re supposed to do, who they are supposed to be, to slowly grasp for the energy inside that bubbles and bursts with joy and well being.

Why is it so hard to listen to that well-spring? Why do we struggle to follow it? That is a thread to follow for another day. Today, I write of belonging, of knowing the gentle letting go that comes from holding a baby or an animal, feeling it’s breath going in, and out, and in, and out. Today I want to remember the feeling of my nervous system letting go, one synapse at a time. I want to remember and relax into the groundswell of wisdom that arises in those precious moments of letting go and opening to something new.

“…. Now their loneliness
feels familiar, one small thing
I’ve learned all these years,

how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness,
how to be found by the world.”
-- David Whyte Ten Years Later

Life as a Guru

There are moments when life has a will of its own. Those are not the moments I love when they happen. They are, however, the moments that have marked my ongoing evolution. I’m grateful for the years of ashram life that invited me to see everything, and everyone, as a potential teacher. Not always easy when the event, as Rumi wrote, is “a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture.”

I recently had one of those moments. You know, those moments, that last longer than the chronological experience. I shan’t describe it in detail. Its not an event in which I look the hero. I wasn’t at my best. I spent some time struggling to meet that experience in the way Rumi suggests, “treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.”

Those are the ancient teachings of yoga. Rumi continues, “The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.” Therein lies the heart of yoga. Whoever, whatever, is the teacher, the guide, the key to transformation.

Well, as I said, those are hard concepts to keep in place when you’re seeing the worst in yourself. I’m relieved to read Rumi’s humanness, to hear that he knows and writes about the darker side of life, “the dark thought, the shame, the malice.” I know them well. They have visited me on more than one occasion.

Having a spiritual life or framework makes it easier for me to bear the dark underbelly of life. Perhaps the cynics are right, spirituality is a panacea. They may be right, but living life where the shitty things are guides to transformation makes it easier for me to bear the heavy ache of my heart when my darker demons emerge. It helps me soften the edge of defensiveness, of protectiveness that I imagine keeps me safe.

My beloved David told me recently that I am a porcupine. Reflecting on that I know the prickly truth. Deepening into those words I felt the flood of compassion that comes from bearing the vulnerability of life. I’m prickly not to hurt others out there from whom the perceived threat comes, but to protect the soft, tender core that still believes there is no love to come her way. In terms of the Internal Family Systems model, that is clearly an exile, a part that has been cordoned off to protect it from harm.

And as I meet this part, perhaps not quite yet laughing as Rumi suggests, but meet it with compassion and tenderness, I find the way through the dark underbelly of life. This is why this experience has come: to invite me beyond the pricklyness of my defended life into a life more rich in love. Softening into life instead of defending against it gives me the possibility of living with my heart steady in the midst of the “crowd of sorrows ready to sweep my house empty of all its furnishings.” Now I can be ready to embrace the events in a wholly different way.

Here's Rumi's poem

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes with an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes
because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Trauma Conference 2005

Writing for this blog has been a learning experience. I’m always aware of the internal threshold I have to cross in order to write something, express something from my heart. There are some old fears about being seen, yes. But there’s also this internal desire to shift my working vocabulary from old patterns of Irish Catholic sarcasm and fear to the steady perspective of seeing the best in others. I don’t know if it’s true for others, but it's a discipline, a real spiritual practice.

This reflection arose as a few people mentioned to me that they noticed I hadn’t been posting anything. How gratifying that people notice. There are parts of me that are surprised that people take the time to seek this blog out.

One of the reasons I haven’t been posting to this blog is that I was co-presenting a workshop at Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Conference and had some work to do to get ready for it. I’ve been to innumerable conferences throughout the world over the years, but this one affected me in ways conferences don’t. As with most of the conferences, Bessel had a number of people from the “hard” sciences, meaning not the touchy-feely ones that psychotherapy can be a part of. What affected me so much was that these very rigorous scientists spoke from their hearts while they were talking about research studies and neurobiology. Steve Suomi talked about his work with rhesus monkeys and what they are learning about attachment. They’re even exploring the genetic component that might be there between individual monkeys and their inability to fit into monkey society. He spoke very fast for well over an hour and a half, and I sat there enthralled. I can honestly say that doesn’t happen much at conferences!

Alexander (Sandy) McFarlane was another one. Brilliant man and terrific poetic speaker. He wove together the arts and the study of trauma. Again, another chance to sit there for an hour, present and listening while he presented research graphs and described the effect of trauma on a person. He presented studies that showed the delicate interaction of cognition and trauma. There are those with trauma who can’t pull on their cognition as those who haven’t been traumatized. They can be flooded with stimuli and unable to sort out the irrelevant with the necessary. I’m sure I was listening not just to help my clients but to map it onto my own experience.

We also had a talk from David Servan-Schreiber the author of a run-away bestseller in Europe, The Instinct to Heal. The title says it all, the body has an organic instinct to heal itself if we listen to the body, integrate the body and mind, generate more calm and relaxation than not. I bought the book, of course, and am enjoying the read.

The everyday clinical experience was presented by Janina Fisher, who gives wonderful support to the day to day treatment of trauma. Her easy, thoroughly accepting manner calmed us all and reminded us to enjoy the roller coaster ride that is trauma treatment.

We watched the videos Karlyn Lyons-Ruth presented from their attachment research. The most painful was seeing what happens to babies who are ignored by their caretaker. Heartbreaking……

One of the most personally striking impressions for me after the conference was how differently I listen and pay attention when someone is talking from their heart, from their enthusiasm than if they are divorced from their experience. I stopped going to some conferences because the scientists just talk and I sit out there listening and inevitably clicking off inside. I try to return to the talk, try to bring my focus back, but I inevitably wander off again. Yet, here, where people were alive with their work, I can no problem focusing and attending.

The result of the conference was returning me to me. What opens my heart? What thrills me? And how do I continue to learn to speak from that. The last four months I have had to pull back from the busyness of life, of my practice, of teaching and traveling. I want to more balance so that I can genuinely link together my love of life, the work that I do, and my desire to generate more love with others. What could be better than that?

The Quilters of Gee's Bend

What is it like to be dormant for your whole life, in poverty, with no access to a larger life, and no hope of anything more occurring? What is it like to live like this for years and then have the world come to your door, wanting what your heart and soul created during those dormant years? What is it like to suddenly be noticed and be paid large sums of money for doing the simple things you’ve always done: keeping your kids warm and warming your own heart with the creation of colors and shape into form? What is it like to go from quilting in Gee’s Bend, Alabama to having articles written about you in The New York Times and having your quilts shown in The Whitney Museum and soon at the MFA in Boston? This journey of women, descendants of slaves, who live in a in a small town whose poverty sounds like the kind those of us brought up in a gentler world run away from was written up in The Boston Globe on Sunday. Their story is not my story, and yet it resonated with my story, or maybe the universal story of being hidden, lost, unseen and then the mythic coming visible, becoming known. What is it that allows that to happen? How do we journey from that kind of dark, insular world to one in which the world is large, bountiful, and gracious? What transformations are necessary inside in order to allow that kind of opening? Reading the story I read my heart's hope that life does allow for miraculous unfolding. But why? Why for some and not for others? What creates the space for the dynamic intersection of individual desires and global generosity? And do we have to live for generations in the dark before the world opens its doors? Or, is Kafka right when he wrote, You don't need to do anything. Remain seated at your table and listen. You don't even need to listen, just wait. You don't even need to wait, become still, quiet and solitary And the world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Ashes and Snow Exhibit

Gregory Colbert is exhibiting his extraordinary Ashes and Snow show at the Nomadic Museum in New York. The exhibit is housed in this nondescript building on the West Side piers. From the outside it’s nothing. On the inside, it’s like a minimalist cathedral. Sublime photos of people and animals line the aisle while a video beacons you from the front.

The photos are entrancing. The juxtaposition of animal and human and the sensitive interplay between them is beguiling. Most of the humans in the photos have their eyes closed inviting me into a shared meditation. Their stillness reminds me to surrender. Contentment swelled inside me as I saw the bodies relaxing as they were nestled against the elephants or the whales.

The video installation played while Colbert read from his letters. At one point his words wrapped around my heart and opened it. “My heart is like a book that hasn’t been opened in a very long time.”

I’m surprised at the general state of shut down I’ve lived in as I focused on my profession. How did that happen? How did I live with my heart open to such a little degree? The journey I am on in writing this blog is an exploration of coming from an open heart regardless of the situation. As I make that the focus of my inquiry I see how often, and how easily, the door to my heart narrows every more. Without tending, it closes like those pneumatic hinges that close softly behind me.

I'm grateful for the shift in my focus, away from the hurly burly of life into a grander inquiry. Moments like these during the Ashes and Snow exhibit I appreciate those like Gregory Colbert that take their time to invite me into a tender embrace of life.

Let Me Meet You Somewhere Today

Today I met with a nun (I'll call her L) who told me how she starts every day. Before her feet touch the ground she says a statement, "Lord, let me meet you somewhere today." Then she told me some stories of how, and who she met during the day. People who felt loved by being with her, without her needing to do anything. The quality of her care communicated everything. I felt it in the moment of her telling me as well. Tears sprang to my eyes and fell. How lovely. What a wonderful way to prepave the day, let me meet you somewhere today.

I'm struck by the simple expectation that I will meet you today. Not the presenting part of you, not the social part that knows how to interact in the necessary necessities of every day, but the You, the part of you that is connected to God, to Love, to Source energy. Whatever word we use to call upon that -- how that opens my heart and prepares me to meet the best in you. It's as though those words call forth the best in you.

Recently the Boston Globe ran an article about Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the spiritual teacher of Shambala who ran the Boston Marathon this past month. The article caught my eye. I was curious about a Tibetan lama running, getting sweaty and out of breath. It seems like an oxymoron. The running part of the article was interesting, but a quote intrigued me more. "Every human being is born with basic goodness, a quality inherent even in unpleasant individuals."

Part of my need (?) to write this blog was to reconnect to that awareness, that each and every one of us is basically good. It seems like I've been through a period of negativity, being more critical than I like to be. I found a bitterness in me that was beginning to gnaw on my heart. Hearing these words from this nun full of Love and then reading the article of the Rinpoche reminded me, redirected me to where I want to go.

Rinpoche continued in the article, 'An example is the sky," he said. "It's always blue but there can be clouds. Sometimes you think you're a cloud, but in reality, you're the sky. Through meditation, you can stabilize the mind and not be so carried away by your thoughts. What you do in life allows you to bring that basic goodness out."

How simple, and yet so complicated it is to shift from those cut off states back to a place of love, back to a state where the basic goodness naturally arises.

And how wonderful for me, that I met the presence of Love today through the gift of L. May I live in that expectation every day.

Inherent Goodness

Recently the Boston Globe ran an article about Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, the spiritual teacher of Shambala who ran the Boston Marathon this past month. The article caught my eye. I was curious about a Tibetan lama running, getting sweaty and out of breath. It seems like an oxymoron. The running part of the article was interesting, but this quote intrigued me more. "Every human being is born with basic goodness, a quality inherent even in unpleasant individuals. 'An example is the sky," he said. "It's always blue but there can be clouds. Sometimes you think you're a cloud, but in reality, you're the sky. Through meditation, you can stabilize the mind and not be so carried away by your thoughts. What you do in life allows you to bring that basic goodness out."

Ahh, that's what I like, reading things like this. And yet, I know the shifting I have to do inside in order to keep my mind stablized over time and to see the basic goodness in others.

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Creating Space for Uplifting Support

It's really all because of my friend Dakota Feinstein that this blog has been invented. She opened up avenues of thought I hadn't ever considered. She started a blog and has been running it for, gosh, has it really been years? It's wonderful. Her wit, insight, courage, and writing style makes visiting it a must-do. She gave me a wonderful means to do something I had thought about for a while.

I imagined creating an environment for myself and others that is about a joyous celebration of life - of love - even when we want to close our hearts, shut down, be self-righteous, defensive, critical. What if there was a space where all those aspects of ourself were acknowledged, appreciated, but where we are seen as more than that. A space where we are reminded of who we really want to be, who we really are, underneath all our defenses. I know after 28 years of spiritual practices and close to that many years of psychotherapy, that being human is glorious, that the pursuit of freedom and enlightenment is not just about sitting quietly and seeing the divine. Being fully alive is about knowing all those icky parts of us while also knowing we are more than that. This blog is to celebrate all that uplifts us and gives us joy while being with the ordinary events of life. It's to serve as a reminder for me when I forget.....

I wanted to create a space where we could remind ourselves that underneath all our stubborn upsets we are actually loving, caring, positive, joyful people. I thought it would be grand to come to a space where we could encourage and nurture the positive directions and experiences we want to have. In the past couple years I realized that all the negative media, all the critical and judgemental people, all our fears that life will contract and all the good things will go away, all of those things will always be there. I wanted a space that was dedicated to inspiring and reminding myself, and hopefully others, that life is ever expanding with love, that it's safe to live with an open heart, and that when I live that life more fully, I am happier and more joyful. I want to live in this moment, open to the thrills of the mediocre existence, and in that find the love that connects me to everything.