Link to the Eternal

For over 35 years I have noticed a stress pattern in my life. Every April and every October, for some reason, I feel more stressed than my daily life could explain. I used to call it 'my six-month-meltdown.' But after a while I realized it happens right when the seasons are changing. Just like squirrels rush to put away as many seeds as they can, just as mice rush to fluff their nests, I feel the urge to put things right, and so do the people around me. We're mammals, too. Yet even when I work with this change of season, some years I get stuck in a bit of a funk.

I found myself looking for something to watch on Netflix the other night. It took a while to choose. I tried something from 'my list' and watched for 5 minutes. Nope. And another. Nope. And another. Nope. You've got to understand that Netflix is fairly new to me. I live out in the sticks where internet has been slow and expensive; when I got Netflix I was like a like a kid stepping into an ice-cream parlour for the very first time. So what was this impatience with everything on offer?

Finally, I tuned to The Time Travellers Wife, an old favourite. I relaxed and let the time travel stuff be fun and interesting, let the love story be sweet. But it wasn't until Alba showed up that I realized she was what I needed the most. Alba was a kind, impossible being who reassured everyone - she was a link to the future, a link to the eternal. That was what I needed to break my funk - an impossible, reassuring voice that reaffirmed my faith and own connection with the Divine.

Who knew watching TV could link me to the eternal?

How Things are Phrased

Language is meaningful to me. How things are phrased, subtle nuance can have so much bearing on my emotional patterns as well as thinking patterns, it’s always nice when I suddenly see a new way of thinking about something, a new way of phrasing it, so that the results are kinder to everyone, yet still true.

“He may not care about this,” (or my feelings) may be accurate, but the way it is phrased seems to say more about the caring or not-caring part. It affects my feelings. Instead I can choose “He doesn’t think that way.” This states the facts in such a way that it doesn’t have to lead to emotional conflict or hurt feelings.

A simple change of phrase can change the whole mental, and then emotional landscape.

When an observation becomes personal, it slips into judgement.

Here's another: "I don't eat sugar" is different than "I can't eat sugar." The former implies that I'm on board with the choice. That latter suggests its's something imposed on me from outside against my will. When I consider a choice freely made, I don't fight it as much.

First published October 2017 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Wrong Foot

It's Autumn. The mornings have been staying darker longer and I often get up before the sun. So recently I've been reading the news - pages I enjoy, news sites I trust and so on before going out to my prayers in the trees. But the last few days when I was reading, I noticed I was getting angry. And this mental activity made it harder for me to settle into prayer/meditation later on.

It struck me that timing may be everything. News sites, magazines, blogs and other interesting stuff on the net are pretty much all about people influencing me from the outside - some lighthearted, some not as much. As long as I am letting it capture my interest, I become a receptacle for it all. It's all a lovely distraction, but as long as I am letting the voices of others' opinions inform my day, I'm starting off on the wrong foot.

To start on the right foot, I realized I'd be better to start my day with prayer or meditation or yoga - something that brings me into the moment and connects me with the eternal. Just stepping outside first thing, even in the dark, and feeling the breeze on my cheeks and the breath in my belly connects me to the flow of life. It gives me the inner resources to meet the day in a more cheerful and optimistic frame of mind. Later in the day when I go to read the news or check in on the sites I enjoy, I'll have a better inner landscape with which to handle the clickbait and ads and opinions that dominate the online world. I wont be quite so caught up in the drama or captured by the allure of shiny things - not so out of step with life.

So this morning, I started on the right foot. I got up before the sun, turned on a light so I could see what I was doing and did my prayers outside on the front deck in the still, quiet air of early morning.

First published October 2017 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

The Chicken or the Egg?

For years, a man feared having a heart attack. He worried often about it in his daily life. When he did eventually have one, was he foretelling his future? Or did all the energy he spent on the worry about it lean his life more strongly in that direction?

When a teenage girl got an image of her friend falling down the stairs, she emailed me. She'd had a fight with her friend and was so angry she feared she may have caused her friend to fall. She asked me if she made her friend fall, or if this was her natural intuition showing her an upcoming event?

Anyone who has worked with awareness knows our mental landscape and the beliefs we carry affect how our lives unfold. When we dwell on the negative, it makes our outlook more cloudy. When we take time for the joys in life, our outlook becomes more sunny. In a study with children who had tummy aches, researchers had the kids use imagery and imagination to help them feel better and it worked.

Yet, as we work with awareness, we also discover how life tends to nudge us in the best directions for our well-being. Our ability to be open to life's messages and go with that flow can give us a heads-up when we need it. Our intuition opens up. We see stuff we would have otherwise dismissed.

So, which came first, the chicken or the egg? Did the man's concern about his heart bring about the heart attack, or was it a prediction of events to come? Did the teenager's vision predict her friend's fall or did she cause it?

I don't know.

First published September 2017 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Expectations and Assumptions

(With apologies to Tom)

Expectation kicks us in the backside every time.

If I expect Tom to take out the garbage in time for the truck and he doesn't, my expectation isn't met and I get annoyed and then mind kicks in to try to manipulate the circumstances and find a solution to the "Tom not getting the garbage out on time" problem.

It's what many of us automatically do. If something is wrong in our outer world, we try to fix the problem so that outer world matches our expectations. But the real problem isn't whether or not Tom puts out the garbage on time, it's the fact that I don't want to accept that he may not. The real problem is, "I don't want this."

Seeking a solution to the "taking out the garbage" problem rather than the "I don't want this" problem is easier and more comfortable for me. Seeking by itself is a pleasurable activity. Finding resolution feels good. I can let my mind take up the whole thing and make it into an intellectual exercise, see if I can get all my ducks in a row.

But it doesn't solve the real problem, the "I don't want this" problem. That's real world stuff. Emotions. Discomfort. The stuff that's really going on, not the stuff in my head.

The real world stuff is the fact that I may not be able to rely on Tom to put the garbage out on time – regardless of his good intentions, regardless of my good intentions, regardless of my efforts to make it happen.

In the real world, when I have expectations, they are often not met. Life isn’t perfect. Neither are we, we’re just human.

So, then I have to decide if I am willing to live with that less than perfect garbage thing/Tom thing. It’s a tougher choice because it challenges my worldview. It takes a bit more work.

But life doesn’t go more smoothly because it meets our expectations, it goes more smoothly when we drop those expectations.

For me, choosing to turn “I don’t like this,” into “That’s life,” is a much happier choice.


First published August 2013 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Rhyme Time

Healing works best when done with a sense of trust, joy and even playfulness. Years ago I had friends watch the healing energy around me when I was doing a session and they gave me feedback about when it was good and when it seemed to collapse. It was at its best when I maintained a playful, joyful and easy state. Worry, thinking too much, or taking it too seriously all brought the energy down. Sometimes with a thump.

This is not to say healing isn't serious, but it is to recognize and acknowledge that the serious intention and compassion can co-exist with trust, joy and playfulness.

Some days when I do my healing sessions, it's easy to fall into that playful, joyful state. Other days it is harder. So I have a few tricks I use. One is rhyme time.

I take a few breaths to put my attention in the moment, in my body, in the place. I go through my usual steps of paying attention to the temperature of the air and the sounds around me. Then I bring in gratitude. I notice what's around me that I am grateful for. Little things are just as important as the big stuff: This is when I use rhyme time if my mental energy is still a bit too active.

Here's an example:

One July morning, while outdoors, I thought, "Thank you for the summer breezes." Hey, I'm a summer girl, what can I say?

Then I asked myself what else do I feel grateful for - something that rhymes with breezes? Trees (sort of.) "Thank you for the treezes," a silly thought that lightened things right up.

Then I wondered what else rhymes? "Thank you for the sneezes." I love that rush/goosebump feeling after a good sneeze.

Then I'm good to go. A little silly goes a long way. It's from that place that I move best into prayers and healing.

First published August 2017 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.

Being Patient With Myself

I saw a pic the other day that was timely. Two men stood quietly and patiently above an upset toddler in a shop. One is the father of the little girl, and the other the father of the father. The two of them were smiling lovingly at her, waiting her out - supporting her without needing to change anything. The dad said, "My dad always let me feel what I needed to feel, even if it was in public and embarrassing. I don't remember him ever saying "You're embarrassing me!" or "Dont cry!" It wasn't until recently that I realized how paramount that was for my own emotional development. Our children are learning and processing so much information and they don't know what to do with all of these new feelings that come up. I try to remember to make sure my daughter knows it's OK that she feels deeply."

It was timely because I'd just made up a new card for my Joyful Intentions: "Today I will be patient with myself," and it came up that day in my own Sunny Day reading. I stopped when I read it and thought about these two patient men. My efforts to stick with a healthy eating regime had been failing in the week or two before and I was feeling stressed and helpless about it. The card reminded me that despite my best efforts, life tends to cycle. I am more helpless at times than I like. Just like a crying child, I need patient support at times like these - support without a need for anything to be different.

I recall being patient with my own daughter when she was a toddler. It may have seemed easier for me to support her than it is to support myself. After all she was just a kid. I tend to expect more from myself. Yet before I can fully be patient with others, I may have to admit my own humanity. I may have to believe it's okay for me to feel helpless that I can't seem to stick with the program. It's okay to feel embarrassed when I put my foot in my mouth, or when I fail to hear what someone is saying. It's okay for me to feel afraid or overwhelmed or sad or disappointed.

Just like the toddler, I'm just a human being, being human. There are forces greater than me at work. When I can accept this and drop the struggle, I can accept my failures without feeling defeated and my successes without feeling triumphant. Without the added weight of self-impatience, I have more room to to catch my breath, to catch up with the cycles I'm in, and work with rather than against, that flow of energy. Some inner tension uncoils. The pressure eases.

Being patient with myself is a way to support who I am without needing myself or my life to be different.

The timely pic was here.

First published July 2017 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.