Meditation Can Get Murky

Today I got affirmation of a suspicion. Times that I delved more deeply into spirituality resulted in greater challenges rather than greater peace. After experiencing this twice I started to wonder if it is just part of the process.

While listening to Marianne Williamson’s The Gift of Change on CD this morning she talked about the power of meditation to give us answers we never considered, peace we never knew existed, and perspective we never thought possible. She used the analogy of putting a dirty dish into soapy water and letting it soak. Encrusted food starts to soften then eventually rises off the dish. With meditation we let our spirits and minds soak in the presence of god. Marianne went on to say that sometimes in the process of soaking the dish the water gets murky as the dish is getting clean and the same thing can be expected with meditation. Sometimes when we wash away our ego and preconditioned ideas in meditation we may go through a murky, unexpected phase. We may not like it and it may be uncomfortable, but it is part of the transformation.

Accepting All Faiths

A friend who is born again Christian told me last week that I would never experience true joy and peace unless I really found Jesus. I heard a Buddhist once say that only Buddhists are truly good people (some years later the Buddhist found fault in that perspective and recanted).

I have trouble with people who are self-righteous in their spiritual beliefs, those people who hold that only their viewpoint is right and all others are inferior. The truth is I have at times felt that way about my practice. It is easy to get defensive about one’s faith, but I see there is no point. Today I try to accept that everyone has their own path to god and their path need not threaten my path. And no path is any better in the universe than any other. In the end, all that matters is what works for the individual. My spiritual challenge is to be accepting and loving of all.

Changing Paths

For the last twelve years of my spiritual practice and even in posts below I have prayed, “God, I know you have a path for me and on that path all things will work out for the best, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.” I’m finding this prayer is no longer accurate.

Through meditation, spiritual readings, and readings about quantum physics I’m seeing that we can change our paths. Quantum physics proves that beyond the visible world everything exists with an infinite potential. That is, nothing is determined until it is observed and prior to being observed, any given situation can resolve in an infinite number of ways. Because we tend to be preconditioned to expect (observe) a certain outcome as a result of specific action, we create a self-fulfilling prophesy that creates the appearance of a logical flow of events. By cleansing ourselves of our preconditioned responses, removing our preconceived ideas, and setting our mind on an intention for our preferred result, that new outcome – despite seeming completely illogical – has the potential to materialize. However, this desired outcome is more likely to materialize if it comes from love rather than ego.

Although this seems like mystic BS, I got a glimpse of it recently. So, I’ve changed the prayer to, “God, I know you are with me and that all things will work out for the best, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.” This gets me out of my linear thinking and shifts it to a greater understanding that reality is actually more dynamic than I can possibly comprehend and if I have faith, then the seemingly impossible can actually come to be.

Using Words with Care

I’ve been talking a lot about judgment and negativity. The manifestation of those ideas is our words, either spoken or thought. Words have a lot of power. If a parent belittles their child daily, the child will have faith in their flaws over their strengths. If a parent praises their child daily, the child will have faith in those words regardless of the difficulties that may be encountered in life.

The words we say or think to ourselves and others have the same impact. If we think we’re worthless, we will believe we’re incompetent. If we think we’re a failure, we will ensure we never achieve success. If we make a seemingly major mistake and beat ourselves up over it daily for weeks after, we those negative words will define who we are.

Many of the gurus say we must love ourselves first before we can love others. They forget to tell us that we should actually say or think those words, “Today I love myself and know I’m a good person.” As much as I hate to feel like the character Stuart Smiley of Saturday Night Live, the fact is that I immediately feel my energy change when I say those words with faith. I don’t have to believe them, I just need to speak them with an open mind. Otherwise, the negative words I speak will form the foundation of my life.

Lately I've been using the wrong words to define myself.

The Field of All Possibilities

In Deepak Chopra’s spiritual law of detachment we are to not be attached to the outcome of events. We can have intentions, desires, and goals, but we need to have faith that all things will work out for the best, even when things aren’t going our way. The idea is to not impose our idea of how things should be. This allows us to “step into the field of all possibilities.”

I may know a lot, but even the wisest human being can only grasp a fraction of all the incredible possibilities that may be achievable in any given situation. By not rigidly holding onto what I think is best, then I can open my mind to outcomes I never considered. In the few times I’ve been able to do this I took actions I never would have considered or even thought possible and the resulting gifts were beyond my wildest fantasies.

This is a good law for me to focus on today because I’ve been very attached to my pre-conceived ideas all week and it has been unpleasant.

Today I Surrender to My Brighter Nature

“Today I surrender to my brighter nature.”

--Marianne Williamson quoting Uma Thurman (whose father is an ordained Buddhist monk)

Today I am trying to surrender to my brighter, positive nature. My spiritual reaction to not making the job cut has been remarkably negative (even though all those on the list have been rejected in order to reissue the posting for me to get on). My statement yesterday that I’m feeling 96% normal fell later in the day to about the 60-65% range. The idea that best captures what I’m experiencing is a “spiritual illness” that spread through me. This has occurred at others that I’ve delved deeply into spirituality. Despite deeper faith and practice, life seems to get harder and more tumultuous with my spiritual endeavors. The experience is made worse by my expectation that life will get easier.

What has been highlighted for me even further in all of this is my own negativity. I am becoming increasingly aware of how deeply embedded negativity is within me, though I’ve become good at masking it. Another lesson is that while I can come close to accepting what happens in the world around me, I have not been accepting my own feelings and reactions in response to those occurrences. A third lesson is that even though I’ve been trying to practice acceptance, I am not relinquishing my attachment to the outcome of events (a core part of acceptance). In fact, I’ve been surprised to see how attached I become to the outcomes I want. And I don’t let them go easily despite knowing intellectually that it will work out for the best.

I’m confident that the current spiritual challenges are part of a growth process. And sometimes there are growing pains. Regardless, today I surrender to my brighter nature.

The Spiritual Pledge - Here Yesterday, Gone Today

My organization is converting my position as a contractor to a full-time employee. Their purpose in doing so is to hire me specifically. However, this is a big organization where the HR department narrows the field of applicants down to five people without consulting the division with the available position and there are weighting factors outside of my control (like whether or not I’m a veteran). In the end, I didn’t make the list.

I’ve been ambivalent about whether the job is actually right for me, but I plan on taking it should it be offered. I figured I’d turn it over to god’s will as to whether or not I actually get the position. Given the circumstances, the only way I cannot get the position is by divine intervention. I’ve been totally confident that if I didn't get an offer, then it truly wasn't meant to be and I’m meant to do something differently. However, when I got the news my faith immediately disappeared. Plus, my ego kicked in full force with emotions of embarrassment, fear, sadness, and anger. On the upside, I was at least aware in the moment that my reactions were ego-based.

I think I'm about 96% back to normal now, which is good for me because historically I'd be around 65% normal at this point. My biggest issue has been being mad at myself for not practicing emotionally the spirituality that I know intellectually. Also, I see I've been using spirituality to no longer have negative emotions (sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt). This is unrealistic. I think the answer is that I'm still going to experience these uncomfortable human emotions; however, as long as I have "awareness," they don't have to be so drastic or last as long. And there is the simple fact that I just don't like to accept god's will when it feels uncomfortable in the moment (regardless of my faith that everything works out for the best in the end).

I realize I’m being overly hard on myself. (Something else I'm very good at, unfortunately.)

I also realize that I received many gifts from the experience and have seen opportunities to grow. Some of the gifts include: Having “awareness” while receiving seemingly negative news (this is new--normally I would have had a LOT more ego involved), I rebounded much more quickly than I would have otherwise, the “awareness” allowed me to see that none of the good things in my life changed, and I saw the extent to which I’m prone to beat myself up (in this case both in terms of not making the list and not responding with ideal spirituality).

The lessons learned include discovering: I am fragile, even though I can “think” a good game I still need much more practice with the actual game (this is a helpful awakening), I’m tied even more to ego than I realized (hoped), I get very defensive, and I have more work to do on accepting god’s will.

I have a lot more practice to do.

My Spiritual Pledge

Recognizing that awareness is simply choosing to see reality for what it is (i.e., without bias, ego, pre-conditioning, expectations, etc.), I am going to make a choice to live an awakened life. I am making that choice consciously in the form of a pledge.

Today I will:

• Be fully awake in life (not be analyzing each moment or thinking about one thing while doing something else; that is, I’ll be fully present)
• Destroy my ego and ignore the ego in others (my observations and the observations of others are irrelevant – no soul is any better or any more right than any other soul)
• Live life without judgment of myself, others, or situations
• Accept that everything (even things that “I interpret” as scary and uncomfortable) is EXACTLY as it is supposed to be
• Do “no thought” meditation twice a day to slowly cleanse away my pre-conceived ideas and be fully in touch with the inner spirit

Quieting the Ego

I’ve been trying to practice the idea that being fully aware of our current reality is what it means to be “awake” or “enlightened.” Adyashanti says that being awake does not mean we become superheroes, it simply means that we see things for what they are. For me to see things as they are I need to stop my internal dialogue. Meditation is helping me to see that my mind is always processing, judging, and analyzing. I’m always trying to figure out who is better than whom, what is better than what, can things be better, if so how? Meditation and Eastern religions say that all of this is pointless. All it does is put up barriers between us and our spirituality, and us and others. As a Westerner, this goes against everything I know and have strived for all of my life. I thought the point of it all was to gain knowledge so I can figure out the right answer. It is impossible to conceive that we can get the truest “right answer” and do so more quickly by not trying to find it. By not trying to find solutions, by stopping the internal dialogue, there is enough silence for the right answer to be heard.

This changes everything. I’m resistant. How odd to be resistant to something that is better, easier, and more joyful? My ego wants me to believe that only my mind can find the real truth, the real truth for me. Perhaps I talk to other people and read some books, and if my ego wants to give me a sense that I’m “turning things over” it allows me to say a prayer to ask for guidance, then the ego goes back to work. In the end I want to be able to say, “Look at what I did.”

Many years ago I was interning for a Member of Congress writing responses to constituent letters. Everything was tracked and recorded very carefully, so when I accidentally misplaced a constituent letter and could not find it I became very nervous about the repercussions. Being a relatively honest person I told the Legislative Assistant (LA) I was helping what happened, ready to suffer the consequences. Her response was bewildering, “Stop looking for it and the letter will turn-up.” I knew the letter was lost, I looked absolutely everywhere for it, and thought of every possible place it could be. I wrote the LA off as mildly whacko and went about my work at peace knowing I had come clean. Not a half hour into my work did I notice in clear view on my desk was the letter I had lost. My sense at the time was that I just witnessed magic because I looked in that spot previously. However, once my ego was off the project, the great potentiality of the universe was able to intervene and take care of me. Even though I’ve had many similar experiences (too involved for a blog), I (my ego) still resist not trying to force solutions. My current spiritual challenge is quieting the ego.

Already (T)here

When people say, “You are exactly where you’re supposed to be,” I always assumed they meant I arrived at the station just as the train journey of my life was departing for my preferred destination. I’m on the right train, heading in the correct direction, and though I’d rather the train be some time ahead of schedule, things are progressing as they should. And perhaps in once sense this is accurate.

However, it could also mean that I already arrived at my destination. I can stop wondering whether or not I’m going to miss the next train because there is no further travel required. Perhaps I’m where I’m “supposed to be” because this is actually my stop. All trains simply loop back to this same station, so don’t bother hopping on board any other trains. End the journey, I’m already here. Just enjoy.

Awakening Unmasked

Wednesday night my wife and I attended a meditation class where the speaker, Adyashanti discussed awareness and awakening. His words shook me with fear. He said that when we achieve awakening we finally see that which has been with us all along. There is no great epiphany--it is merely a seeing of what is obvious. We don’t become transformed--we just finally see that we’ve always been.

The analogy Adyashanti used is someone using prayer and meditation to find their feet, “God, please help me discover my feet.” The person goes on long journeys and has deep discussions to find his feet. Then, when awakening is achieved, he sees his feet had always been right there with him. They never left; they had only been denied.

For the last 36 hours I’ve been keeping an open mind to the idea that I already am the greatest manifestation of my true self. There is no need to look any longer. The difference is that I just need to see myself without judgment, without bias, without ego. So far the freedom of it has been remarkable and powerful, and as you'd expect, in ways that were unexpected.

A Test Case for Practice: Ego & Career

One area in particular where my ego strongly dominates my life is in my career. I’m very concerned about what my job says about me. If it doesn’t convey the right image, then I’m dissatisfied with the job. However, the jobs that say the right thing (or so I think) have been incredibly unfulfilling, even miserable, to date. It is an awful situation. I’m constantly judging myself and I’m making projections about how others must view me. I’m not letting it just be. I’m not trusting in god’s will. Instead I’m manically over-managing my career to the point where I drain myself of useful energy and again wind up feeling unhappy. I’m either unhappy because the job doesn’t meet my ego’s needs or I’m unhappy because the job sucks—I can’t win.

I know what my perspective should be, but I’m scared to put my faith in it (i.e., put my faith in god). The right perspective is to not base my happiness at work on whether or not it fits my ego. I know decisions based on ego are fruitless, yet with the job it is very difficult to let go. I’m scared. I don’t want to be viewed as mediocre (again my ego; further, it is based on materialism rather than the quality of my person).

Every single time that I have put my faith in my higher power the situation has worked out beyond my wildest dreams. Why then am I still so resistant? The “Why?” doesn’t matter. It is a leap of faith that requires me to stop judging. The fact is that my job gives me everything I need except for the ego piece. I need to trust that once I break my ego’s stranglehold on my career one of two things will happen:

1. I will then be free to get the job that is fulfilling on all levels because of my willingness to learn a lesson I’ve been resisting.
   
2. I will discover that I actually really enjoy the job I’m in.

Now comes the work involved with spiritual practice: I will share my fears with friends and family. I will pray to be able to work without ego. I will meditate on the fact that the quality of my true self is not impacted by my career. I will stop judging myself and my job. I will let the negative thoughts pass rather than take hold. I will ask god for help and courage. I will trust.

The Difference Between God's Will and Self Will

A very common question is, “How can I know the difference between god’s will and self-will?” Even people who have been on a spiritual path for some time stumble on this question.

God’s will and self will can be one of the same at times, though aligning the two is a challenge. Before the two are brought together they are defined as follows:
--God’s will is action taken or words spoken with love.
--Self will is action taken or words spoken with ego.

The more we reduce the importance of acting to fulfill our egos and place greater importance on acting with love the closer we come to aligning our will with god’s. However, doing so regularly is a difficult task for all of us. Taking ego-based action creates the appearance that we’re advancing our status and level of prestige. And feeding our ego usually comes quite naturally while also making us feel good. The problem is that the good feeling is short lived so we again must feed our ego to reclaim that same positive feeling. In the end, we are never satisfied, we are never fulfilled.

Basing a life on god’s will allows us achieve the goals our egos desire, but with a foundation that is far less precarious. The path to achievement is more enjoyable and less draining because loving action results in unintended by-products that maintain our success as well as provide us with unexpected rewards. God’s will is a foundation that starts strong and grows stronger with each loving action allowing us to realize dreams we didn’t even know were in us.

Give What We Seek

A powerful aspect of living a spiritual life is that our souls discover truths that sometimes go against the logic of our minds. One such truth is that the fastest way to get what we want emotionally is to first give what we desire to others and to get what we want materially we must help others to get it. By giving what we seek we create goodwill that is eventually returned to us. With this goodwill also comes gifts we perhaps didn't know we wanted.

To help focus our attention on giving what we seek, the following prayer from St. Francis of Assisi can be used as a reminder of "right thoughts" and "right actions."

God, make me an instrument of thy peace,
That where there is hatred, I may bring love,
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness,
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony,
That where there is error, I may bring truth,
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith,
That where there is despair, I may bring hope,
That where there are shadows, I may bring light,
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

God, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted,
To understand than to be understood,
To love than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by the old self dying that one awakens to a new life.

Days We Don't Feel Spiritual

There are days when we simply do not feel spiritual. At such times we must be gentle with ourselves.

Let such moments wash over you and pass without judgment.

To the best of your ability, try to do a little of your spiritual practice - such as prayer, meditation, or treating others well - even if your heart isn’t into it and it is for a fraction of the time you normally dedicate. If you cannot, let that be okay. The soul will continue to serve you even if the mind is holding you back.

One Moron Away from Peace

For years I’ve experienced the benefits aligning my will with god’s will. Life flows more easily, relationships are more enjoyable, and achievements are realized with less effort. Despite this first-hand knowledge of working in harmony with god’s will, I still find it incredibly difficult to give up control.

As a part of my morning prayers I say, “God, I know you have a path for me and on that path the best things will work out, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.” An hour after prayers, I’m in a meeting stressed that weeks of careful work will be derailed by a single moron. My trust in god’s will ends the moment I don’t like what is going on. I don’t believe that everything will work out fine, I don’t have faith that perhaps there is a lesson for me to learn; I just get scared that I’m not going to like the outcome.

My spiritual growth involves daily, sometime hourly, renewal. More specifically, I need regular reminders that there are results possible that far exceed my most creative thinking. All I need to do is to trust, have faith, and be willing to give up control. Sometimes morons are there for a reason.

Benefits of Humility

The spiritual understanding of humility is to see ourselves accurately. We recognize our personal strengths and weaknesses without making them bigger (or smaller) than reality. Humility is about seeing ourselves clearly without the interference of distorted thoughts that falsely build ourselves up or tear ourselves down. This allows us to accept ourselves for who we are freeing our thoughts and actions to focus on pursuing our vocation rather than wasting valuable time trying to protect an image we have created.

Practicing humility is about acting with love. In each situation we ask ourselves, “What is the loving way to make this choice or interact with this person?” When the answer is unclear we quietly ask god for guidance. Perhaps we set-aside the need to take action in that very moment until a path becomes clear.

Practicing humility is about acting without ego. We build awareness that our status and possessions do not reflect our quality as a person. We do not judge others or ourselves relative to others. Humility without ego is about recognizing our shared humanness.

Acting with love is about sowing the seeds of humility. Acting without ego is about trimming the weeds that inhibit the growth of humility. By approaching humility from both directions we remove the barriers that keep us from reaching our full potential.

Renounce the Attachment to Materialism, Keep the Stuff

A spiritual person can harmoniously embrace the materialism of our world while renouncing personal materialism. Keep the nice cars, fancy homes, exotic vacations, and all the other riches to be enjoyed. Just recognize they are merely things that temporarily satisfy the ego, not the spirit.

Material possessions do not bring true joy or contentment to the soul, only passing gratification to the self-image. Attachment to such ego fulfilling symbols leaves us masking our own feelings of emptiness inside.

Grow spiritually by renouncing your attachment to materialism, reach the point where you know in your core that you are the same person - of the same value - with or without material things, and then enjoy them as pretty, comfortable things rather than as solutions.

The Wisdom of Being Flawed

The book entitled, The Spirituality of Imperfection, suggests that people actually relate to one another is through their flaws. This makes a lot of sense to those of us who have found it annoying to be around someone who appears to do everything perfectly. I can feel more normal in my own imperfections when someone tells me how they screwed up or how things didn't work out as they had hoped. In such moments I'm able to talk about my mistakes and regrets without being as guarded. The whole interaction becomes freeing to me and creates a strong bond in the friendship.

The Spirituality of Imperfection is about the wisdom of just allowing ourselves to be human—flaws and all. It is by accepting our humanness that we grow spiritually because we finally recognize that we don’t have to have all of the answers. There is great freedom in not needing to know what is the right action in all situations. We then have the humility to ask for help from others and our higher power, which brings to our attention possibilities we never considered. This humility also makes it easier to not judge others when they ask us for help.

Protecting My Image

I’m becoming aware of how often I attempt to protect my image. I find there's a tremendous amount of energy wasted trying to make sure people's opinions of me are as I want them to be. When I stop defending this perceived image I'm actually far more productive and happy in life. What's odd is that I actually even think I can somehow take certain actions or say certain things to influence a person's view of me. To do so would require me to know what the person is thinking and how they process information the information I give them. Plus, depending upon a person's mood their reaction is always going to be different. It's all a bit insane.

Hear Only What is Said

Yesterday's insight was a great awakening. Suddenly I see how frequently my viewpoint and preconceived ideas influence my interpretation of situations. I read more into circumstances than are really there.

When I ran for office I left meetings with key people thinking that I had their support. Yet when I needed them they weren't there. This left me resentful for a long time after Election Day. When I had been away from the campaign long enough to see my role in it all I realized that those same people actually were there for me to the extent possible. Everything above and beyond that was my own unrealistic expectations. Many times in politics there is subtle ambiguity in conversations leaving people with sufficient room to avoid being locked into a position. And I always interpreted that ambiguity to be slightly more to my advantage than the person had intended. The truth is that I heard what I wanted to hear rather than what was actually said.

In the campaign (and other instances too) I added positive, though unrealistic, expectations to what was said and was let down. In the situation I mentioned yesterday I added a negative perspective to what was said and felt hurt.

Today only hear what is actually spoken without adding bias. This bias is ego. When processing experiences to meet the needs of the ego the result is that we work with inaccurate information and waste a tremendous amount of energy. We can be more productive in achieving our goals when we are free of bias.

Surely I'm Not the Pessimist

This post was going to be about the challenge of dealing with difficult people. Specifically, you were going to hear about a client who has nothing good to say even though all my other clients offer regular compliments and expressions of gratitude. This person occupies too much of my mental energy because I'm trying to figure out why he's so unhappy with my services. My initial reaction is to make conjectures about his own character defects--he's a pessimist, he's never happy, he's too controlling, and so on.

Sadly, as I started to write the post I realized that this client's negative attitude is entirely in my head. While it is true that he has nothing good to say, it is also true that he has nothing bad to say either. In fact, never has a negative word come through his mouth or emails. Instead there are simply benign emails of "Can you give me an update on [blank]?"

Since there is a vacuum of words (compliments, actually) I fill it up with my own negativity. My fears come through in the pessimism that I imagine must be brewing within the client's mind. "He's disappointed with my services." "He thinks I should be doing more." "He knows I suck." Without the compliments my ego isn't being babied and I start distorting the reality of my interaction with the client while totally disregarding the kind words offered by other clients.

Spirituality has helped me see this situation more clearly. Spirituality allowed me to take a step back to see that I'm creating a problem, not the client. Without my own negativity, no negativity exists in the relationship. It is my character defects that need to be brought to the forefront of my consciousness then addressed. I don't care to admit my flaws, but it is the only way to live more deeply.

Can anyone relate?

The Soul, The Spirit, The Self

In my daily prayer and meditation I seek to improve awareness of my own spirit. But yesterday I wondered, "What's the point of getting in touch with my own spirit?" Having lived with it every day of my life surely I'm aware of the important bits.

I realized that I do not. I don't truly know where my ego stops and my spirit begins. So much of living life involves learning, experiencing, processing, and reacting. Over time parts of life become repetitive so we react similarly to how we've handled the situation before or too often we find ourselves responding with techniques used by our parents and other role models (a sometimes terrifying experience). The other way we react is in "ego protection" mode where we make sure the image of ourselves that we want others to see is maintained - or at least not harmed. When asked a question my ego quickly determines on my internal success meter whether I'm above, beneath, or on the same level as the questioner. When I feel I'm of same or lower value than the person talking to me I usually try to come off as impressive in an attempt to raise my own perceived value. When I feel above the questioner, I'm usually more carefree in my answer, but with a guard because I don't want that person thinking we could be friends. This kind of reaction is not spiritual. It is all ego. And it is all based on my fears.

When we strip away those automatic reactions, when we clear away comparisons or judgment of others, what is left is our own spirit. The way I get in touch with that spirit in my daily interactions is to take a pause in every situation and ask, "What is the loving way to react?" When I can remember to do so my shoulders instantly relax, my mind stops racing, and my mouth turns to a slight smile.

What I'm discovering is that the spirit is actually love. It sounds corny but when I can truly feel the unconditional love shared with my wife or close family members there is a euphoric feeling to the moment. In that moment, all that exists is love. There is no ego and no judgment. The joyful feeling is the connection between our two spirits.

I also see it when I'm in a really good mood. When I'm in such a good mood that the feeling becomes contagious not only am I walking around without judgment or ego (who wants such negative barriers when one feels so good), but it allows the people I come in contact with to let down their guards as well. And suddenly my spirit is connecting with a stranger's in a positive and profound way. This is not only a happier way to live, it also gives rise to a richer human experience because opportunities present themselves that otherwise would not have been there had we been guarded and leading with our ego instead of with our spirit.

And living life richly while connecting with others is the point of it all.

Wishing Others Well (for Ourselves...and Them)

What goes through our minds just prior to speaking with people greatly impacts our interaction with them. As we approach each person we can offer them kind thoughts--wishes that we would actually want for ourselves. Deepak Chopra suggests silently wishing each person you encounter happiness, joy, and laughter.

For people who are prone to quickly identifying what can be improved in any given situation you will find that the moment is transformed for the better. Afterall, it is difficult to have a mediocre to bad experience when wishing others well.

Although it is a challenge to remember to do this as often as I should, I find that when I approach people thinking that I wish them love, happiness, joy, and laughter I smile more often, I'm kinder to strangers, and I'm far more patient. The result is that I've been experiencing everything I am wishing for others. Don't forget to offer silent wishes to your family members as well--it's surprisingly easy to overlook them.

My Daily Struggle

This blog is intended to keep my accountable to my spiritual growth. It is not uncommon for me to discover a spiritually fulfilling tool, idea, book, resource, etc. that keeps me interested for a period of time before I lose interest. Other times I simply forget to practice that which I've learned.

Today's challenge for me is negativity. My initial reaction to many people and situations is to judge - often negatively. I'm always sizing things up trying to determine a ranking: "Am I better than this person or are they better than me?" "Do I like what's going on here?" "Do I like what's being said?"

All of this judging is ego. I'm trying to determine how fulfilled my ego is in daily circumstances. I talk a good talk about "going with the flow" and "recognizing that we're all equals in the spirit" until my mind starts thinking. The result is that I put up barriers between me and others and between me and a better life. My life is good by many accounts, but I get in the way of my own potential.

Today my work is to not judge anything that is going on, accept that everything that is happening is for a reason (even if it makes me feel uncomfortable), and don't let my mind turn to negative thinking. All easier said than done. I must recognize that I will not do it perfectly. It is about small improvements over time.

Today's Spiritual Exercise: Prayed in the morning, did morning meditation, showed more kindness to than usual to strangers and especially my family. There was some resistance to these activities, but I overcame it.