Spirit In Gear

Remember to Ask!

I am bummed.  Really bummed.  It was too good to be true.

Over the weekend I receive email confirmation that I have a free ticket to the Democratic National Convention to hear Obama's acceptance speech in Charlotte on September 6th.  I pay cash for my chartered bus ticket from Greenville SC to Charlotte NC (90 minutes).  I show up on Tuesday of this week, the first day I can pick up my ticket.  My name is on the list. 

There is no ticket.  Due to a major snafu at the state level of the Democratic party, not enough tickets were issued for our local group.  I am stunned and bummed.  What can I say.  I swallow my disappointment and walk out the door. 

A few seconds later I walk back in the door.  I realize I need to be on a list if someone cancels.  I ask them to create such a list.  They do and put me at the top.  Since a large majority did not receive tickets, reality tells me this is a lost cause.  Yet I experience a funny feeling.  I don't have to figure out how this will all come about.  I just have to ask for the ticket if someone cancels.

Later that evening, I write out a small check to Obama's campaign and mail it the next day.  It is my tangible commitment to the Universe that I'm for real.

During the day Wednesday, I briefly feel bummed again, then refocus.  I imagine myself travelling on the bus to Charlotte, and sitting in the stands, watching my first real, live president in person.  Strangely, I feel it's out of my hands and is taken care of, and I don't feel attached to the outcome.

Wednesday evening around 9pm I receive a phone call from a local organizer for the Democrats.  She tells me that she just had a cancellation.  Do I want the ticket? YES!!  She has to have this ticket activated online before the midnight deadline that night.  I give her the contact info she needs and I am officially credentialled!

Today I trek down to the local Democratic Headquarters, beaming as I walk in the door.  They immediately hand me my ticket.  This is better than going to Disney World!

Postscript:  For my Republican (and Democratic) readers, this isn't really about politics.  It's about remembering to ASK, and then letting go! 

What I Learned from Turning 60

The day after I turned 60 last month, we head to the Smokies to meet up with our best friends of 35 years.  The picture you see is taken from the deck of a stunning mountain property we stayed in for the weekend.

Surrounded by mountain vistas, close friends, music, and an ample supply of wine and dark chocolate, I open up birthday gifts.  One of the gifts is not wrapped.  In fact, it has no material shape.  It comes as a favor of sorts.  The gift is bestowed upon me by my friend, John. 

John gives me carte blanche to select all the restaurants we eat at that weekend.  Now I am prepared to select one restaurant for my birthday dinner, but never expected to be making decisions on the other meals.  I admit to being nonplussed with this gesture on John's part.  Food is very important to John, and his food preferences are very strong (and often opposed to mine). 

As John continued to insist that I select ALL the restaurants, I tell him that I should be recording this for posterity.  John  lets me know that this offer expires after the weekend, so I better enjoy it while I can.

While all this is going on, I am experiencing some silent inner discombobulation.  My personality is geared towards looking out for the needs of the group.  It takes me a few minutes to actually get in gear with the program of picking out whatever I WANT!  Even if it means that someone else won't like my choice.

And so it goes.  I take some time to ask myself what I want.  And I get exactly what I want for each of the meals we eat out at . . . Italian one night; seafood another; and pancakes for lunch!

This experience reminds me to be clear about what I want, at least to myself.  It's not so much about getting my way.  It is about being present enough to ask myself the question instead of responding in a rote mode.

Interestingly this begins to have a ripple effect in my life during the following week.  In my interactions with both my husband, and with business colleagues, I find myself stopping to become aware of what I want and how I want to respond.  As a result, I saved myself from unnecessary hassle.  The difference being that I can choose when I want to go the extra mile, not that I HAVE to do it automatically.  That is very freeing, if I do say so myself.

If you are not yet 60, my advice to you is to learn from my insight, and apply it to your life, much sooner than I did!

Best Things in Life

The best things in life are nearest:
Breath in your nostrils, light in your
eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at
your hand, the path of right just before
you.  Then do not grasp at the stars,
but do life's plain, common work as it
comes, certain that daily duties and
daily bread are the sweetest things in
life.

- Robert Louis Stevenson

I hesitate to expound on the quote above.  It stands on its own.  No explication needed.

I can tell you that this quote touches me more deeply than I would imagine. 

I recall moments of ironing my father's shirts during my adolescence, and the quiet sense of accomplishment with each finished shirt hanging startched in a row with the others.  Sometimes it's the ordinary things, captured in a moment of awareness, that brings a sense that everything really IS okay.

This morning as I drive home from church I take a moment to look up at the blue sky laced with white wisps of clouds and smile.  The white puffs look like they are dancing in the sky, reminding me to chill and relax on this day of Sabbath.  Reminding me of the freedom and joy that are always available to me.

Yesterday, on 9/11, I call my brother up on the phone to wish him a "Happy Birthday!"  How wonderful to remember that something positive happened on 9/11 besides tragedy.

Hearing my younger daughter's voice on the phone, as she talks about her new job of 1 month, and realizing that she can thrive in spite of challenges.  Soon to turn 25, she is in charge of her life and doing just fine without Mom being involved day to day.  I bask from afar on the woman she has become.

Happiness has been on my mind of late.  I learn that there is a distinction between choosing to be happy and deciding to be happy. 

I am deciding to be happy - a decision I intend to renew each day.  Here's a meditation that I am using to help me, taken from the book, Wokini, A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding, by Billy Mills, with Nicholas Sparks:

Do this meditation three times a day.

1.  Find a comfortable place to relax.

2.  Close your eyes, and count from one to ten, exhaling with each number.

3.  Relax further as the count progresses.

4.  Once you reach ten, feel the relaxation spread through  your body.

5.  Think of anything that makes you happy.  Make it as real as possible.

6.  Say aloud ten times, "I am happy."

7.  Count from ten back to one and open your eyes.

8.  Smile

The best things in life can be found in the moments.  If we are paying attention.

What "best things" have you noticed lately?

[Photo Credit:  Morten Hoeye]

Sending Well-Being to the Gulf

Japanese scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto, has published extensively on the characteristics of water.  His research reveals that water responds to emotion.

Taken in that light, he offers this prayer to set an intention of love and healing, amidst the anger and turmoil raging in the current Gulf oil crisis:

I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings.  To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, planktons, corals, algae, and all living creatures . . . I am sorry.  Please forgive me.  Thank you.  I love you.

I invite you to join in this prayer, or in words of your own making, to begin to send our waves of love and positive intent to Mother Earth.

 

Meditation in a Moment

 

What is life?  It is the flash of a firefly in the night.  It is a breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.  It is the little shadow that runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

- Crowfoot, a Leader of the Blackfoot Nation

In middle age I discover that the only place I can live my life is in the moment.  In the here and now.  Kind of a radical notion of stillness for people, like you and me, constantly on the go.

So you will understand when I tell you that my eyes did a double take when I saw a book entitled One Moment Meditation (author Martin Boroson) a few weeks ago.  My husband and I had taken Friday afternoon off to wander around downtown Hendersonville, NC, and we ended up in a cool bookstore called Zen,etc!

Two hours prior to our trip I had received word that the buyer for a home we just rehabbed and listed has backed out of the purchase contract he signed with us several days prior. I'm feeling stressed and harried from this news.  It is in this frame of mind that I step into the bookstore. 

I feel a powerful sense of synchronicity and guidance when my eyes light upon the above mentioned book.  I pick it up and glance inside for a quick scan.  I put it back down.  I wander to another pile of books.  I return to the first book.  Again, I pick it up.  And I carry it around with me as a talisman of sorts, as I look at other items of interest.  Then I purchase it.

In the book I learn the 1-minute meditation.  I've been practicing it since mid-March. During the first 30 days, it is mandatory to use a timer to do the one-minute meditation.  I purchased a battery-run electronic timer for $4.95 at Walmart.  It's small and compact, and easy to pack. 

No matter what my schedule is like, or whether I am at home or out of town, I find this practice portable and doable.  After all, you can find 1 minute in your day, I hope! (and if you cannot spare one minute, please have a loved one commit you to a hospital asap!).

The author debunks myths around meditation.  He makes the distinction between becoming peaceful, and being peaceful.  The former involves striving and adds stress.  The idea of peace always being available is intriguing, isn't it?

I've progressed to the second level in the book, and that is practicing the 1-minute meditation without a timer, which involves counting breaths.  As I continue with this practice, I will eventually learn how to experience the benefits of meditation in less than a minute.

In the meantime, I notice that, as a result of this practice, I am simply more conscious.  I notice what is around me.  I don't speed as much (either in the car, or outside of it).  When my mind races ahead, I tug it back into the here and now.  Maybe, just maybe, I will generate less stress by the way I move and respond to life.  It is an hypothesis worth testing!

If you'd like to practice the one-minute meditation, visit the author's site, where he spells  out the steps for you. 

Wouldn't it be cool if our health insurance premiums could go down if we practiced the one-minute meditation?

[Photo Credit:  Miguel Saavedra]

Moving at the Pace of Guidance

Speed is some guy running through the airport shouting into a cell phone.  Pace is going around the block with a three-year-old and noticing everything the child is noticing.

- Christina Baldwin, The Seven Whispers

I may not be running through an airport, but I feel like I have been running on life's treadmill the past two weeks.  The pace of my work life has accelerated, some due to good things happening.  Nonetheless, I feel harried and stressed, and earned a speeding ticket for my own inability to create a pace that works better for me.

To move at the pace of guidance is Baldwin's second whisper of seven whispers.  The first I addressed in Making Room to Hear Wisdom.  The remaining five whispers are:  Practice certainty of purpose;  Surrender to surprise;  Ask for what you need and offer what you can;  Love the folks in front of you;  Return to the  world.

Technology makes things work faster, and we've grown to expect and desire that.  We've learned to adapt to speed.  We can drink coffee and text at the same time.  But somewhere along the line, we've become the servant to speed, rather than determining how speed will serve us.

Baldwin notes that "Speed tends to cancel out guidance."  Ego steps in as speed pushes Spirit out.  I know that when I do that, my will takes over and I go into my "make it happen" mode, which requires a "push" energy.  Definitely more exhausting, (adrenaline wears me out), not to mention that I'm less able to work with the forces of the Universe on my own behalf. 

I look back on my previous career in life coaching, where I had control of my schedule, and regularly practiced some form of stillness and centering.  I routinely tapped into guidance. 

Fast forward a few years to a career change - to a business in real estate investing.  I have less control of my schedule.  This business is very "response oriented."  When the phone rings, I can make money, so it's important to get the phone to ring, and to respond promptly to calls.  My people skills, honed over the past 30 years, come in handy.  Now I need to return to the practices that can help me adjust the pace I bring to the moment.

Recall the famous one-liner -  "If you build it, they will come," in the movie, Field of Dreams.  Baldwin encourages us in a similar way -  " . . . if you have a sacred place and use it, something will happen."

I am herby declaring that I will practice a few minutes of silence/stillness first thing in the morning.  The egg timer will be on my nightstand.  My initial aim is not to solicit guidance.  I just want to practice quieting my thoughts.  If I can slow down my thoughts, and allow my observer to take over, I can rein in the speed of my life to a more manageable pace.  Then Spirit has a chance to get a word in.

Once I can slip into a centering mode more easily, I can resume my automatic writing, a practice I did regularly over the last decade.  It's as simple as lighting a candle, getting centered, and asking a question, then writing or typing out the answer as guidance comes through. 

Baldwin reminds us that "listening to the voice of guidance is not a one-time, okay-now-I-got-it, don't-have-to-practice-it kind of skill."  We are called to notice whose voice we are listening to in each moment.  Our job is to let "the Divine blow in our faces and guide us home."

[Photo Credit:  Ariel da Silva Parreira]

Wandering Attention . . . Wandering Focus

It's a week ago and I am accompanying my youngest brother to the airport to fly back to Ohio.  Since he is an inexperienced air traveler (last flew 25 years ago), I take the helm.  Big sis walks up to the kiosk to print out his boarding pass.  Too late, I realize I didn't use the kiosk that allows for baggage to be checked.

We walk up to the airline desk.  I learn that I have gone to the international check in, not the domestic.  We trot over to the domestic line and get his baggage checked. 

I'm starting to feel rather stupid.  I'm an experienced traveler who's too much in a hurry to read what's in front of her.

We move through security and locate my brother's departure gate.  We find the last seats on a busy Saturday morning and plop down til his boarding call.  I pull a magazine out of my purse and begin reading an article in my Utne Reader entitled "A Nation Distracted."

I read how our constant state of motion "makes us less and less able to see, hear, and comprehend what's relevant and permanent .  .  ."  As I continue reading, I realize I wasn't paying attention when I first walked into the airport and used the wrong kiosk, then walked up to the International check in instead of domestic.  No harm done, but it occurs to me that under a different set of circumstances not paying attention can create more serious problems.

My brother's boarding call sounds and we say goodbye.  As he boards, I call up another sibling who will be picking up our brother.  My sibling chats away with me as I make my way out of the airport into the parking garage.  Distracted by our phone conversation, I walk into the east end of the parking garage instead of the west end, where my car is located.  So far I'm striking out on my ability to focus.

I do find my car, exit the garage, and hit the uncrowded Interstate for a pleasant drive home in the sunny springlike weather.  And I am determined to finish reading the article on distraction when I return home.

I reflect on the morning at the airport and can't help but feel disconcerted to realize how easily I can pass through day to day life and miss the obvious.  My attention was fragmented with my brother, as part of me was focused on several hours ahead, instead of being fully in the present. 

From reading the article, I learn that I must manage my attention.  Meditation is the recommended practice to train the mind towards a deeper level of attentiveness.  I may not be meditating in the sit still, breathing mode, but I can, however, resolve to be more alert and observant in my immediate surroundings.  It's about noticing.

The Universe bopped me on the head last week, thankfully in a safe way.  Intuitive whispers would not have worked!  Since then I have slowed down my mental accelerator in order to be more in the present.  I notice that I listen better when sellers call me about their properties, with positive results!  I feel greater calm as well.  It pays to manage my attention.

Fast forward to this weekend . . . I find myself browsing in one of those independent bookstores filled with sensory wonders, up in a North Carolina mountain town.  Spirit taps me on the shoulder as I pick up a book entitled Seven Whispers, by Christina Baldwin.  Yep, this one's for me.  A just-in-time resource that falls into my lap because I'm paying attention.

What are the "Seven Whispers?"  Maintain peace of mind.  Move at the pace of guidance.  Practice certainty of purpose.  Surrender to surprise.  Ask for what you need and offer what you can.  Love the folks in front of you.  Return to the  world.

You'll hear more about these seven whispers in upcoming blog posts.  In the meantime I return to the first whisper, playing with the kind of breathing that invites peace of mind. 

[Photo Credit:  Jonathon Lonsdale]