What We Think We Know – The Grace of Not Knowing

by | Sep 2, 2010 | Spiritual Awakening

What do we really know?

If you are like me you have spent years processing your childhood through one method or another. We Baby Boomers are the psychological/spiritual “processors”. We’ve developed and used all sorts of techniques for exploring our inner selves. They have all had their usefulness, I don’t intend any criticism of them. I’ve been one of the biggest “process junkies” of them all.

But what do we really know? What does the past, or our selective memory of our past, have to do with the truth of this moment now? I learned a powerful lesson about this during a weekend retreat I attended recently.

I spent my 20’s doing Primal Therapy focused on my past, my thirties and forties engaging all sorts of meditation practices and “fifth dimensional” technologies, trying to assist in the evolution of the planet, focused on creating a new future for humanity. Then there was also the more personal work with the law of attraction and creating my personal future as I wanted it.

And then in my early fifties I learned about being present in the moment, the power of now. I learned lots of theories of “how things are;” and was constantly redefining my reality. But what did I really know? Theories, concepts, even powerful experiences of other dimensional phenomenon – what did they teach me about truth, about love?

I’ve experienced a great deal in the last few years. I fell in love with a spiritual teacher (a phenomena I didn’t even know existed before it happened to me) and through that relationship I have experienced truth. I have experienced love. I’ve experience who I truly am. But what do I really know?

Until a few days ago, I thought I knew how a pivotal experience in my childhood had effected me, what it meant in terms of my experience of who I was, what it meant in terms of my relationship with my father. I thought I knew what the limits of that relationship were, I thought I had accepted what could never be. I thought I knew what could and couldn’t be.

Then in a moment of grace, with this beloved teacher, all that changed. A door opened and I allowed the possibility for something I had assumed was not possible, for something to be different from the way I had always held it in my mind. And the result has been that a connection, an exquisite expression of love, deeper than anything that has ever been before, has been exchanged between my father and me. And the past and it’s “traumas” have fallen away. All that I thought I knew, and that had defined me, shifted, and there is only love.

I’m deliberately being a bit vague, not wanting to make a private moment between my father and me something public. But I hope you can feel the energy of what I am offering. What we think we know is not always true. And when you can allow a moment of not knowing, truth can be revealed.

I offer you this opportunity I had. Let yourself not know how things are for just a moment. Open your mind and heart to a door you thought was closed, for just a moment. See if it is really closed. Don’t know. Allow yourself to express the depth of who you are and see what the response is. Maybe, you’ll find that what you thought you knew is true. But if you are lucky, maybe, like me, you’ll find that what you thought was the truth never really existed outside your mind. And finally, there is nothing real but love.

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I look forward to your thoughts and comments!

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5 Things I’ve Discovered about Living the Heart’s Desire

by | Aug 5, 2010 | Mindfullness, Spiritual Awakening

5 Things I’ve discovered about Living the Heart’s Desire:

  1. There is truly only one Heart. We are all connected and sourced by the same divinity.
  2. Even though the mind is extremely useful and necessary to our existence, without being lead by the Heart, it can really cause havoc.
  3. Stopping, taking time to rest, being still (at lease internally), these things allow you to hear the Heart speaking.
  4. The Heart is trustworthy. Your mind may not understand why the Heart is calling you to whatever it is calling you to, but it is trustworthy.
  5. The Heart, Divinity, Love, these are not separate from who you are. They ARE who you are.

What have you discovered? Please post it in the Comments.

I look forward to your thoughts and comments! (if you are reading this on the home page the link to comments is found to the far right of the post title)

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Guest Post by Cyndi Briggs: Living the Heart’s Desire

by | Aug 2, 2010 | Inspiration, Spiritual Awakening

Today we have a guest post from Cyndi Briggs, http://drcyndibriggs.com/.  Cyndi writes  The Sophia Project, a blog for inspired and inspiring women. I highly recommend it. Here is her take on Living the Heart’s Desire:

The summer I was nine years old, I became obsessed with performing gymnastics on the red, white, and blue metal jungle gym my parents erected in our small suburban backyard. I would spend hours hanging upside down by my knees from the rusty trapeze bar or trying to balance with arms outstretched between the white plastic rings.

When I was done with my workout, I’d rest, sweaty and fatigued on the top of the monkey bars and watch the setting sun disappear behind the hulking black shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains.

My heart swelled in my chest like a great balloon as the blaze orange faded to red then indigo then black. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes, and I felt singularly confused by the intensity of my own emotions.

Those late summer sunsets continue to define for me the meaning of “living the heart’s desire”. What I couldn’t put my finger on then I understand now – my deep yearning to follow that setting sun westward, to have great adventures, to always feel the magic of a setting sun even on the cloudiest of days.

As children, we exist as open conduits for intense emotion: joy and pain, anger and heartbreak, glee and exhaustion. The spectrum of emotions is as accessible to children as air, the eternity of a summer day a continual progression from one sensation to the next.

Somewhere in young adulthood most of us learned the heartbreaking and tragically misguided lesson that logic subjugates feelings, that we must do what is reasonable and right, rather than what feels good. As children, we observed the hallmark of adulthood as this kind of linear thinking. I remember weeping at age 13, tragically grieving the loss of my childhood freedom.

It remains a mystery to me why we as free adults continue to believe the lie that our lives are meant to be a slow progression of obligations and tedium until the grave. Nowhere is this demonstrated more clearly than on social media outlets on Monday morning: the status updates lamenting the return to drudgery for another week of soulless living is enough to make the angels weep for us.

Life does not have to resemble a to do list. I say this not as a hopeful romantic, but as one who lives it. I also say this as a counselor with 14 years of experience working with people who perceive themselves as sick and broken.

At no time in history have we needed more desperately to return to our heart’s desire, to reunite with our emotional and intuitive selves. What your heart most desires for you is what you’re meant to do with your life.

Here’s what I know above all other things: you were brought to this earth at this point in time with the singular purpose of living your higher truth. Your story, your experiences, and your perspectives are entirely unique and entirely your own.

So what you yearn for, what fills your eyes with tears with tragic and enormous love, what fills your imagination with delight, what haunts your dreams – THAT is what you are here to do with your life.

Be forewarned, however. Emotions are not logical. Your heart is wise beyond your knowing, and if you choose to follow its guidance (and I hope you do), you’ll find yourself in places you never expected, meeting people you never imagined and becoming the very best version of yourself in unanticipated ways.

In 2003, after years of subtle guidance and meditation, I finally succumbed my heart’s mysterious desire to move to Oregon to obtain my doctorate. Three years in that magical place surrounded by strong and inspiring women changed my life radically. In Oregon I became a writer and a teacher. Most importantly, I became the person I most wanted to be when I was nine years old, crying at the sunset, sitting on a jungle gym in the mountains of Virginia.

Just before I moved to Oregon, I found an almanac of Oregon facts. I learned that the state motto is “She flies with her own wings.”

Miraculously, after reading that, my head became entirely aligned with my wise heart, which knew all along what I most needed.

So I challenge you today to pause in your busy life and listen to your quiet, persistent beating heart. What is it calling you to do? What is your heart most yearning for? What does it tell you about your needs and desires in the middle of a pretty good life?

And today, trust that you are your heart’s beloved, and it wishes nothing but happiness for you.

And peace to you on your journey.