As you know, I’m all about giving you tools to feel better, and truthfully, this one is a serious game changer!
It’s a Buddhist practice to help you cultivate compassion or loving kindness.
Loving kindness can be defined as feeling empathy, compassion, and kindness towards yourself and others.
Neuroscience research supports that these practices have tremendous benefits including to:
Last week I was at a summer party.
You know the kind, casual and filled with loads of people you don’t know personally, though you all share common friends. Naturally, I was introduced to a man, and once we’d figured out our mutual connections, we began to chat.
At one point he made a reference to politics, or managing current events, or something along those lines, and the strangest thing happened.
I began speaking to him -and at the same time that eloquent words were flowing from my mouth- I was simultaneously wondering, who is saying this? Because the ideas were spot on but were not something I’d previously even considered! Yet here they were, pouring out of me clear, concise, actionable.
The other day while I was gardening with a music playlist in the background, a Paul Simon song I had never heard came on. It’s called Learn How To Fall.
Do you know this one?
Essentially, he suggests that we must learn how to fall before we learn how to fly.
I literally stopped my weeding to think about that idea.
Why?
Because it made so much sense. If I were a bird and had the ability to fly, I’d definitely practice landing/falling until I was good at it. Then I might not be afraid to soar.
I bet you didn’t know that I’m the kind of person who has multiple projects going at the same time. Yes, it’s not typically how to be “successful”, but I crave variety and it’s a way to feed that part of me so that everything I do feels fresh and exciting.
Recently, I was at, not exactly a crossroads but more like a dead end on 2 of my projects! One an art project (sculpture) another writing.
I was eager to get back to my sculpture after taking off like 2 years (busy being a grandma and focusing on other things). I jumped into it thinking I knew where I was going, only as I started to build it up, it looked, well, how do I say it nicely… it looked TERRIBLE!
On the spiritual path, we’re often told that we are light, that we are love, that this light and love are always here and available to us. And yet often we don’t experience that!
In March of 2020, just as the entire world was going into lockdown because of Covid-19, I was getting ready to move in with Tom Carpenter and his wife Linda, who had been Course in Miracles teachers and mentors for decades. They needed support and my husband and I had volunteered.
As you know, I’m a fan of the enneagram. Why? Mostly because it helps me understand my personality, and when I’m operating from my limited perspective, as opposed to feeling connected to the universal mind. In an email, Dr. Robert Holden took all 9 enneagram types, identified them, as well as a specific way each can get stuck or blocked from receiving all the good that wants to come into our lives.
I used to think that if I moved somewhere else, everything in my life would be better.
Have you fallen for that, too?
I did for decades, spending, on average, four years in any one location.
It wasn’t until I had a child that I even considered changing. One of my close friends said, “you can’t keep moving, it’s bad for the baby.”
Initially, I ignored her, rationalizing my actions by the fact that infants cling to primary support, not place. Her words, however, rang in my ears year in and year out, until I finally stopped running.
Because- 100% transparency- that’s what I was doing. Running away from me.
You see, I’d convinced myself that each new place was the answer to my unhappiness. It wasn’t that the dissatisfaction lay inside of me, absolutely not! It was the pollution, the traffic, the neighbors, the lack of opportunities…
