Sometimes when I find myself dragging, or avoiding taking action, I remind myself of this quote: “Procrastinate Tomorrow.”
It often gets me going.
How about you?
Is there a technique you use to help?
As we move into the holiday season and a time of gift giving, it’s also the ideal time to explore what it means to receive and how to do this with more intentionality.
With that in mind, I’m going to dive deeply into the concept of receiving and how- especially for those of us (givers) for whom that is difficult- we can allow ourselves to experience even more of it!
If you’re wondering why this is important, let me clarify.
In truth, receiving IS the entire game. What I mean is that God/the universe/universal mind/conscious awareness- or however you think about higher self/spirit is ALWAYS trying to give us more love, goodness, support and help.
I don’t need to tell you that the world situation is, to quote Tom Robbins, “desperate as usual.”
In truth, it feels even worse than usual as systems and structures collapse all around us.
Not to be morbid…but the rate of change is too fast! None of us can keep up, not with technology, with AI, with the news cycle, none of it.
Our nervous systems are simply unequipped to manage this level of change/ chaos/however you define it.
Part of why the rate of change continues to increase, is because we’re in what mystics are calling a “celestial speedup.”
Last blog I shared a meditation/prayer practice with you called the centering prayer. If you missed it, here’s a link to the post.
As a quick review, here’s the basic idea:
1. Choose a word (or phrase) to focus on during your meditation.
2. Ensure that you’re sitting comfortably with your eyes closed.
Begin repeating the word or phrase silently to yourself over and over again slowly. Deepen into the phrase, slowly and intentionally, giving your thought-mind something to focus on. If your phrase is: “I rest in God,” begin by saying that phrase. Eventually it may become “I rest,” or “God” that gets repeated as you slow down and deepen into the words.
Today I have a cool meditation/prayer for you.
It’s called the Centering Prayer.
The Christian contemplative, Cynthia Bourgeault, has written extensively about this practice and teaches this technique around the world! It’s a way of praying that allows us to loosen our minds from thought and enter that transcendental space that can often feel elusive.
She shares that this practice was popularized by Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist priest. He was one of the first people to promote the Centering Prayer which is based on a 14th century Christian mystical text called The Cloud of Unknowing.
Ready for the final installment about using gratitude to live the life you’ve come here to have?
Let’s do a quick review first.
First we covered exploring gratitude as a REACTION. In other words, cultivating gratitude for what you have in your life right now. Are you still doing your list every day?
Second, we dove into the idea of adopting a PHILOSOPHY of gratitude. The invitation being to experience life through the lens of gratitude.
Today we’re going to the deepest level, IDENTITY.
Do you have a go-to strategy when you find it hard to concentrate and your brain feels fuzzy?
Or when you can’t seem to figure out what to do next, or what direction to move towards?
When I’m in that place, it sometimes feels like I’m spinning in circles, directionless, blind to possibility.
However, when I REMEMBER to use this tool (!), a breathing exercise, it can really make a difference.
Why?
Since the end of October, I’ve been struggling with aftereffects from Covid-19 and today I felt guided to share my healing journey with you.
Sometime in mid-October, I contracted Covid. As with many of us, I wasn’t exactly sure how I got it. I was traveling overseas and didn’t confirm I was positive until I returned home! After quarantining for ten days, and finally testing negative, I was ready to move on with my life!
Ha Ha.
This was my first encounter with a long-term illness, something you may live with or have experienced at some point in your life. To you, I offer my deepest condolences. You are indeed a brave warrior.
Each time I’d think I was finally better and could get BACK to my life, I’d have some kind of relapse. Mostly with a blanketing sense of fatigue that would descend like a band across my eyes. That’s when I knew I couldn’t keep going.
This went on for weeks that turned into months.
I have this mp3 track of Louise Hay called 101 Power Thoughts for Life. At the beginning of it she says, “the thoughts we think and the words we speak are constantly shaping our world and our experiences. Many of us are in an old habit of negative thinking and do not realize the damage we have inflicted upon ourselves. However, we are never stuck because we can always change our thinking.”
Sometimes it’s fun to sprinkle in a little astrology… why? Because those GIANT orbs in the sky actually affect us here on earth.
January thus far may have had its fits and starts, but good news is a foot! Beginning on January 28th when Uranus ends its retrograde, there will be NO major planets backspinning from now until April 1st!!!!
In this time of giving, I’m reminded of a lesson from A Course In Miracles, “to give and to receive are one in truth.”
Initially, this can seem like an impossible statement, because if I have a sweater and I give it to you, then I no longer have that sweater, right?
Right!
But what if, on an energetic level, giving and receiving were the same thing?
For a number of years now, I’ve had this connection to the White Goddess. I first identified her as White Tara, Buddhist goddess of healing and compassion. But on my recent trip to Vietnam, I learned of a new white goddess, Quan Am. The Vietnamese version of Kwan Yin, the Boddhisattva of compassion
If you are unfamiliar with the Sanskrit term, bodhisattva, or bo tat in Vietnamese, it refers to a Buddhist concept of devoting your life to easing the suffering of others. A Boddhisattva vows to help release all sentient beings from suffering before being truly liberated.
This entire month, I’ve been kinda obsessed with the idea of the veil. Meaning the veil between worlds, or the veil that hides the truth from us.
In Hinduism, the goddess Kali is known to rip this veil from our eyes, to help us see the truth. Another way of thinking about it is that the goddess Maya is cloaked in the veil of illusion, which, in truth is as gauzy as a wispy cloud.
While I appreciate the imagery of both of these, the visual that has always, always, always speaks to me is the mists of Avalon. There the priestess stands in the prow of her boat and parts the mists, thus allowing her to enter the island of Avalon. Whereas, the others who are incapable of this feat wander forever lost in the gloam.
I was having a conversation the other day about how there are 2 types of people: YES people and NO people.
I realize this sounds incredibly generalizing, but hear me out.
Think about yourself. When you’re asked to attend something or hear about a new idea, what’s your initial response?
Is it a resounding and quick, YES!
Or a NO?
Responding like this is automatic. There may be judgment around one way being better than the other, but I don’t think that’s true. in essence, it’s simply a way we’re oriented towards the world.
You know when someone shares a technique or exercise they do with you, and as soon as you hear it, your brain says YES!
That happened to me the other day. A woman shared something that a coach she had years ago told her to do. It goes like this:
I was really struck with this notion, of envisioning trust blanketing everything and everyone, as opposed to feeling guarded or on alert.