Gratitude

Thank you for this day,
for these friends, for this life.

It is a Gift—
I have threatened many times
To return to You—

Unknowing,
Ungrateful,
Ignorant of Who I Am
And of what this life can be.
And always You
sit patiently with me—
waiting
for me to realize how Blessed
I Am.
By your Hands. . .

From Your Heart to Mine.

Playing

Most Precious One. . .
Why do I resist you so?

You Embrace me--
And like a little scared child,
I push you away,
Laughing as I
Run off to play with my friends,
Skinning my knees
Along the way.

Then I fall down again and cry. . .
”God—
This is a GAME.

Why isn’t it more fun?
Why is there so much at stake.
Why does it hurt so much to fall down?
Why is getting back up so HARD?”

Then I turn around and you aren’t there
Or, at least, I can’t see you through my tears.

I feel angry and confused.

So You reach out and touch me,
To get my attention—and I crawl back up on Your Knee,
And You comfort me again—

Knowing I will squirm away again,
And run to play,

Giggling as I wipe away my tears.

Here

Being,
Here,
Is taunting me
Seeming more real than
The Reality
I know inside myself. . .
Reality as I know it to be
From the Other Side.

People here can seem
As Real as the Beings of Light that
Stand with me
Stand for me
Through the Darkness. . .
In the Dark. . .
They have ALWAYS stood for me
Here.

So I wouldn’t be SCARED.
People here have not always been so predictable
Nor present.

Who am I?
Who are you?
All of you.
Light Beings
Being Light.

I love you,
No matter Who you are,
No matter what.

Self-Loving

“You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

“I am a good person. I deserve good things”—the thoughts drifted through my Mind. I was overwhelmed by a sense of abundance as I stood looking out over the flowers and vegetables I had planted that were now growing contentedly in the damp earth.

My thoughts expanded to include awareness of my children, my friends, the people I had touched in my life . . . people I had given to. Tears came to my eyes as I stepped back into the kitchen and murmured words of appreciation to my partner as he labored over our kitchen renovation. Even that action triggered deep appreciation in me for the way I support and value the people I interact with every day. I wept as I spontaneously experienced the Radiance of my own Beingness and the Beauty of my own Soul.

Ego-istic? No, it was definitely not an ego position, definitely not an ego awareness of myself. THAT perception of me is often critical and acknowledging only of my shortcomings. I had stated my daily intention on-line just moments before I stepped into my garden. My Daily Intention was – “to receive, to acknowledge, to enjoy the Loving and Support that is always present for me in my life.” At the time I wrote those words, I had been thinking in terms of “outside in”—that is, of the loving and support that other people offer to me every day, that I thought I might be overlooking.

I was not expecting the Loving and Support to flood me from the Inside Out. I did not realize that I was the One whose love, support, acknowledgment and appreciation I had been missing. I hadn’t seen that that loving and support was the only loving and support that really mattered to me, the only sustenance that could fill me up completely. Indeed my own adoration and approval were things I craved to the Core of my Beingness. And, until that moment, when all that appreciate of myself had come rushing through me in response to the Intent I had set, I had not known for sure and unequivacobly that I am a good person and deserving of good things, most especially my own Loving.

How often is that true of all of us? How often do we look out into the world for loving and support and then feel frustrated because either we don’t get it or we are not able to perceive it because it doesn’t look, feel or sound like we thought it would. (“You are the only one on the planet who knows how to love you exactly the way you need to be loved.” J-R Hinkins) How often do we actually miss whatever love and support might be coming in from the world because we are so busy judging and evaluating ourselves, and finding ourselves lacking in some way? Or, best case scenario, how often are we simply so busy loving and supporting others that we simply forget to share some of that “Soul/Heart Nutrition” with ourselves?

So, my question to myself became: “How can I make my own loving and support more available to myself? How might any of us do that at any time?” The question boggled my mind for a moment, and then I realized that the answer was present for me within the context of my own life. I have many loving relationships with others in my world. I decided I would look at what I do to create those amazing relationships and do those same things with myself:

1. Say “I love you” a lot—by name, to my face, and at unexpected moments during the day. When I see myself reflected in the mirror or a window I am passing. . . when I am sitting or walking or working at my computer. . . before I go to sleep at night, these are all good times for me to murmur that phrase to myself with caring. “I love you.”

2. Acknowledge myself. Notice the good things I do as I do them . . . or when I remember I did them . . . or when I notice the results. . or when other people point them out. Pay attention to the things I do right and well and note them to myself consciously and out loud. “YAY ME! I did GOOD!”

3. Appreciate my GREAT traits and qualities, not just what I do. Notice what is cool about me, stuff that just is, that I have no control over. Hear it when other people comment on things they like about me. Really take all that in, instead of passing it off or denying it. Revel in it! Repeat it to myself:
“Wow—you look great!”
“You have such pretty eyes!”
“You are so SMART!”
“You are an AMAZING human being!”
“You have a great sense of humor!”
“You are so clever.”

4. Celebrate myself by giving myself all the same delightful experiences I give to others I love--flowers, chocolate, special moments, little gifts, walks in the park, dinner at my favorite restaurant, going to see that movie I want to see that no one else is interested in. Simply GIFT myself with reminders I am special and loved.

5. Enjoy BEING ME! The fact is, I cannot be anyone BUT myself this lifetime—so I may as well thoroughly ENJOY it, by choice! “I CHOOSE me! I am BLESSED to be me!! I am delighted by it! I own it! I love it! I appreciate everything about the “ME” experience! I may as well accept and HAVE FUN with that one aspect of my life I cannot change! Say it out loud-- “I LOVE BEING ME!”

SELF-LOVE— a love that, throughout history, has been portrayed as evil and the source of great harm between people. But really, is self-love bad? I would argue that it is not self-love, but rather the lack of it that moves people to do harm towards others. I would also note that self-loving, coupled with healthy empathy and compassion, is the Source of the ability to share GOODNESS with others. When self-love is borne and reflective of the Love of one’s Soul for one’s human self, we become more capable of loving other human beings, and of sharing the fullness of loving we experience and carry within ourselves with them, without fear of loss or “not-enoughness.” When we are happy and full within ourselves, when we feel safe and content with our own inner relationship, we become more capable of loving others and we have more good stuff to give. When our own cup is full, because we have filled it with our own “love and affection,” we have LOTS of extra to share!

ALL I SEE IS PART OF ME. . .

I was searching on-line to buy a children's book to give my grandson this morning-- a book called "All I See is Part of Me," by Chara Curtis. I found myself saying the title over and over as I did my Google search. After repeating that phrase in mind my twenty-five or thirty times, I had an “ah-ha” moment when I really “got” how true that title is-- all I see IS part of me.

As a psychologist, one thing I recognize is that I, and people in general, only judge and rail against qualities, actions and situations we aren’t willing to own in ourselves. For example, my pet peeve for years was ANGER. I just couldn't understand how people could throw anger around in their relationships and in the world to the degree that they do. I couldn't “grok” violence or choosing to abuse other people. I judged other people mightily when they expressed their anger or did things I saw as violent.

Then one day, almost overnight, I reached a point in my life when, after participating in a long string of abusive relationships, I had allowed myself to get so hurt that my anger just burst out of the psychological “closet” in which I had hidden it. Suddenly I was spewing anger; I was doing and saying hurtful things; I was being violent. I was appalled at my own expression, but at the time, I really couldn’t stop it. It seemed beyond my control. (Of course, it wasn’t, but it had grown so large while hidden in my “closet,” it felt too big to control.)

That time has passed for me. With a lot of self-examination and therapy, I was able to come to terms with that dark place in my psyche. I am now much more my usual peace-filled, loving, kind self . . . but what I learned from that challenging period of my life has stayed with me. I realized as I worked through all those feelings, that I had JUDGED other people's anger and violence BECAUSE I had a deep pocket of it inside of me I wouldn’t acknowledge nor have anything to do with, so I was only seeing it “out there.”

I had had a pretty nasty childhood. As I grew up, I promised myself I would never be like the people around me, abusing and hurting others. I decided I would ALWAYS be loving and “nice,” no matter what. To accomplish that, I simply hid what would have been NORMAL responses to being mistreated and hurt. I did not even acknowledge that such responses . . . like hurt and anger . . . existed inside of me; which seemed to work in a way. But the choice on my part to ignore those feelings and taking a “blind eye” to the transgressions against me by those who should have been caretaking and loving me, did not really make the reality of the way I was being treated nor my very human responses to that go away. Instead, those dark feelings inside of me got bigger and bigger over the years, no matter how much of a Light Being I tried to be. And since I was very busy pretending no abuse and no bad feelings had happened, I continued to repeat relationship patterns that mirrored my primary childhood relationships. Yucky.
Then one day I hit the "tipping point." An act of true ignorance and insensitivity against me by someone I loved and trusted implicitly released all of it. . . all the anguished hurt and all the raging angry feelings I had hidden, and hidden from, over the years. And when those feelings poured out of me, they came out somewhat “out of control” and inappropriately. They definitely came out in hostile, violent ways.

I was surrounded by loving family and friends at the time, who really understood what was happening for me because they had seen me allow the hurt and store the anger over the years. I also had access to some excellent counselors, who helped me understand the “dark” feelings I was so unfamiliar with. I learned what I had not learned growing up—that I needed to pay attention to the way people treat me and how I feel about the way they treat me. I need to notice whether or not, in all honesty, they are doing or saying hurtful things. If, indeed, their words and/or actions are damaging to me, I need to say “STOP,” tell them what my needs are, and if things don’t change, I need to be willing to leave. Simple, but effective. By finally seeing and feeling my anger and the hurt beneath it, I finally found a way of BEING in my life that keeps me safe, healthy and happy—so I don’t have to feel and be hurt and angry anymore.

PLUS—BIG BONUS-- I find that when I see people lashing out at other people, or being angry and hurtful as a way of being, or even being violent in their relationships with others and the world. . . I am more forgiving of them. I now understand the pain they are in. I know that deep down inside of them, buried under a lot of hurt and twisted reactions, they are essentially good people— Light Beings actually-- simply doing "bad" things out of wounded places inside of them. And they don't need my JUDGEMENTS. If anything they need my compassion and understanding-- and if I am in a position to SAFELY do it, I can offer them assistance.

Before I became aware of my own anger and the violent aspects of myself and the damaged places that lay underneath that, I felt frightened of other people’s aggressive actions when I perceived them. I felt the world was a profoundly scary place, and that I had no control over the violence certain human beings express. Now I find I feel “the Heart of life is good” (to quote John Mayer)—and that everyone here on the planet essentially wants the same things for themselves and others—to love and be loved, to be safe and extend safety, to survive and even to thrive in this place. And I see that even when people are expressing and acting in ways that seem to indicate the exact opposite. I know that no one really chooses to live in and from such a Dark place. Really, they have simply been hurt enough that they forget the place inside themselves that cares, the place where Light lives. AND the way to resurrect that Light place is not by pretending to be good nor by denying the hurt, but rather by being honest about those feelings and learning to communicate them and to work out ways of being in the world that take care of themselves, and take care of other people too.

Now, knowing all that, when I look out into the world and see a person or a group of people seemingly doing great harm to themselves and/or to others, and I find myself swimming in my self-righteous judgments of them—I have a process I use to move myself back into my Loving and Compassion.

1) When I find myself observing other people and judging them, I remind myself that “all I see is part of me.”

2) I look hard inside of myself to see if there is a part of me that is like the other person. . . maybe emotionally, maybe behaviorally, maybe just in what I fanaticize about saying or doing, or what I think and feel. If a similarity is not immediately clear-- I look around inside myself to see if there is a part of me that could be or behave that way, if I were “constructed” differently (psychologically), or if I had been raised the way that person was raised, or if I had lived in the situation that person lived or lives in. Usually, I can find a place inside of me where I can answer that question YES at the end of my introspection.

3) Then I forgive MYSELF for being that way-- either now or in the past, openly or covertly—now or somewhere in the vast Universe of past or future potentialities. And I accept that part of myself, I own it. I extend Loving to it. (From that position, I may also decide to work on myself to shift it, if it is an actual behavior or attitude that currently going on.)

4) Finally, I forgive the other person/people for being how they are and doing what they are doing.

5) If there is any action I need to take to insure my own safety, I take that. If I can contribute anything positive to the other person’s situation, and if that feels appropriate, I do that. Then I simply let it all go and get on with my life, doing good wherever I can—taking care of myself and helping to take care of others.

A man I greatly admire and a friend, John-Roger, noted, “When you forgive yourself your own stupidity, ignorance and lack of knowledge (or your own anger, hurt and violence), you forgive everybody else in the same instant. And at that moment, you're moving into enlightenment.” He also commented that if we could see into the Hearts of our enemies and experience their deepest hurts and fears, we would have nothing but Compassion and Forgiveness for them. I have found that it is also important to look into our own Hearts this way, with complete honestly and openness discerning our own deepest wounds. Once we do that and experience Compassion and Forgiveness for ourselves, having it for others just comes naturally.

FEAR GROWS IN DARKNESS

"Fear grows in darkness; if you think there's a bogeyman around, turn on the light."
- Dorothy Thompson

I find this quote stirs something deep inside of me. When I first read it, I remembered being a little girl with gifts similar to the little boy in "A Sixth Sense" and having parents who wouldn't let me sleep with the light on. There were always Beings hovering in the shadows or drifting past and touching me lightly as I slept. "Bogeymen" they were to me at that time . . . though once I was older and had received the proper training, I learned to "turn the Light on" when they were around, both to protect myself-- and to clarify what/who they were and what they wanted or needed to be free and move on.

Then there were also my fears of this place, the Planet Earth-- fears of the anger, hurt, hatred, ignorance, insanity, lack . . . the Darkness that I perceived around me a lot of the time. Lately, as a result of the negative headlines about how those in power have been running our world, this fear has been as strong for me as it was when I was a little girl, watching and being at the mercy of a schizophrenic mother and alcoholic dads. In addition, observing the economic strife and its impact on people awakens in me the memory of being dropped off at an orphanage for four or five years because my grown-ups couldn't or didn't want to support me. It all shakes me to my core!

Sometimes I just want to crawl back into bed and go to sleep-- all day . . . or for days at a time. But, while I do indulge myself sometimes in an extra long meditation or sleeping late, as with all my other fears, it seems to work better if I "Shine the Light" on these bogeymen-- and look them in the eye, "standing" with and for my little girl inside, letting her know that "we" are okay right now. I tell her often that I will walk with her through every "Valley of the Shadow of Death" that may come along for us here.

One thing I have learned in this lifetime is that no matter how Dark it may be here on this Planet-- and at times it is pretty Dark-- I always have the Light with me-- COS I AM THE LIGHT! All I have to do is CLAIM that for It to protect me, guide me and Light my way. It is my own focus on GOODNESS, KINDNESS and LOVING that keeps me safe. It is my desire and quest to see that in others and in circumstances that awakens and/or supports the Light in them and transforms them into the best that they can and were meant to be. My own DIVINITY protects me all the time-- and when I look through the eyes of my INNER GOD/GODDESS at everything and anything, everyone and anyone here-- IT IS ALL GOOD.

THERE I AM

I stop thinking
for a moment. . .
there I Am.

I do not react
with a feeling. . .
there I Am.

I do nothing
except breathe. . .
there I Am.

Quietly,
I find myself,
alone,
without distraction,
stimulation,
motivation,
or reason to live
beyond Being
Here.

All there is
is Me,
Here,
Now.

I Am.