Tag: shift

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Everyone Is Worthy

I want to share a story from my life with you.

I know from personal experience, as I’m sure you do too, that sometimes we’re not treated as if we are worthy. It isn’t a very good feeling. I try to remember this and acknowledge the innate value we each possess.

One day many years ago, during a particularly hot summer, a man rang our doorbell. As I opened the door he stepped back and began his speech. He was trying to sell magazines to fund his tuition for college. He said it was a special program designed for people like him. Before I could ask, he told me who ‘people like him’ were. He’d had a tough youth, which was another way of saying he’d been in trouble all his life. He told me he’d grown up in the projects in downtown Albany and used to sell crack. He said he was really good at it, but not good enough. He finally learned you couldn’t survive very long doing that.

I think it’s possible to tell if another person is lying to you by looking into their eyes, if you can look long enough. I also think there are people who can stand the stare for a long time without showing the truth. I knew I wouldn’t have the length of time it would take, so I just decided to believe him.

I wasn’t the only one home that day. My son, Tommy, was there too. He was playing games in his bedroom, like any other eight-year-old would do and waiting for me to come back. I guess I was gone too long, so he came looking for me. He found me sitting on the front porch talking with a man he didn’t know. He watched and listened to us through the screen door. After a couple of minutes, he came out, sat next to me, and asked what we were doing. The man showed him the magazine choices we could make and made sure Tommy saw the one all about video games. He told Tommy that the subscription prices were the best and it would help him to be able to go to college and change his life. He told Tommy a bit about how it was for him growing up and how much trouble he’d gotten into. And that he’d been really bad but was hoping to get another chance. The order form had other people’s names on it, and he hoped we’d sign up for a couple of magazines. Tommy and I looked the form over. Tommy quietly looked up at me and said, “are we really going to order these Dad?”. I told him we were, and he looked at me with a funny, questioning expression.

The man seemed pleased with our order and told me he’d accept cash or a check. I asked him if he was thirsty and when he said yes, I offered him a soda, which he happily accepted. I went inside to get the soda and a check. I gave them to him, and we talked about things for a while. He wasn’t in a big hurry and seemed to like hanging around with us. Somehow, we got on to the subject of birthdays. I asked him if he could wait a minute because I had something for him, but I had to get it from inside the house. He said he’d wait. After a minute I was back and he eyed me kind of sideways, trying to figure out what I was doing.

I handed him some folded bills and told him it might help with his second chance. He looked at me in a way no one else ever had. It was part surprise and part disbelief. A look I’ll never forget.

He asked me why I was doing this. I asked if he had a birthday and he said, “sure.” I told him that as far as I was concerned, today was his birthday and this was his birthday gift.

He just sat there shaking his head for a long, long time. His eyes got a little misty and he looked away. When he looked back at me, he said, “nobody has ever done anything like this for me.” It apparently was beyond him to understand why anyone would do such a thing for someone they didn’t even know. In that moment, truth came into his eyes. The truth about the magazines and the truth about his second chance. He left a little while later. As he walked away Tommy asked me whether we were ever going to see the magazines. I told him that I didn’t think so. That same puzzled look came back to him, and he looked up at me saying, “then why did you give him the money?”

The man, who was almost to the corner by now, turned back to us. He smiled and waved. I looked down at Tommy and said, “that’s why.”

We never did get the magazines. And I never saw the man again. But it really doesn’t matter to me because we all changed that day and it is still one of my favorite days ever.

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Contradictions

How do you deal with contradictions in your life?

Are they easy for you to separate into decipherable components or do they pose serious challenges for you? Navigating contradictions seems to be a part of our lives, whether we like it or not.

Here are two examples of contradictions in the English language.

The word sanction can mean either to give official permission or approval OR conversely, to impose a penalty. Imagine the difficulty that would be created if someone used the word, sanction, and you weren’t sure what they meant.

Then there is the word, oversight, which means both to oversee or supervise someone or something OR to fail to see, observe, or to disregard or ignore something.

This is only one challenge faced by those attempting to learn English. There are so many others, but I’m focusing on the particular dilemma created when the same word has two opposing meaning.

You may be wondering, does this happen in our daily lives or you may see the connection immediately.

The messages we receive every moment of our lives can have this same kind of effect on us, forcing us to determine which meaning we are supposed to understand.

Often, we have to listen to the tone of voice used or the volume of the speaker or the gestures they use when they talk, further complicating the situation.

I find that I confuse people sometimes. I think I’m being clear, but they don’t respond the way I expect. Either it’s me or it’s them or there are just too many ways to interpret the words I used.

On the receiving end, it’s the same thing. Even when I listen carefully, I sometimes don’t get what they’re saying and sometimes it seems contradictory, especially if they aren’t patient. If either one of us gets angry or frustrated, things seem to go off track.

Okay, so I’ve illustrated a problem I encounter and perhaps you do too, so now what?

One answer that comes to me is not one I used to be good at, but after having practiced a lot, I’m getting better.

Ask.

I find that it’s unrealistic for me to be clear every time I speak and it’s equally unfair to expect this of anyone else. We have lots of things on our minds. We have different goals, patience levels, available time, and communication skills.

But we can each ask questions. If something is unclear, we can pause the conversation and ask what the other person means. We can paraphrase what they’ve said and ask if we understand correctly. And we can ask as soon as we have a question, so that we don’t get lost before the next step in the conversation.

I know this seems simple and it is, but we may feel that we ‘should’ understand already and by asking a question we risk giving the other person the impression that we are not smart enough to follow what they’re saying. Or that they may get annoyed with us for interrupting them.

To me, some of the most important benefits of asking questions during conversations is that we can feel in sync with others, and better understand them so that we receive valuable information or become more sensitive to their feelings or to convey our feelings to them.

Without asking questions how else can we do that?

During my life I’ve discovered the incredible power that questions possess. They invite and offer depth of connection with others and it only takes a second to ask a question.

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Biases

I wonder, how many of my biases am I in charge of? Can I escape any of them? Can I blame them on my cultural training or the belief systems I’ve adopted from those who’ve influenced me?

Part of me wants to accept this, but another part responds simply with an old-time expression which dates me, “what a cop out”, which loosely translates as, I’m in charge of my own decisions and can’t blame anything or anyone else. I have to own it.

I don’t like the way I feel when my biases get out of their cages. It rattles me and fills me with a sense of unhappiness.

It’s as if there is some tiny war being fought inside of me, with opposing forces that clash with no clear winner, just a repeating dynamic where one part is upset with a person or action, while another part preaches tolerance and acceptance.

I desperately want to break this cycle, but how?

To begin with, maybe it would be helpful to reframe my aim. Using the word, ‘break’, implies a struggle and I find that when any internal struggling is involved it creates its own challenge, because a part of me seems to know I can’t fix anything while still divided within myself.

I think, maybe I can shift my perspective and find a way to create a collaborative approach, one that seeks a peaceful solution, free from blame or shame. That feels better.

Where to start?

I wonder if it would help me to know where each bias comes from or why I still hold on to them.

I sit back and ponder this.

As with so many other things, I realize that trying to locate the source is a rabbit hole for me, a dead-end that only serves to delay addressing the real issue. Perhaps it works the same way for you.

A better way for me is to ‘head into the storm’ and focus on my bias directly. What are they really saying to me, what are they saying about me.

Why have I accepted some biases as truth? Why do some live inside of me, others do not?

I look at my biases one by one to see if there is some commonality that offers me insight and a way forward. I’m shocked by how unaccepting I can be of others’ behaviors. I didn’t think that kind of intolerance lived inside of me.

But it does.

I try to avoid blaming myself for it, knowing this will not help me or fix anything. In fact, it only complicates matters.

One striking similarity is that my biases represent my desire for others to conform to my belief system and to act the way I think they should.

WHAM! I feel the crushing weight of my word choice…SHOULD. I thought I’d dropped that word from my vocabulary, but no, it popped right out. I tried to retire the word…should…because it implies that there is only one acceptable way to do or see things and I don’t believe that. Given that I am trying to understand my predisposition regarding my own biases, it’s the perfect word to appear. It clearly shows me what I need to see.

All of my biases are about conformity with beliefs I’ve adopted. Whenever I observe actions or behaviors outside my limits, a bias kicks in.

Now I can shift my perspective and can consciously expand my range. I can loosen my hold over beliefs that don’t serve me or others. I can realize that rarely is anyone doing anything TO me. They’re just living their own lives, based on their own choices and it’s not necessary or helpful for me to have or exercise an opinion about their choices. Even more to the point, I don’t know what their life is like and have no reasonable basis for forming any opinions about them.

One final insight washes over me. It comes in the form of a question…what is the most loving action I can take?

The answer is clear to me. I can love them just as they are. That is certainly something I want to do, so I’m going to refocus my energy and try my best to do just that.

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Our Essential Nature

I believe that if we are open to learning, everything can teach us and that there is meaning in all that we experience. I also believe that there are valuable implications to everything in our lives.

Here’s an example from the other day. I grant you that at first glance it may not seem like much, but it helped me see deeper into my life.

I went to retrieve the newspaper from our front lawn. I opened the plastic bag our newspaper comes in to find that somehow the overnight rain had found its way through the bag and saturated one whole end.

Disappointed, I decided to hang each section on one of our drying racks, hoping it would be readable later in the day.

What struck me was the idea that each element, water and air, acts according to its nature.

The rain came and the water flowed naturally in all directions. It found the tiny pin hole in the plastic bag and seeped in, making part of the newspaper wet.

Water seeks to make all things wet.

Hanging the wet newspaper on the drying rack created space for the air to circulate, surrounding the paper from all directions. The air did what air does, it dried the paper.

Air seeks to make all things dry.

What has this got to do with you or me?

Quite a lot actually.

I wondered, what is my essential nature? What do I do regardless of my circumstances? How do I decide what directions to travel or what decisions to make about my life?

Fire seeks to burn everything. Earth seeks to return all things to itself.

What do I do? What governs my behaviors? What governs yours?

I want to feel joy, give and receive love, have adventures, connect deeply with others.

I want to do good things, be productive, help others, allow my heart to open wide.

What do you want to do in this world? What makes you feel most alive? What lifts you up and sets you free?

I want to be like water, air, fire, and earth. I want to move freely and act from my essential nature.

But what is my essential nature? Is it what I want, or what I feel I need or is it something else? Is it what rises out of me without any conscious thought?

For me, I believe I am here on earth to be an expression of the divine. I realize that may seem like a bold statement. That’s okay with me because I believe we’re all here for this reason, to live lives of connection, to be each other’s kin (family) and to live a joy-filled life.

I believe this is our essential nature.

Sure, other things get in the way. We become distracted by life’s events and demands. We become influenced by other’s actions and behaviors. But, if we look a bit deeper inside ourselves, I believe we’ll notice our essential nature is to be at peace, live in harmony, love and be loved. Acting from this place, we can naturally flow, just like water, air, fire, and earth.

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Facing the Right Direction

I learned an amazing fact recently about sunflowers that has a lot to do with how to live a rich, centered, balanced life.

Imagine a field full of sunflowers. Can you see it in your mind? If you need a little help, the internet has lots of photos.

If the sun is out, take a second and see what you notice.

If you said, they’re all facing the same direction, you’re correct. And the direction they’re facing is always toward the sun. Each of their faces is upturned to capture as much sunshine as possible. They’re known as heliotropic because their heads follow the sun as it arcs through the sky.

In the morning sunflowers face east and as the day progresses, they end up facing west. Even more fantastic to me is that once the sun goes down, each sunflower turns and faces east again, waiting for the sun to come up in the morning.

What I find so compelling about this is that sunflowers know instinctively what their energy source is and orient themselves around it. They know the sun will feed them, so they follow it the whole day.

What if we oriented ourselves around what truly feeds and nourishes us?

What kind of life would that provide us?

The question that arises for me is, what is the best source of nourishment? I realize that what I choose will make all of the difference in my life. This idea makes me want to choose very carefully.

If you sat back in this moment, what would you choose?

There are a lot of things to pick from. Money, fame, job advancement, athletic excellence, social influence, strong relationships, popularity.

How do you decide what to choose? Maybe, you don’t want to choose only one. Maybe you want or need more. Maybe you want them all.

Thinking about my answer prompts me to consider whether the list is complete. Are there other things more important than the ones that first came to me?

It only takes a second to reveal my answer. None of these is what I want most. None of these will nourish me over the course of my life and I would be wise to look deeper.

So, I do and discover that what truly is the source of everything valuable in my life is love. If I connect to love in every situation, like the sunflowers connect to the sun, I will always have what I need and want. I will always be fulfilled.

Recently my nine-year-old grandson asked me a fascinating question. He was in the living room and called out to me in the kitchen asking, “What’s the most powerful thing in the world?”

I thought for a moment and said, “love”.

My thirteen-year-old granddaughter overheard both his question and my answer and said to me, “I knew you’d choose that.”

So, there it was, perhaps 30 seconds of elapsed time to reveal some magic and magnificence. He asked an incredibly important question and she reflected to me her awareness, her insight into me, with my answer. I felt ‘seen’. I was touched deeply by this impromptu exchange, and I thought about sunflowers and the way they move with the sun and recognized I am like them because I move to see and feel love.

Love centers me, balances me, and gives me everything I could ever hope for.

If I was ever asked, I would encourage anyone to find their sources of love and follow them throughout the day, then sit waiting for them to appear the next morning, like the sun gazing down on a field of sunflowers.

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What Are You Looking For

Do you suppose that everyone is looking for something? Some extra portion of life? Some new spice, experience, dimension, or transition?

Are you?

If you are, do you know where to look?

This seems like a simple question, but it’s more than that. It’s the essential question. We have so many places and directions we can move, but how do we know for sure which will lead us toward what we want?

As you’ve observed by now if you’ve been with me for a while, asking questions is one of the main ways that helps me plot my course through life. Without questions, I wander, moving about aimlessly. I need focus and questions create pathways for me.

So, if you are willing, I’m going to take you on one of my journeys. In this case, it’s a somewhat poetic journey which starts with an important question. Because none of us is more important than another, sometimes it seems we don’t feel we can share what feels true to us.

I am taking a step. A step beyond my comfort level and placing words on a page, with the idea in mind that they may offer you something of value.

Who am I to speak to you?

And yet, who do I have to be?

Who do any of us have to be?

We all know a part of the whole.

I am wondering…

What do we look for in each other?

To be someone to help fill us up,

Someone to hear us,

To know why our heart beats?

Someone to touch our soul,

Someone to stand next to,

Or lean up against,

To help weather life’s storms?

Someone to remind us about love,

About why we’re here,

To ask us about our dreams,

To lead us forward,

And to catch us when we fall?

Someone to remind us that we are family,

That we’ve chosen each other,

To support, to suggest,

To increase our range and

Help us see beyond ourselves?

And someone to help us know love

Through both human and divine touch.

To me, what each of us may be looking for is found both inside of us and inside of others. When we connect, we’re bigger, brighter, bolder than we are alone. We need each other. We want each other.

Solely looking outside doesn’t work for me. Neither does looking only on my inside. I need both. I need insight and reflection.

How about you?

What do you need and where are you looking?

After years of searching, I settled back, relaxed my mind and heart, and waited for an answer. A divine connection appeared, and a voice spoke.

“You can look wherever you like, but there is one sure, true path.”

“Tell me please,” I asked, “what is this path?”

“Always choose love. Open your heart and offer love, to yourself and to all others. From here you will find all that you seek.”

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Making A Difference

I wanted to share some thoughts about making a difference. It could be in someone else’s life, but the one that really, truly matters, is making a difference in your own life.

To me the reason for that seems to be because once you find the inner strength to make shifts in your own life, it automatically changes the way you approach life…and everyone you come into contact with benefits from this.

I’m not saying this is easy. I know it’s not, but when you see value and worth in shifting some of your beliefs, everything can change for you in a good way. There might be some discomfort as you adjust, but life can be so much better than we imagine it.

My offering comes by way of a poem I wrote many years ago.

Imagine you had a chance

To make a difference in someone’s life

Would you take it?

(or) would you stand back

At a Distance

And ask yourself questions?

What would you need to know?

Would it matter what they were like?

(or) what they believed in?

If they were nice to their friends?

If they were mean to their enemies?

Would it matter

If they paid you

With money or

With kind words?

Would your eyes ask any questions?

Would your heart move you forward

Or hold you back?

Would you question your skill?

(or) wonder about your motives?

Would you ask yourself

If you were

Good enough?

Or do you know

That you already are?

Do you know how precious,

How priceless you are?

How every good thing is within you already?

How we are meant to be connected

To everyone else

With no lines,

No fences

And no hesitation

We are all a part of the same dream,

The same human form

The same essential heart

Imagine

You gave yourself

The chance to make a difference

In someone’s life

Imagine

That you realize

You always can.

A hope of mine is that you choose to shift and open to a wider world, one where you offer yourself a chance to make a difference in your own life and the lives of others. Bon voyage.

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Sacred Timing

I’m going to admit something right up front…I’m frustrated with an issue I think ought to be going a certain way and isn’t.

Does this happen to you? Maybe a little? Maybe a lot?

Whenever I’m faced with this kind of situation, I know I need to dig deeper and I sense a need to explore, even if I don’t have any idea which direction to move.

This same kind of experience has happened many times in my life. Certainly, enough times for me to recognize the telltale signs.

Maybe you face the same thing and maybe it’s difficult for you to make any headway too. If so, here’s a few thoughts that might assist you or provide some clarity.

The first thing to show up is an increasing sense of annoyance and frustration at not being able to make sense of something or fit it together properly. It’s rapidly followed by a realization that I feel blocked by some inconvenient, inexplicable obstacle in my way. Regardless of logic, reason, or any amount of brainstorming, I cannot uncover any solution.

It’s a terrible feeling for someone who likes order (like me).

Right at the moment there is a small spark igniting inside me providing a tiny amount of light, just enough for me to see. Just enough for me to believe there is an answer somewhere if I only look in the correct place.

But where is the right place? When you are faced with your own situations where answers are out of reach, where do you look?

A little light bulb goes off and I hear a small voice inside me saying, “You’re not finding the solution because it’s not time yet.”

What does that mean? Is there really a right and wrong time for any of us to experience something? Is there such a thing as “sacred timing”?

I want to know the answer, so I say to my small voice, “I don’t understand why. I sense you are telling me the truth, but I need to know more. I’m not good with mysteries like this. Can you please give me a little direction here?”

There is silence and I know I’ll benefit from calming myself down and preparing to listen carefully. I quiet my breathing and wait.

I believe ALL answers are open and available to me, but that doesn’t mean they will appear according to my perceived or expected timetable.

“There is sacred timing with all things,” the voice tells me. “When no solution appears, despite your best attempts, that’s a clue for you that you are not ready for the answer.”

I resist wanting to hear this and ask, “Not ready according to who?” I realize my response is a little edgy, but I can’t help it. Okay, I don’t choose to help it (which is different).

The voice takes no offense at my tone and offers me sweetness in return. “Not ready according to you”, it says, followed by “who else?”

This change of direction unbalances me, so I ask, “Am I to believe that I am blocking my own way forward and that I am manufacturing my own obstacles?”

“Yes. Sit back and let that sink in.”

I sit back and try to loosen my defensiveness and release my narrow thinking. I truly want to know what’s happening and somehow this change in my attitude opens a door. It swings away from me revealing something I had not expected.

What I originally wanted would have focused me on a priority that does not serve me. By that I mean, I might have achieved an intellectual goal, but I would have missed my true spiritual aim. By delaying, I offered myself time to see clearly what is most important to me.

The voice speaks softly to me, “You see now what I’m saying, that inside you there is a true voice that always offers you your best, most beautiful life. And it does this in accordance with sacred timing. You can always trust in this. Should you forget upon occasion, let a spark light your way and remember this conversation.”

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Why

As a kid I used to ask my parents, “why?”

I rarely received a satisfactory answer. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe they didn’t know either. More likely, they didn’t feel it necessary to answer or they just plain didn’t want to. They were probably too busy for the onslaught of follow up questions I was no doubt going to ask.

In order to avoid this, I was told, “because I said so.” And that was supposed to be that…done deal…conversation over.

Well, I’m a grown up (mostly) and I still want to know, “why?”

The issue is, who do I ask now?

Do I have to answer all of my own questions from here on in? If so, I’m going to be in trouble because this world is far too complicated for me to figure everything out that I’m curious about.

I have a mile long list of questions I’d like the answers to. Maybe you have a few on your list too. It would be fun to compare notes sometime. But until then, here’s something I’d like to understand.

Why can’t we all get along?

I try to sit back and listen so that I might discern some of the reasons. The first thing that jumps out at me is that we’ve all received strong cultural training, whether from our parents, other family members, teachers, bosses, leaders, really everyone that surrounds us.

We seem to start out with a blank baby slate. Nothing on it at all, just some inner coding to help us get what we feel we need: food, tender loving care, clean diapers, a nice crib. “Why” doesn’t seem to matter.

But as we grow older, we become a part of an opinion factory. We are told what to think and how to act or we observe it. Either way it becomes a part of us. We absorb everything around us and filter it through our training. If it doesn’t fit, we set it aside.

And in that very moment, “why” becomes lost. We act by rote.

I wonder, how could it be different from this? How might we be trained so that we could be open and so that we could listen and ask questions and hear answers?

And while it would be nice to start over, fresh and clean, that’s not very realistic, so I search for an alternative. From the place I am right now, can I become a blank slate, ready to have an open dialogue with others, ready to talk about all of the “whys”?

What would make this possible?

My first impression is that compassion, sympathy, and empathy need to take center stage. I need to acknowledge that I have pre-formed opinions about almost everything. And further, I need to consider that none of them might be accurate or fair.

If I can accept this starting place, I think I have a chance. I think I can ask real questions and hear real answers. I think I can fit the new answers in around all the other things I’ve been told and let them influence each other.

And perhaps I’m asking the wrong question.

Maybe the question ought to be…”how” can we get along? Maybe “why” is a rabbit hole, a deep set of tunnels where everyone gets lost.

I like the idea of “how” because it’s active and leads me forward, rather than “why” that often leads me in circles.

“How” is hopeful and full of potential. “How” is worth exploring. It’s connective and alive. So, I think I’ll release needing to know “why” and focus my time and energy on “how”. Maybe you’ll want to join me.

“How” is a way forward that folks can work on together. We can explore our views and preconceptions with each other and seek commonalities, then build from there, believing that there are answers and solutions for everything.

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What Words Describe You

Now that’s a thinker of a question.

When I asked myself this, it was hard to get started. There’s so much ground to cover to choose specific words to describe a person, any person, let alone myself.

The temptation for me is to begin with words that describe what I do like, writer, bookkeeper, walker, artist, cook, reader. Or perhaps, labels I could easily apply such as male, ‘more than’ middle aged, liberal on some things, conservative on others, spiritual vs religious. The lists could go on and on.

But I find these are not the words that express who I am or who I want to be in this world. I have to go deeper.

I lean into a few, dreamer, creator, visionary. I check myself to be sure I feel they apply to me. I ask for confirmation. Have I dreamed something into existence, created it and brought it to life, followed a vision into reality?

I take my time before I answer.

I look into my heart and ask a second time because these are big words to use. Big words to apply to myself.

Perhaps like me you’ve been trained by our culture to question your contributions and their value, as if we need to constantly measure up to someone standards. Many times, the bar is set pretty high, higher than we think we can reach.

I decide to be a renegade and toss the bar aside. I trample it and choose to give myself permission to use any word I like the sound of and any words that I feel suits me.

I accept dreamer, creator, and visionary. I open my mind and see all the things I have experienced in my abundant life. They spill out onto the page, and I treat them reverently.

What are the words you would choose for yourself?

If you decide to play along with me in this adventure, please give yourself full permission to use any word(s) you’d like. Let them flow out as easily as you can.

I wish I could see your list. I hope it’s filled with awesome, happy, healthy, adventurous, wonderful words.

I wondered what else I could add to my brief list of three. I stretched myself and decided to allow anything that wanted to come out to jump onto the page. To do this, I released my need to conform to any societal standards.

I am loving, giving, a loyal and faithful friend, an old soul, resourceful, lover of music, sci-fi and action movie enthusiast, organizer, planner, To Do list operator, and heart centered.

I am also a channel, able to communicate with the divine, to receive insights and inspirations to pass along to anyone who feels they speak the truth to them. I am an ‘inviter’, who never asks to be believed, because that is not up to me. I speak what I hear and what my heart tells me, but I never expect, demand, or anticipate anyone else accepting anything I say.

My aim is to pass along what wisdom I come into contact with and invite others to decide for themselves whether it speaks the truth to them.

I trust that each of us has an internal spiritual navigation system which offers us the choice of what to believe. There is no system which speaks to everyone, so it falls to us all to decide for ourselves.

If you decide to choose some words that describe you, remember that you are the one in charge. You get to pick what feels right to you. One last bit of advice, if you move ahead with this exercise- choose words that lead you in the direction you wish to go.