Imprisoned by False Beliefs like Bees in a Mason Jar
July 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Habits of thought and habits of false beliefs can imprison us. Many times, we aren’t even aware of the habits, much less their sentence of imprisonment. Awareness of the habitual thoughts and false beliefs is the first step to freedom. Sometimes, that’s all that’s needed.
In her book, The Secret Lives of Bees, author Sue Monk Kidd describes how the main character, Lily, is swarmed at night by bees that have set up residence in the walls of her bedroom. Lily captures the bees in a lidded mason jar and keeps them there for for several days. When she opens the lid, she is surprised to discover that the bees are so accustomed to their captivity that they will not fly out of the jar, no matter how much she taps on or rotates the jar. The captive bees are an analogy for Lily’s life with an abusive father. Warned by the bee’s strange behavior, she escapes from her father to find a new life with a trio of beekeeping sisters in a distant town.
Too often, we are imprisoned by limiting thoughts and beliefs that restrain us from taking wing and reaching our full potential. Do you hear an inner voice that says you aren’t good enough, or you have to work really hard to prove your worthiness, or you always have to do what you are told, or that you must please everyone or that you will never be smart/pretty/rich/thin enough? These demon voices inside us imprison us like the bees in the mason jar. Even when there is substantial evidence to the contrary, these false beliefs compel us to crawl around the inside of the jar, living small, closed-in lives.
Living big is all about recognizing the limitations of those false beliefs, taking the lid off the jar and flying free.
What do you want to do with your life but are afraid to try? What would you do if success was a given? What is keeping you imprisoned in a jar?
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Spiritual Practice Breaks are OK
June 1, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Lapses in our spiritual practice cannot be cause for beating ourselves up. If we wish to practice forgiveness in our lives, it has to start on the inside by allowing ourselves to take sabbaticals every now and then from even our most cherished practices. An attitude of acceptance is the best approach - “it is what it is” is a good affirmation. Self-acceptance is spiritual maturity.
I speak from my heart today, as I realized this morning as I was journaling that it has been many days since I have written and meditated. I hadn’t journaled since Tuesday - and today is Sunday, so you can count the days yourself. I am sorry for my lapse because I promised to you several months ago in this blog that I was committing to a daily practice. But I am proud to look back over the week and appreciate what I’ve done instead. I’m really grateful for this break in my routine, because it has produced such richness. I give myself permission to take a short break from my mediation and journaling practice. And, I am glad to come back to it now.
The week has been one of discovery and learning for me. I attended a three-day train-the-trainer class to learn about CoreClarity’s approach to training people to recognize and play to their strengths, rather than fixing their weaknesses. This positive approach to team-building and individual productivity was transformational for me, and I know it will be transformational for the organizations that I hope to bring it to. The training was exciting but it was also exhausting because of the deep inner work that we did. Plus, it was an hour or more commute each way to the class for me.
But, an amazing result came out of those long commutes - I created a dream for where I wanted to be in five years. I was inspired by my business coach who invited me to her birthday party last week. I couldn’t attend because I was out-of-town on business. What she invited her friends to was not a “come as you are” party, but a “come as you will be… in 2013″ party. Come as you will be in five years - now that’s a fascinating challenge! As I battled rush hour traffic this week, I turned off the radio and mentally envisioned where I would like to be, what I would like to be doing, and what my life is going to look like in five years. I have captured my dream in my journal, and I hope to make a story-board (a visual depiction) of my dream also. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I look back now and am happy that the space in my practice allowed me to do this inner work.
We must give ourselves permission to take breaks from our spiritual practices. We can just notice them, just as we notice our thoughts come and go during meditation. The trick is in getting back into the practices. In meditation, we notice the thoughts and let them go - and then direct our minds back to the breath. We must direct our lives back to our practice in the same non-judgmental way.
That is what self-forgiveness is all about.
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Give Negative Energy the Brush-off!
May 14, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Have you ever been with a person whose negative attitude, perspective or energy seems to suck the very life out of your body? Or, have you ever become aware of your own negative reaction to a person or situation and noticed how it seems to settle in your body? If you are aware enough to notice these situations, congratulate yourself because awareness is the first step in spiritual maturity. What I’d like to share today is a technique to literally brush off negative energy and clear the way for your heart to embrace more loving thoughts and feelings.
When we are exposed to negative thoughts or emotions - whether they originate from others or ourselves - our heart space is most affected. It is our heart, more than our brain, that detects and radiates energy. Researchers have shown that the heart’s energy radiates further from the body than the energy generated from the brain. The heart space is also an antenna for picking up energy that comes at us from others. Therefore, we need to clear the heart space when we feel that we’ve been emotionally or energetically attacked or when we react negatively to outside stimulus.
The body is the best indicator of our emotions and reactions - the body will hold negative energy and feelings. If I sense a tightness in my stomach muscles, I know that I am either tense or feeling attacked. You may feel tension in your shoulders, your head or some other part of your body. Whenever you feel tension, it is a good practice to examine what is causing it and try to eliminate it. If it is negative energy or thoughts that you are holding (which it often is), give the following technique a try.
The Brush-off
It’s easy: With your hand held palm open, you simply brush your heart space with a downward and outward sweeping motion. Start by touching your heart, and then start the sweep. Do this several times and visualize feelings and vibrations being swept away from your body, your heart and your consciousness. You could hold the image of a broom sweeping out your heart as you do the motion. Flick your fingers a few times at the end of the sweep to clear the energy off your hands.
For extra credit, you can then do an aura self-sweep. Hold your hand about 6 inches above your heart space, palm open and facing your body. Slowly draw your hand up and down the front of your torso and head, hovering about 6 inches above your body. See if you can feel any differences in energy in any part of your torso. If you do sense some difference, pause at that spot and perform the sweeping motion described above, but without touching your body. Flick your fingers and shake your hands out to completely disburse the vibrations.
When done, be sure to take several deep breaths to re-energize. Don’t forget to congratulate yourself for being aware and taking action to protect yourself!
You can do this exercise discretely at work or any other place. At work, you can go to the restroom for maximum privacy, or simply turn your body toward a wall in your cubicle so you can discretely do the sweeping motion. I am writing this post in an airport, where I just performed the brush-off in the ladies’ room. Hmm, I feel so much better.
Do the brush-off and feel better!
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Be your own BFF - Best Friends Forever
April 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment
BFF - that’s the text messaging acronym for "best friends forever." Today is the day to have a conversation with yourself and ask, "Will you be my BFF?" Best friends are there to love you, encourage you, forgive you and be your cheerleader - no matter what. That is what you deserve to receive from yourself - unconditional love of self, forever. Self-love is the foundation of inner peace, and inner peace is the pre-requisite to world peace. We must learn to love ourselves unconditionally before we can create true peace in our outer world.
At last Saturday’s Forgiveness Workshop at Pathways Church, we wrote forgiveness letters to ourselves. I instructed the participants to write letters that acknowledged their feelings and unmet needs in their forgiveness opportunity, and to forgive themselves for their part in the story. As facilitator, I gathered up the letters to mail and blessed each envelope - and its recipient - before sending it down the mail chute at the post office. I’ve mailed notes to myself in the past, and I remember how sweet it was to receive it. I suppose an e-card to yourself would do in a pinch! That’s one way to be your own BFF - write yourself an appreciative or forgiving letter.
Another is to record your successes in your journal. My business coach, Dr. Jayne Gardner, calls this "counting your wins". Record both your internal shifts in perspective (your "inner wins") and your worldly successes (your "outer wins"). Two amazing things happen when you record your successes. First, you begin to really appreciate yourself as you notice your own successes, both small and large. Second, successes seem to multiply when you are looking for them. It’s almost as if you set your intention to have successes in order to record them in your journal, and so you have them. Recording your successes is another way to be your own best friend. Today, I re-read my journal entries for the last four months and marveled at all the successes I wrote about. I’m proud of myself for recognizing them and for recording them. (There - I just appreciated myself! BFF!)
A third way to be your own BFF is to teach yourself some perspective. Our inner critic is swift to berate ourselves for any imperfection we might notice in ourselves. If you are your own best friend, you will talk back to your inner critic and say, "In six months (or six years, or at the end of my life), am I even going to remember this incident?" If the answer is no (and almost all the time it is), tell your critic to take a hike. A friend says that he gives himself a day to feel bad about something, but the next morning, he wakes up with self-forgiveness in his heart. That’s being your own best friend - silencing your inner critic with perspective and self-forgiveness.
Sometimes I think it is easier for us to accept God’s unconditional love than it is to accept our own unconditional love. We get sucked into thinking that the Divine is more loving, more powerful, more wonderful than we are so we can mentally understand that loving me is easy for God. However, if we carry the Divine spark within us, we can and must love ourselves. Loving ourselves is the path to peace.
So, look yourself in the mirror today and ask that gorgeous face of yours, "Will you be my BFF?"
