Month: March 2021

God brings certain people into my life to teach me lessons about myself.

God brought a woman into my life who would not listen to me. What I learned was I often don’t listen to people.

This woman started our conversation with something I didn’t want to talk about and told her so. She talked about it anyway. I got angrier and angrier. We ended the phone call.

My husband and I are planning to relocate. We are discussing how to proceed. Sometimes when we talk, I find myself feeling angry; I don’t want to listen to his opinions and walk away or ignore him.

I began to notice all the times I do this to people. Refuse to listen. It starts as a slow burn and becomes a physical resistance in my body – increased heart rate, rigid muscles, clenched teeth.

I talked this realization over with a friend.

“You feel self-righteousness,” she said. “I get it. I do that, too. I don’t want to listen to someone who has strong opinions opposite from mine. It’s tricky.”

I realized I owed the woman with strong opinions an apology. I thought she had not listened to me. But I had not listened to her. I failed her as a friend. I called and apologized. I said I had done a poor job of listening and could do better. She said, okay, but she’d rather not be friends anyway. We weren’t close, but still, I was disappointed and sad, but it showed me the effects of my behavior.

I don’t want to live my life turning away from people whose opinions I don’t like.

God says I can be grounded in love and wholeness as I listen. I don’t need to spout my opinion in return. I don’t have to engage in an argument. I can listen. I can accept the information and let it rest.

I apologize now to my husband. I say, “I will listen and try not to walk away.”

He says, “Thank you. I will try to do the same.”

Maybe King Solomon was considered wise because he listened. But he prayed to God for the gift of wisdom, for the gift of listening.

“Therefore, give to Your servant an understanding heart to judge Your people, that I may discern between good and evil.”

I receive everything from You, Higher Power. What someone else thinks or says does not take away what You give me. God, grant me an understanding, listening heart.

And dare I say it, keep the lessons coming.

For years I have woken up in the middle of the night feeling anxious. At least, that’s how I interpreted it; only I wasn’t sure. Was this tightening in my gut, this mild tingling throughout my body anxiety, the feeling you might get locking yourself into a dreaded rollercoaster ride; was it hormones fluctuating?

At the moment, I was safe in my warm bed with a roof over me; I was healthy, as were my husband and my children. Why feel anxious? And yet, the belief persisted that this was anxiety, this overall humming throughout my body like a low electrical current.

But what if that feeling was something else? What if that feeling was an invitation from the Goddess to surrender to Her completely? What if that humming charge I felt was the divine opening the door inviting me to step through? I had this inkling with the help of the spiritual teacher, Jeff Carreira, through his Mystery School https://mysteryschool-memberscircle.com/ He suggests that we question our assumptions about reality and thought. So the next time I awoke in the night, I chose to entertain the possibility that the energy I felt was not anxiety but an invitation from the Goddess inviting me to say yes. So I said, yes, I surrender. I surrender.

An amazing thing happened.

I fell back asleep in the most beautiful space I could imagine. Everything, the landscape, the people, the air, the buildings, was alive with color, abundance, energy, and love. Two women, angels or spirit guides, told me my son was a prophet who understood that life was so much more than we could see and that we had to save him. The Goddess scooped me up in Her Hand and whisked me away to safety.

I woke up.

May my eyes continue to open and see Her Vision. May I come to realize more and more I am that Vision.

Any may you find that Vision as well.

So mote it be.

“Perennial Joy”

The Self cannot be known through the study

Of the scriptures, nor through the intellect,

Nor through hearing discourses about it.

It can be attained only by those

Whom the Self chooses. Verily unto them

Does the Self reveal itself.

–The Katha Upanishad

I don’t have much to say today. I’m just idling contentedly along.

“If you understand,

things are just as they are;

if you do not understand, things are just as they are.”

— Buddhist proverb

I had my teeth cleaned this week. I hate having my teeth cleaned. I hate that scraping, the stiff, dry ratcheting in my skull that literally sets my teeth on edge.

But this time, I decided to lean into the scraping and scratching instead of pushing it away, to accept it for what it is, an experience of the unfolding universe. And you know what? The discomfort became less acute. I could even enjoy part of it, like almost a massaging of my gums, knowing I was receiving deep satisfying cleanliness.

Before I knew it, the hygienist was done polishing my teeth and then getting out the dental floss, the final step.

Unpleasant situations are more intense when we tense up against them. Take the huge knot in my back, for instance. If I breathe into the knot and relax while lying on a hard rubber ball, if I flow with my deep breathing, the knot has a better chance to loosen. Same with teeth cleaning or any other experience, I imagine. The ones we deal with day in day out, anyway. Maybe not the truly traumatic and torturous ones. But who knows? Maybe the same goes for them as well.

So, for everyday unpleasantness, I will choose to show up and breathe into the moment rather than resist it. If you try it, I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Perennial Joy

“Leave pain and pleasure far behind.

Those who know that they are neither body

Nor mind but the immemorial Self,

The divine principle of existence,

Find the source of all joy and live in joy

Abiding…”

The Katha Upanishad