Spirit Of Gratitude

“I am God in my own universe.”

These are the words of Patton Boyle’s protagonist, Little Warrior, in “Screaming Hawk: Flying Eagle’s Training of a Mystic Warrior.” When this thought causes him to stop in his tracks, Little Warrior realizes that he has accepted the statement on two levels, not just one. On the one hand, it is a recognition that he is the creator of his own reality. So far, so good. On the other hand, it is an admission that he has attempted to make himself God in his world.

“The more I thought honestly about it the more I realized that I really did want to be God, that my will was central, and that I worshiped myself as the most important thing in my own universe. Meeting my own needs and finding fulfillment and happiness for myself was of utmost importance for me.”

As Little Warrior struggles to understand the true meaning of love, he realizes, “If love becomes the center of my life I can no longer be the self-centered God of my life.”

That sentence pretty well sums up the transition from focusing on achievement, acquisition, and accomplishment to meaning, impact, and connection with higher self. At some point, moving forward requires that we let go of being the self-centered Gods of our lives.

For most of us, this is difficult, and even a bit terrifying. Who are you without the career, the stuff, the children, the awards, the GPA? If love (in the highest meaning of the word) were the center and motivating factor of your life, how would things change? What treasured pieces of the little I ego would have to be let go?

In my own life, that letting go is happening seemingly all by itself. I recently realized that I had attained all of the material goals I had set for myself - career, income, home, etc. - and none of it really mattered. Those things no longer made up my definition of myself.

It’s been a while that I’ve been comfortably ensconced in the land of “That’s nice. So now what?” The question moved in and became my new story, my new identity. Little Warrior has inspired me to leave that plateau. Meeting my own needs and my own fulfillment and happiness are no longer enough. If I am to make love the center of my life I can no longer be the self-centered God of my life.

How exciting is that?

I had an amazing learning experience on a hike with my friend John, while we were trooping into the woods at twilight with a group. John recently had surgery on his knee, so he was hobbling, rather than hiking. When we set off, I positioned myself behind him, so I could keep an eye on him and to make sure I didn’t outpace him. Off we went, scrambling up the first hill.

As we walked, I started wondering if he were going to make it all the way to the end of the mile-long trail. My next thought was, If not, I’ll just carry him on my back. A few steps later, a voice in my head asked, “How often does that show up in your life? How often do you assume someone less able than you are is completely incapable, rather than simply in need of a little assistance?”

Hmmm… That got me thinking.
On a downhill section, I noticed him leaning on the shoulder of the woman in front of him. I thought, “Oh. What a good idea, but I’m his partner on this trip, so that’s my job.” A few minutes later, she took his backpack, and I took the opportunity to pass him, so I could take over the physical support. I still wondered if I’d end up playing pack mule, but I vowed to keep it to myself and let him lead.

We continued on and arrived at the campfire, where we stood with our arms around each other. We hiked back with his hands on my shoulders for the downhill sections. He’d made it under his own steam with what was, under the circumstances, very little help.

It sounds like such a simple thing now that I think about it. And yet it was a huge aha moment for me. I learned that people less able than I can nonetheless impress the daylights out of me if I just let them.

How often do we assume less able means unable? How often do we swoop in to do for when do with would be more appropriate? How much could we improve the world by empowering, rather than disempowering those who seem to be or have less? And how much more energy could we seeminglly more abled folk put into improving the world if we reclaimed the energy we spend over helping?

The Buddha taught The Middle Way. It’s so easy to live at the extremes of doing for or doing nothing.  I think he was on to something. Next time you see someone who needs help, how can you give just enough and not too much?

Yesterday, I had the most wonderful experience of being in exactly my right place.

I left the office early, so I could arrive home in time for a 5pm conference call. When I rounded the corner for the last leg of my 1.5-mile walk, I looked down the block and saw my neighbor, Fred, taking in his trash and recycling containers. To all of you who don’t live on my block, I give my greatest sympathy, ‘cuz he’s the best neighbor in the whole wide world.

As we hugged our hellos, Fred told me that he was heading for “The Lodge” and that he was going to be honored with a 50-year pin at their banquet. We chatted a bit, and I headed inside.

I dialed into the conference call I’d worked so hard to attend only to find out that the lines were full, and I was out of luck. Sigh. Might as well make dinner, then. I grabbed the mail on my way to the kitchen and started shuffling through it. Envelope number three was Fred’s electric bill. I figured I’d stuff it through his mail slot before dinner.

When I got outside, I saw another neighbor and his son pushing Fred’s truck back into his driveway. I felt bad that I was in impractical shoes and couldn’t help push. He tried the ignition again once the truck was parked in the driveway, but no dice.

So there I was. Home early. Not on my conference call. Standing outside due to misdelivered mail. And all just in time to give the world’s best neighbor a ride to a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony. How cool is that?!?!

Don’t you just love the perfection of it all? I do.

Like most people, I was raised in the grand tradition of food for all occasions. Something to celebrate? Eat cake. Feeling low? Add ice cream. Bored? Have a cookie. And so on. You’ve heard the saying, “If it can’t be fixed with duct tape, WD-40, and a hammer, it can’t be fixed.”? Well, we’re a society of “If an emotion can’t be eliminated or replaced by food…well, we just don’t know any other way.”

A couple of years ago, my walking buddy found out that she had some fairly serious health issues. Now, I’m not good with medical details. There are episodes of MASH I can’t watch without making sure my head is downhill from my feet. That, combined with fear and helplessness really tore me up.

At some point, I consciously realized that I had a choice. I could either be the supportive friend and deal with the stress and pain with my old tool food, or I had to tell her I couldn’t be there for her. I chose my friend over my figure and put on 20 pounds over the next year.

When I popped out on the other side of that situation, I knew I could will power myself back into my now-too-small jeans, but I made a deal with myself. I wasn’t going to tackle the weight until I knew I’d never have to abuse food like that again. That meant I needed a lot of new tools in my mental workshop - new ways to deal with stress, new ways to celebrate, new strategies for getting control of the monkey mind that propelled me to the kitchen when faced with some task I didn’t want to do. Bob Proctor says, “If you have a money problem, money won’t solve your problem.” So, I wondered… What if food - counting it, rationing it, avoiding it, etc. - wasn’t the way to solve my food problem?

Turns out, I was on to something. Stay tuned…

This week was a stunning example of misplaced obligation vs. gut-level knowing. All of Tuesday evening, I kept thinking I should call in sick, phone in to my 9am meeting and skip the company picnic. Not should as in “Hey, I could get away with…” but should as in “I definitely need to…” Wednesday morning I felt the same, but the guilt monster propelled me to the office. I thought, “It’s good that I’m here for the 9 o’clock meeting. If I were just on the phone, they might not really listen to what I have to say, and this is really important to me. But, after the meeting, I’m going home.” The words “I’m going home” felt good, felt strong.

Back in my office after the meeting, I was jumpy. I felt like my computer and my home were pulling me in opposite directions. I wanted to leave, but I felt anchored to my desk. As the clock approached the time when I knew everyone would be leaving for the picnic, I packed my bag and straightened my desk. I thought, “Everyone else is leaving the building now. I can go home. I’ll get no end of grief tomorrow for not showing up, not showing solidarity, not being a good manager and meeting my employees’ families, but I really need to go home.” At that point a coworker friend showed up and said he wanted to ride with me to the picnic. I really felt pulled home, but I felt so guilty about ditching the picnic that I compromised with, “OK. I’ll go just for lunch, and leave right after.”
So, there I was really really feeling the pull of home yet driving off to the picnic. All the way through town I felt the pull in my gut trying to yank me home. But how could I back out, leaving my friend with no way to get there? I berated myself for having a bad attitude and told myself how much fun it would be to have some stress-free time with my coworkers.
The road to the park is a very narrow, very steep, winding, and drops off abruptly about 1/4″ outside of the painted line on the edge. That 1/4″ is the shoulder. We passed lots of bicycles as we started toodling up the road. At one point, we came up on a couple of bikes inching up the road with about lots of space between them. I had a clear view and plenty of room to pass the first and crawl up around the blind curve between them. So far, so good.

As we started up and around the steeper, blind curve, the bicycle in front of me wobbled. My heart went into my throat, and I thought for sure he was going to swerve or fall in front of me. I knew there was no way I could stop the truck before hitting him should that happen, and the flash vision/feeling of him going under my tire moved my hands to steer away from him. Just at that moment, a car came flying down the road from the other direction. I watched her skid, and our front corners met with a sickening crunch.
My first thought after a very loud exclamatory sentence was, “I knew I was supposed to stay home, and I Just. Didn’t. Listen. I knew!” and “Here I am trying not to kill some guy, and this is what I get. Why. Didn’t. I. Go. Home?”

Sigh.

I felt just like the guy in the flood who waved away the raft, the rowboat, and the helicopter. “No. It’s OK. I’m waiting for God to save me.” When he gets to the pearly gates, he asks God why he didn’t save him, and God says, “I sent a raft, a rowboat, and a helicopter. Why wouldn’t you let me save you?” Or, in my case, “I sent a niggle, a strong thought, and an invisible winch at your house reeling in your gut. Why wouldn’t you let me save you?”

It’s so easy to get caught up in obligation, guilt, worrying about what others will think, etc. and miss God/Source/The Universe’s attempts to get our attention, to guard and guide us, to keep us in the path of harmony.

Discerning whether a feeling is intuition or human will can be a challenge. One key indicator is how you feel as you move forward in your chosen action. Do you feel uplifted, energized, and lighter? Or like you’re using the if-force-doesn’t-work-you’re-not-using-enough approach? Are you making decisions based on what other people are going to say or going to try to make you feel? Or, are you making decisions in alignment with your knowing?

So often, we think checking in with ourselves has to be some huge, time-consuming production involving finding a place to hide, shutting out all noises and people, and an hour of meditation. But it doesn’t have to be. A check in need take no longer than a single deep breath. Inhale slowly and deeply. Feel lungs expand ’till even the space down around your pelvis feels full. Then let the breath go all the way out just as slowly and easily. In the space before your next inhalation, ask yourself or feel for the answer you seek.

Then don’t second guess it.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend called me in great distress. She had been writing articles for her local paper on spirituality and, as a courtesy, had submitted them to her church’s publications person for review before turning them in. Every week, the reviewer would send back disparaging comments, personal insults, suggestions to change the wording to sound more like the reviewer’s voice than my friend’s, and/or changes to the stories that would have changed my friend’s personal history after the fact.
What a mess.

We talked a little bit about what might motivate this person to respond that way - insecurity, jealousy, etc., tried to understand from the human level, and indulged in a few zingers that could be sent back in response…

But, then I got to thinking…

There’s “fake strength” and “real strength”. Fake strength is defensive, I’ll-hurt-you-before-you-can-hurt-me, lashing out, tearing others down, etc., and real strength is being so in alignment - with who you are, what you’re doing, and your connection to Source all stacked up - that the arrows go through your field without weakening you one iota. What if we looked for the solution to this human-level problem at a higher level?
I asked my friend to do an exercise.

If you plonked down and wrote a page answering the question, “Who am I, and what can I give?”, by the bottom of the page, would tiny little minds (small m) even be visible in your world? Would it matter to you that you’ve found a few diet nazis who don’t appreciate your offer to share the world’s most amazing chocolate cake?

And, finally, from that expanded place, would you know at your core that these folks are doing the best they can with what they’ve got and that all you can do is continue to see and love their perfect selves even when they themselves are unable to bring those perfect selves out in their lives?

When you remember to direct your energy to knowing who you are, rather than outward at the people or situations that challenge you, you become bigger than the issues you’re facing. And when you’re bigger than the problems, the problems vanish (either because they resolve or because they’re so inconsequential that they’re no longer big enough to deserve to be classed as “problems”).

You know who you are. The slings and arrows of little minds dissolve in your Presence.

Intuition, The Gut, The Still, Small Voice, Instinct… Many names for the same thing. That piece of you that always knows when something isn’t quite right, when you should turn left instead of right, when someone is leaving out some vital detail. We all have it, but most of us were taught to ignore it and instead use various left-brain exercises to navigate life.

So, given that The Gut is always right, how do we get more in tune with the messages it’s sending?

Certainly, one method is meditation. When you close your eyes and concentrate on your breathing, the usual brain chatter is less overwhelming. Even if you can’t stop it completely, just the act of noticing your thoughts as they go by - “Oh. There’s a thought about painting the house. Thanx, I’ll entertain that one later.” - lessens the hold they have on your attention, leaving space for the little voice of your intuition to break through.

Side note: If you want to “cheat” and become a skilled meditator much faster, check out Holosync. I like to describe it as “mechanical meditation.” It puts your brain into meditative states using sound. So you get to experience those states without zillions of years of struggle to quiet your thoughts. After using Holosync for a while, though, you’ll find that you’re pretty good at doing the quiet brain thing, though, even though you never directly set out to learn how. How cool is that?!?!

Another way is simply to start paying attention. At first, you’ll realize way after the fact that your intuition was trying to tell you something, and you missed it. Stop and acknowledge the message. Say something like, “Ah. My gut was trying to tell me that I should have chosen X over Y, but the brochure for Y was so appealing, and it distracted me.” Soon that’ll change to realizing the next day, then a few hours later, then just after, ’till finally, you catch the message while it’s happening and it gets your full attention.

At some point, you may find that you sometimes get messages and sometimes don’t. The truth is that your intuition is talking to you all the time, just at varying volume levels. Make it a game to see how much of your life you can live from your gut, rather than your head. Not only is it fun, you’ll be amazed at how successful your life becomes.

I’m split down the middle, an even balance of right and left, logic and artistry. I was born left handed, forced right, and write illegibly with both. I tied myself on my SATs, math and verbal neck and neck. The pendulum of my career has gone from editing to programming to writing to databases.

The me’s (mes? Looks French.) like to war with each other. They fight for control of my life. The beautiful car, or the practical car? The finished, needs-nothing house or the fixer upper? The colorful funky glasses or the disappearing micro-thin frames?

It’s amazing that I make any decisions at all, right?

If it were all about Ms. Left and Ms. Right, I’d be spinning round and round on the same spot never making any progress at all. But I’ve got a secret weapon, a tie breaker. Luckily for me, Left and Right always bow to The Gut, and The Gut is always right.

Sometimes it’s a niggle. Sometimes it’s a physical push. Sometimes it’s a voice cutting through my consciousness. It depends. The delivery method varies, but the rightness of the message does not. I was forced into an acquaintance with my intuition by the need to break the deadlock in my head. Ms. Left and Ms. Right have equally valid points of view. But the intuition knows best.

Let’s face it, humans are mostly not into change. Even those of us who seem to be change junkies have areas of our lives in which we inexplicably cling to the status quo. Luckily for me, moving is not one of those areas of clinging in my life. I have packed up my world and plonked it down somewhere else 66 times now, each time a joyful, exciting experience.

You think I’m crazy, and that’s OK.

To make your next move as wonderful for you as all of mine have been for me, let me tell you what I know about moving…

The key to whether a move is a sorrow or a joy is in your sense of home. If you limit your definition of home to the physical - an address, a certain building, or a certain city, you’re setting yourself up for a bad experience. Instead, go deeper. What makes that place your home? What are the qualities and attributes? How does it make you feel? Grab a pen and brainstorm. For example:

Home is:

• light and airy
• comfortable
• peaceful
• lively
• colorful
• …

Home makes me feel:

• warm
• safe
• relaxed
• recharged
• …

You get the idea.

Now take a good look at your list or lists. What you’re looking at is your real definition of home. At your core, you know that home is a collection of qualities and feelings, not a place. And you can create that collection anywhere at any time.

When you carry your sense of home inside of you, there is nothing to leave, lose, or mourn. You are always “at home.”

So, next time you find yourself getting nervous or anxious about an upcoming move, remember that whether or not you leave home when you leave your old dwelling is entirely up to you.

The media would have you believe that you are not good enough, that you’re too fat, too thin, too short, too tall, too smart, too dumb. Day after day, consciously or unconsciously the message gets planted in your soul. Soon, with every glance in the mirror, every step on the scale, you yourself water and fertilize that fast-growing weed. Until one day you are unable to describe yourself except as a list of faults.

“I’m a bony klutz with scraggly hair, a big nose, and chicken legs.” Or “I’m short, squat, and have enough spots on my face to be an honorary dalmatian.”

What happened to the kid who was going to rule the world someday? The boy who drew detailed plans of his amusement park? The girl who was going to cure the common cold? Where did you go? And, more importantly, how do you get you back?

Take a deep cleansing breath. In… Out… That power is still inside you, even though it’s hidden behind a wall of junk thoughts. And you absolutely have it in you to live from that place of power and confidence once again. Join me on a journey to your place of power and watch that wall crumble like the weak, crumbly concrete it is.

First, we can agree that the great sages in history had/have a direct line into what is. Everywhere you go, people are talking about manifesting, how our thoughts have measurable effects outside our bodies, and so on. Aren’t those just new words for the teachings of Christ Jesus, Buddha, many Native American traditions, and so on? Absolutely. And every one of those teachers told us that each and every one of us is, in reality, a perfect child of God, a reflection of Source. The knowledge of that fact and the confidence that grows out of it are alive and well inside you, and we’re going to break down that wall and let your power out.

Now let’s dial back the way-back machine to the first time you thought you weren’t good enough or didn’t pass muster as a human being. Dollars to donuts some human stuck you with that label. Who was it? A parent? A teacher? A friend? Now think about that person. Do you really think they had a direct line to Source? Was that person on par with Buddha or Jesus or the Dalai Lama? Nope.

So, with your focus back at the time you first wavered in your belief in your own wonderfulness, take a compassionate look at that person who introduced doubt into your thinking. See their flaws, their humanity, and love them in spite of how wrong they were. See that it was their own issues that made them act the way they did and that it really had nothing to do with you. If other movies of being cut down pop into your head, repeat the exercise for each of them.

What about you? How often are you the one who tells you you’re not good enough? Lots? A little? Embrace your humanity, and forgive yourself for being led astray. That wall doesn’t seem so solid anymore, does it? It’s crumbling away, soon to vanish into nothingness.

Now focus on that powerful little spark that is no longer hidden by the wall. Feel it glowing inside you. See yourself adding light and power to the spark as you inhale. As you exhale, notice that although power flows out of you in all directions, the spark doesn’t get any smaller. Continue until you feel the power of the spark filling your whole body.

You are powerful. You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are worthy of love. You are the reflection of God/Source. And no mirror is worthy of your perfection.