When you start to feel, do. When you start to feel scared because you don't have enough money, find someone to offer a little money. When you start to feel like you don't have enough love, find someone to offer love. When you feel unappreciated and unacknowledged, appreciate and acknowledge someone else in a concrete way. When you feel unlucky, order yourself to consider a blessing or two. Then find a tangible way to make today somebody else's lucky day. Thesestrategies help me sidestep wallowing every day. p. 30
Here's what I learned in the wake of my Lyme news: it's really hard to distinguish between a chute and a ladder. The days following my diagnosis were filled with little miracles. Maybe all my days are filled with little miracles, but I'm too distracted by what I think is my life to notice them. Sometimes bad news is the best way to see all the good quickly and clearly. Bad news has a way of waking us up, sort of like a glass of cold water in the face. We might prefer waking in a gentler way, but we can't argue with the efficiency of the cold water method... p. 37
My mother was equally devastated--so devastated, in fact, that it was hard for her to let it be as awful as it was. She was hopeful. She had to be, because allowing it to really sink in, accepting that there was no way out of the pain that her baby girl was going through, no matter how much "hope" we directed her way, was unfathomable. So she said things that occasionally made Sister feel that she was being pushed through her grief too fast.
I learned that in these disasters, all we can do is tell our ____ that their grief is real, and if it lasts forever, then we will grieve with them forever.
As far as I was able to tell during those two years, there was nothing else worth saying. It was not going to be all right, ever. Everything doesn't happen for a decent reason. I couldn't do anything at all except feed her, hold her when she cried, pray angry prayers, keep showing up, and hope that time and my home and presence would offer healing. p. 43
If...you are called upon, keep being who you have always been. Do what you've always done. There is a reason your friend chose you for that rose, so don't freeze. Keep moving. Trust your instincts.
Go to her. Don't call first, because she won't know she wants you there untill you arrive and sit down. Don't ask, "What can I do?" She doesn't know. Just do something. When you go to her house bring a movie in case she doesn't want to talk. If she does want to talk, avoid saying things to diminish or explain away her pain, like, "Everything happens for a reason," or "Time heals all wounds," or "God gives us only what we can handle." These are things people say when they don't know what else to say, and even if they're true, they're better left unsaid because they can be discovered only in retrospect. When her pain is fresh and new, let her have it. Don't try to take it away. Forgive yourself for not having that power. Grief and pain are like joy and peace; they are not things we should try to snatch from each other. They're sacred. They are part of each person's journey. All we can do is offer relief from this fear: I am alone. That's the one fear you can alleviate. Offer your presence, your love, yourself, so she'll understand that no matter how dark it gets, she's not walking alone. That is always enough to offer, Thank God.
Grief is not something to be fixed. It's something to be borne, together. And when the time is right, there is always something that is born from it. After real grief, we are reborn as people with wider and deeper vision and greater compassion for the pain of others. We know that. So through our friend's grief, we maintain in our hearts the hope that in the end, good will come of it. But we don't say that to our friend. We let our friend discover that on her own. hope is a door each one must open for herself... p. 49-50
We're not often permitted to tell the truth in everyday life. There is a small set of words and reactions and pleasantries we are allowed to say, like, "I'm fine, and you"? But we are not supposed to say much of anything else, especially how we are really doing. We find out early that telling the wole truth makes people uncomfortalbe and is certainly not ladylike or liketly ot make us popular, so we learn to lie sweetly so we can be loved. And when we figure out this system, we are split in two: the public self, who says the right things in order to belong, and the secret self, who thinks other things. p. 51
Happiness is low expectations paired with a short-term memory problem. p. 72
Repentance is a fancy word used often in Christian circles. I don't use fancy religious words, because I don't think they explain themselves well. Also, fancy language tends to make in people feel more in and out people feel more out, and I don't think that's how words are best used. Words are best used to describe specific feelings, ideas, and hearts as clearly as possible, to make the speaker and the listener, or the writer adn the reader, feel less alone and more hopeful.
I used to be annoyed and threatened by the word repentance, until I figured out what it really means to me. Repentance is the magical moment when a sliver of light finds it's way into a place of darkness in my heart, and I'm able to see clearly how my jerkiness is keeping me from peace and joy in a specific area of my life.
I don't believe in advice. Everybody has the asnwers right inside her, since we're all made up of the same amount of God. So when a friend says, "I need some advice, I switch it to, I need some love, and I try to offer that. Offering love usually looks like being quiet, listening hard, and letting my friend talk until she discovers that she already has the answers. p. 117
Forgive yourself.
It's not a once-and-for-all thing, self-forgiveness. It's more like a constant attitude. It's just being hopeful. It's refusing to hold your breath. It's loving yourself enough to offer yourself a million more tries. It's what we want our kids to do every day for their whole lives, right? We want them to embrace being human instead of fighting against it. We want them to offer themselves grace. Forgiveness and grace are like oxygen: we can't offer it to others unless we put on our masks first. We have to put our grace masks on and breathe in deep. We have to show them how it's done. We need to love ourselves if we want our kids to love themselves. We don't necessarily have to love them more; we have to love ourselves more. We have to be gentle with ourselves. We have to forgive ourselves and then...oh my goodness...find ourselves sort of awesome, actually... p. 118-119
I wanted to badly to tell Chase that it was ok, that we would replace Jacob with a new fish, a bigger fish, a whole school of fish, but I didn't. This was his first experience with death, and I wouldn't suggest to him that death can be cheated through replacement. I wouldn't teach him that pain should be avoided, dodged, or danced around. He needed to learn that death is worthy of grief because it's final, for now. p. 146
When he asked me, Why Mom? Why does God send us here, where things hurt so much? Why does he make us love things that he knows we're going to lose? I told him that we don't love people and animals because we will have them forever; we love them because loving them changes us, makes us better, healthier, kinder, realer. Loving people and animals makes us stronger in the right ways and weaker in the right ways. Even if animals and people leave, even if they die, they leave us better. So we keep loving, even though we might lose, because loving teaches us and changes us. And that's what we're here to do. God sends us here to learn how to be better lovers, and to learn how to be loved, so we'll be prepared for heaven.
The only thing [your] gift needs to do is bring you joy. You must find the thing that brings you joy in the doing of that thing, and not worry about the outcome. Your gift might be crucial and obviously helpful...or it might be odd and unique.
...You will know your gift because it will bring you joy and satisfaction, even if it's hard for you to do. You will go about using your gift quietly, and eventually someone might notice and ask you to hare your gift. If you agree to share, your gift will become a bridge...I think it's pretty hard to keep a gift from becoming a bridge, somehow, someday, someway--if we use it. Because I think God must really want us to connect with each other. He must want us to become a part of each other's lives and memories, and he must want our hearts to get all tangled up with other hearts. We are each an island, but he gives us gifts to use as bridges into each other's lives. When we lay down our gift, we walk right over it and straight into another heart. p. 210-211
...I learned to just let feelings be--because eventually they pass. I learned that all thigns pass; that life is hard to endure but not impossible. I discovered that after enduring, if you choose not to run away, there are prizes. Those prizes are wisdom and dignity. I learned that Love and I, We could do hard things. p. 250
Friday, May 31, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Nerve: Poise under pressure, serenity under stress, and the brve new science of fear and cool
by Taylor Clark
The most legendary hypochondriac in history, though, was the poet Sara Teasdale, who even employed her own full-time nurse. One day in 1933, a blood vessel burst in Teasdale's hand, which the poet interpreted as a sure sign of an impending stroke; convinced of her grim fate, she decided to skip the formalities and take a massive overdose of sleeping pills. The coroner later reported that she'd been in perfect health.
Often, our stress level depends more on how we perceive a set of cognitive variables than on the specific demands of that situation. (p. 109)
Morgan claims that the way we talk to ourselves about stressors is equally important. How you frame something in your head has a great deal to do with your neurobiological response to it, he told me. Once you start saying to yourself Oh my goodness, this is awful, you begin releasing more cortisol and start this cascade of alarm. But when you say to yourself, I know what to do here, or see things as a challenge, then that turns into a much more positive response. p. 112
...Maddi is adamant that any one of us can instill these resilient attitudes. We know we can train people to increase their hardiness, Maddi said. It involves showing people how to deal with their stressful circumstances through problem solving, coping skills, social support, and effective self-care--rather than just giving up. Hardiness trainees learn to identify their stressors and to challenge their negative beliefs about them, like the idea that they're helpless to change a tough situation or that it's safer to give up on a problem when it grows difficult. They practice setting goals and taking small steps toward accomplishing them, slowly building up thir sense of control over their own destiny. In talk sessions, therapists help them to put their stressors into perspective: they see how turmoil often leads to accomplishments and personal growth and how change is an essential element of life. p 115
After obwerving countless assaults, Wigram began to pick up on a peculiar pattern in each twenty-two man platoon. Whenever a platoon ran into enemy fire, Wigram noted, the troops would react in three very distinct ways. Without fail, a few soldiers would go to pieces and "start making tracks for home." Another handful of men would respond valiantly, opening fire and advancing. And the majority of the troops? Wigram said they would enter a state of bewilderment, unsure of how to act; they became "sheep" and would only do their duty when prodded by a strong, decisive leader. p. 240
This treacherous freezing reaction is startlingly common in crises. In the 1970s, the psychologist Daniel Johnson found that when he asked subjects to perform a chllenging and novel task under high pressure, 45% of them shut down and stopped moving for minimum of thirty seconds. They just quit functioning, he later told the Time reporter Amnda Ripley, they just sat there. Under life threatening stress, complex brain processing plummets and the neural mainframe often maxes out, leaving us with instinctive reactions and deeply worn routines; it's as if such an experience can be too monumentl for the brain to compute. Leach says that even in the most ideal of circumstances, the brain needs at least eight to ten seconds to process an unfamiliar situation, but intense fear and stress make that task even tougher. When our brains search their data banks for the right course of action in extreme danger and come up empty, Leach claims, they shut down. We freeze. We do nothing. p244
In combat you do not rise to the occasion--you sink to the level of your training. None of us cn safely rely upon antasies of our innate heroism when the moment calls for it, Grossman says, because a life-threatening crisis makes our normal experience of reality fall apart. Only the man who prepares for disaster can hope to respond well.
...in the middle of this panic-fueled dash, a miracle happened: Kummerfeldt's training kicked in. This little voice in my head said, hey dummy, go sit down, he recaleld. So I went over to a log and sat down. This is precisely what he advises lost hikers to do today--to get off their feet. Next Kummerfeldt followed his second protocol: he took a drink of water. A drink of water is incredibly clming, he explained...These two things, getting off your feet and hving a drink of water, are two absolutely incredible lifesaving steps. p. 257
It is what we do with that fear reaction that determines our fate, Kummerfeldt says. In his classes today, Kummerfeldt teachers a model called STOP to get through wilderness survival situations: stop what you're soing, sit down, and let the adrenaline subside; think about your options; observe your environment; and plan how best to survive. Then get to work. p258
Bravery isn't being fearless. Bravery is being scared and doing the right thing anyway. p266
By now the overarching point should be clear. How did Cooper really stay cool under life-threatening pressure? The same way everyone else we've met did it: by working with fear instead of needlessly wasting energy fighting it, by focusing on what needs to be done instead of on worries, and by taking action. Cooper wasn't necessarily good at not feeling afraid...what Cooper had become good at was making this fear irrelevant. p271
How to be afraid:
1. Breathe. (square breathing)
2. put your feelings into words. Talking or writing about an emotion like fear helps the brain to prosses it behind the scenes; it allows the mine to sort out thoughts and feelings instead of just churning over them repeatedly...s;eaking compassionately and honestly about emotions, without judgement or sel-blame, helps us come to terms with them....William Faulkner once wrote, I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.
3. Train, practice, prepare. If an upcoming presentation has you anxious, rehearse it under realistic, flexible conditions until delivering it becomes routine.
4. Redirect focus--concentrate on th epresent moment and the task at hand....psychologists say that even pausing a few times a day and being present for a moment with what's going on around you (rather than with the monologue in your head) can help you to better inhabit the current moment.
5. Mindfully disentangle from worries and anxious thoughts--be mindful, watch your worries and let them coast by without getting entangled with them, or postpone worry--write it down and agree that later on you can worry about it for 30 minutes, which frees you up to focus on the moment. Over time, she says, you learn to better manage your anxious thoughts and they no longer run the show.
6. Expose yourself to your fears. If you want to remain locked into a fear indefinitely, then by ll means, avoid the situations tht make you anxious. But if you want to give your amygdala a chance to get over a fear, you must expose yourself to the things and ideas that scare you.
7. Learn to accept uncertainty and lack of control. Suppose you're worried you might be laid off from your job...if you bask in your uncertainty, (that is, expose yourself to your fear about the future), repeating the distressing thought "It's possible I could be laid off" to yourself without resisting your anxious emotional reaction, then you (and your amygdala) will eventually begin habituating to it. With enough exposre, the idea loses its power and becomes almost dull.
8. Reframe teh sitution--stay grounded in reason and remind ourself of the doubtlessly more positive reality of our situation. When you change the wy you ppraise a situation, you chnge your emotional response to it.
9. Joke around--helps us break out of a negtive point of view and see things differently.
10. Build faith in yourself.
11. Keep your eyes on a guiding principle.
12. Open up to fear unconditionally. Instead of battling fear, we just let it happen, and when the fight against it desolves, so does the torment. We slowly learn to live in harmony with fear, anxiety, and stress...
Acceptance and commitment therapy--Steven Hayes
The most legendary hypochondriac in history, though, was the poet Sara Teasdale, who even employed her own full-time nurse. One day in 1933, a blood vessel burst in Teasdale's hand, which the poet interpreted as a sure sign of an impending stroke; convinced of her grim fate, she decided to skip the formalities and take a massive overdose of sleeping pills. The coroner later reported that she'd been in perfect health.
Often, our stress level depends more on how we perceive a set of cognitive variables than on the specific demands of that situation. (p. 109)
Morgan claims that the way we talk to ourselves about stressors is equally important. How you frame something in your head has a great deal to do with your neurobiological response to it, he told me. Once you start saying to yourself Oh my goodness, this is awful, you begin releasing more cortisol and start this cascade of alarm. But when you say to yourself, I know what to do here, or see things as a challenge, then that turns into a much more positive response. p. 112
...Maddi is adamant that any one of us can instill these resilient attitudes. We know we can train people to increase their hardiness, Maddi said. It involves showing people how to deal with their stressful circumstances through problem solving, coping skills, social support, and effective self-care--rather than just giving up. Hardiness trainees learn to identify their stressors and to challenge their negative beliefs about them, like the idea that they're helpless to change a tough situation or that it's safer to give up on a problem when it grows difficult. They practice setting goals and taking small steps toward accomplishing them, slowly building up thir sense of control over their own destiny. In talk sessions, therapists help them to put their stressors into perspective: they see how turmoil often leads to accomplishments and personal growth and how change is an essential element of life. p 115
After obwerving countless assaults, Wigram began to pick up on a peculiar pattern in each twenty-two man platoon. Whenever a platoon ran into enemy fire, Wigram noted, the troops would react in three very distinct ways. Without fail, a few soldiers would go to pieces and "start making tracks for home." Another handful of men would respond valiantly, opening fire and advancing. And the majority of the troops? Wigram said they would enter a state of bewilderment, unsure of how to act; they became "sheep" and would only do their duty when prodded by a strong, decisive leader. p. 240
This treacherous freezing reaction is startlingly common in crises. In the 1970s, the psychologist Daniel Johnson found that when he asked subjects to perform a chllenging and novel task under high pressure, 45% of them shut down and stopped moving for minimum of thirty seconds. They just quit functioning, he later told the Time reporter Amnda Ripley, they just sat there. Under life threatening stress, complex brain processing plummets and the neural mainframe often maxes out, leaving us with instinctive reactions and deeply worn routines; it's as if such an experience can be too monumentl for the brain to compute. Leach says that even in the most ideal of circumstances, the brain needs at least eight to ten seconds to process an unfamiliar situation, but intense fear and stress make that task even tougher. When our brains search their data banks for the right course of action in extreme danger and come up empty, Leach claims, they shut down. We freeze. We do nothing. p244
In combat you do not rise to the occasion--you sink to the level of your training. None of us cn safely rely upon antasies of our innate heroism when the moment calls for it, Grossman says, because a life-threatening crisis makes our normal experience of reality fall apart. Only the man who prepares for disaster can hope to respond well.
...in the middle of this panic-fueled dash, a miracle happened: Kummerfeldt's training kicked in. This little voice in my head said, hey dummy, go sit down, he recaleld. So I went over to a log and sat down. This is precisely what he advises lost hikers to do today--to get off their feet. Next Kummerfeldt followed his second protocol: he took a drink of water. A drink of water is incredibly clming, he explained...These two things, getting off your feet and hving a drink of water, are two absolutely incredible lifesaving steps. p. 257
It is what we do with that fear reaction that determines our fate, Kummerfeldt says. In his classes today, Kummerfeldt teachers a model called STOP to get through wilderness survival situations: stop what you're soing, sit down, and let the adrenaline subside; think about your options; observe your environment; and plan how best to survive. Then get to work. p258
Bravery isn't being fearless. Bravery is being scared and doing the right thing anyway. p266
By now the overarching point should be clear. How did Cooper really stay cool under life-threatening pressure? The same way everyone else we've met did it: by working with fear instead of needlessly wasting energy fighting it, by focusing on what needs to be done instead of on worries, and by taking action. Cooper wasn't necessarily good at not feeling afraid...what Cooper had become good at was making this fear irrelevant. p271
How to be afraid:
1. Breathe. (square breathing)
2. put your feelings into words. Talking or writing about an emotion like fear helps the brain to prosses it behind the scenes; it allows the mine to sort out thoughts and feelings instead of just churning over them repeatedly...s;eaking compassionately and honestly about emotions, without judgement or sel-blame, helps us come to terms with them....William Faulkner once wrote, I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it.
3. Train, practice, prepare. If an upcoming presentation has you anxious, rehearse it under realistic, flexible conditions until delivering it becomes routine.
4. Redirect focus--concentrate on th epresent moment and the task at hand....psychologists say that even pausing a few times a day and being present for a moment with what's going on around you (rather than with the monologue in your head) can help you to better inhabit the current moment.
5. Mindfully disentangle from worries and anxious thoughts--be mindful, watch your worries and let them coast by without getting entangled with them, or postpone worry--write it down and agree that later on you can worry about it for 30 minutes, which frees you up to focus on the moment. Over time, she says, you learn to better manage your anxious thoughts and they no longer run the show.
6. Expose yourself to your fears. If you want to remain locked into a fear indefinitely, then by ll means, avoid the situations tht make you anxious. But if you want to give your amygdala a chance to get over a fear, you must expose yourself to the things and ideas that scare you.
7. Learn to accept uncertainty and lack of control. Suppose you're worried you might be laid off from your job...if you bask in your uncertainty, (that is, expose yourself to your fear about the future), repeating the distressing thought "It's possible I could be laid off" to yourself without resisting your anxious emotional reaction, then you (and your amygdala) will eventually begin habituating to it. With enough exposre, the idea loses its power and becomes almost dull.
8. Reframe teh sitution--stay grounded in reason and remind ourself of the doubtlessly more positive reality of our situation. When you change the wy you ppraise a situation, you chnge your emotional response to it.
9. Joke around--helps us break out of a negtive point of view and see things differently.
10. Build faith in yourself.
11. Keep your eyes on a guiding principle.
12. Open up to fear unconditionally. Instead of battling fear, we just let it happen, and when the fight against it desolves, so does the torment. We slowly learn to live in harmony with fear, anxiety, and stress...
Acceptance and commitment therapy--Steven Hayes
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Proof of Heaven
My experience showed me that the death of the body and the brain are not the end of consciousness, that human experience continues beyond the grave. More important, it continues under the gaze of a God who loves and cares about each one of us and about where the universe itself and all the beings within it are ultimately going.
The place I went was real. Real in a way that makes the life we're living here and now completely dreamlike by comparison. This doesn't mean I don't value the life I'm living now, however. In fact I value it more than I ever did before. I do so because I now see it in its true context.
...the "voice" of this being was warm and--odd as I know this may sound--personal. It understood humans, and it possessed the qualities we posess, only in infiniately greater measure. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I've always associated with human beings, and human beings alone: warmth, compassion, pathos...even irony and humor.
...I had already been taught the one thing--the only thing--that, in the last analysis, truly matters. I had initially received this piece of knowledge from my lovely companion on the butterfly wing upon my first entrance into the gateway. It came in three parts, and to take one more shot at putting it into words (because of course it was initially delivered wordlessly) it would run something like this:
You are loved and cherished
You have nothing to fear
There is nothing you can do wrong.
If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way:
You are loved.
And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would be (of course) simply:
Love.
Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard to fathom kind of love but the day to day kind that everyone knows--the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children...in it's purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist....
The (false suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it...was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.
Just as our brains work hard every moment of our waking lives to filter out the barrage of sensory information coming at us from our physical surroundings, selecting the material we actually need in order to survive, so it is that forgetting our trans-earthly identities also allows us to be "here and now" far more effectively. ...being excessively conscious of the worlds beyond the here and now would slow down our progress even more. If we knew too much of the spiritual realm now, then navigating our lives on earth would be an even greater challenge than it already is. From a more purpose-focused perspective, making the right decisions through our free will in the face of the evil and injustice on earth would mean far less if we remembered, while here, the full beauty and brilliance of what awaits us.
...That evil could occasionally have the upper hand was known and allowed by the Creator as a necessary consequence of giving the gift of free will to beings like us.
But free will comes at the cost of a loss or falling-away from this love and acceptance. We are free; but we are free beings hemmed all around by an environment conspiring to make us feel that we are not free. Free will is of central importance for our function in the earthly realm: a function that, we will all one day discover, serves the much higher role of allowing our ascendance in the timeless alternate dimension. Our life down here may seem insignificant, for it is minute in relation to the other lives and other worlds that also crowd the invisibel and visible universes. But it is also hugely important, for our role here is to grow toward the Divine, adn that growth is closely watched by the beings in the worlds above...
This is the true spiritual self that all of us are destined to someday recover. But until that day comes, I fell, we should do everything in our power to get in touch with this miraculous aspect of ourselves, to cultivate it and bring it to light. This is the being living within all of us right now and that is, in fact, the being that God truly intends us to be.
How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self? By manifesting love and compassion. Why? BEause love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm.
In order to return to that realm, we must once again become like that realm, even while we are stuck in, and plodding through, this one.
Om [the word he uses for God] understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.
Humor. Irony. Pathos. I had always thought these were qualities we humans developed to cope with this so often painful and unfair world. And they are. But in addition to being consolations, these qualities are recognitions--brief, flashing, but all important--of the fact that whatever our struggles and sufferings in the present world are, they truly can't touch the larger, eternal beings we in truth are. Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.
So was I communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way. instead, I felt like I was doing what every soul is able to do when they leave their bodies, adn what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer or deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. omniscient, omnipotent, persona.---and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.
The place I went was real. Real in a way that makes the life we're living here and now completely dreamlike by comparison. This doesn't mean I don't value the life I'm living now, however. In fact I value it more than I ever did before. I do so because I now see it in its true context.
...the "voice" of this being was warm and--odd as I know this may sound--personal. It understood humans, and it possessed the qualities we posess, only in infiniately greater measure. It knew me deeply and overflowed with qualities that all my life I've always associated with human beings, and human beings alone: warmth, compassion, pathos...even irony and humor.
...I had already been taught the one thing--the only thing--that, in the last analysis, truly matters. I had initially received this piece of knowledge from my lovely companion on the butterfly wing upon my first entrance into the gateway. It came in three parts, and to take one more shot at putting it into words (because of course it was initially delivered wordlessly) it would run something like this:
You are loved and cherished
You have nothing to fear
There is nothing you can do wrong.
If I had to boil this entire message down to one sentence, it would run this way:
You are loved.
And if I had to boil it down further, to just one word, it would be (of course) simply:
Love.
Love is, without a doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard to fathom kind of love but the day to day kind that everyone knows--the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children...in it's purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist....
The (false suspicion that we can somehow be separated from God is the root of every form of anxiety in the universe, and the cure for it...was the knowledge that nothing can tear us from God, ever.
Just as our brains work hard every moment of our waking lives to filter out the barrage of sensory information coming at us from our physical surroundings, selecting the material we actually need in order to survive, so it is that forgetting our trans-earthly identities also allows us to be "here and now" far more effectively. ...being excessively conscious of the worlds beyond the here and now would slow down our progress even more. If we knew too much of the spiritual realm now, then navigating our lives on earth would be an even greater challenge than it already is. From a more purpose-focused perspective, making the right decisions through our free will in the face of the evil and injustice on earth would mean far less if we remembered, while here, the full beauty and brilliance of what awaits us.
...That evil could occasionally have the upper hand was known and allowed by the Creator as a necessary consequence of giving the gift of free will to beings like us.
But free will comes at the cost of a loss or falling-away from this love and acceptance. We are free; but we are free beings hemmed all around by an environment conspiring to make us feel that we are not free. Free will is of central importance for our function in the earthly realm: a function that, we will all one day discover, serves the much higher role of allowing our ascendance in the timeless alternate dimension. Our life down here may seem insignificant, for it is minute in relation to the other lives and other worlds that also crowd the invisibel and visible universes. But it is also hugely important, for our role here is to grow toward the Divine, adn that growth is closely watched by the beings in the worlds above...
This is the true spiritual self that all of us are destined to someday recover. But until that day comes, I fell, we should do everything in our power to get in touch with this miraculous aspect of ourselves, to cultivate it and bring it to light. This is the being living within all of us right now and that is, in fact, the being that God truly intends us to be.
How do we get closer to this genuine spiritual self? By manifesting love and compassion. Why? BEause love and compassion are far more than the abstractions many of us believe them to be. They are real. They are concrete. And they make up the very fabric of the spiritual realm.
In order to return to that realm, we must once again become like that realm, even while we are stuck in, and plodding through, this one.
Om [the word he uses for God] understands and sympathizes with our human situation more profoundly and personally than we can even imagine because Om knows what we have forgotten, and understands the terrible burden it is to live with amnesia of the Divine for even a moment.
Humor. Irony. Pathos. I had always thought these were qualities we humans developed to cope with this so often painful and unfair world. And they are. But in addition to being consolations, these qualities are recognitions--brief, flashing, but all important--of the fact that whatever our struggles and sufferings in the present world are, they truly can't touch the larger, eternal beings we in truth are. Laughter and irony are at heart reminders that we are not prisoners in this world, but voyagers through it.
So was I communicating directly with God? Absolutely. Expressed that way it sounds grandiose. But when it was happening, it didn't feel that way. instead, I felt like I was doing what every soul is able to do when they leave their bodies, adn what we can all do right now through various methods of prayer or deep meditation. Communicating with God is the most extraordinary experience imaginable, yet at the same time it's the most natural one of all, because God is present in us at all times. omniscient, omnipotent, persona.---and loving us without conditions. We are connected as One through our divine link with God.
Finishing Well
For the record (for my record, lol) I didn't particularly love this book. I left it a very lukewarm review on Amazon. But there were still a few thoughts worth recording.
"I believe that it is not dying that people are afraid of. Something else. Something more unsettling and more tragic than dying frightens us. We're afraid of never having lived. Of coming to the end of our days with the sense that we were never really alive. That we never figured out what live was for.
--Harold Kushner
...he (Harvard professor) stressed the fact that if his students really thought they only had a short time to live, they'd be spending it mending their relationships with friends, family, and God. Deep down, they know it's about relationships. But there they are, about to spend their next thirty years in a made scramble for family and fortune, with are antithetical to their declared values.
What keeps most of us from focusing on the things that matter is all the things that don't matter but add cost, particularly the cost of our most precious asset--time. We end up spending ourselves dry, adding small increments to our "money and status" accounts--which we already have plenty of--while depleting our "meaning" accounts, including our relationships with God, marriage partners, kids, lifelong friends, and others we're called to serve.
"I believe that it is not dying that people are afraid of. Something else. Something more unsettling and more tragic than dying frightens us. We're afraid of never having lived. Of coming to the end of our days with the sense that we were never really alive. That we never figured out what live was for.
--Harold Kushner
...he (Harvard professor) stressed the fact that if his students really thought they only had a short time to live, they'd be spending it mending their relationships with friends, family, and God. Deep down, they know it's about relationships. But there they are, about to spend their next thirty years in a made scramble for family and fortune, with are antithetical to their declared values.
What keeps most of us from focusing on the things that matter is all the things that don't matter but add cost, particularly the cost of our most precious asset--time. We end up spending ourselves dry, adding small increments to our "money and status" accounts--which we already have plenty of--while depleting our "meaning" accounts, including our relationships with God, marriage partners, kids, lifelong friends, and others we're called to serve.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Entry
Nancy,
Here is a video of the entry and a bunch of pictures. Let me know if you need to see anything else! And thanks for your help,
Cindy
PS--remember, we are after LOTS of LIGHT!!
Here is looking up towards the current (dated) chandelier.
This is looking slightly to the left, then to the right,
Here is a video of the entry and a bunch of pictures. Let me know if you need to see anything else! And thanks for your help,
Cindy
PS--remember, we are after LOTS of LIGHT!!
Here is the view from the front door.
Here is looking up towards the current (dated) chandelier.
This is looking slightly to the left, then to the right,
And then towards the stairs. Finally, the front door from the inside.
Monday, February 11, 2013
Curtain Options
Ok, here are the options so far. If you click on the picture it should open it bigger for you. I could also get something plain & white...
The bottom pic is of the shower curtain that we've had across the window thus far. I really love the print & how it works in the room, but I've seen nothing remotely like it as I've looked for curtains, and I really (REALLY) don't have the wherewithal to find fabric and make something right now. None of these are terribly expensive options, so I figure that I can have them for a while and then later when I have time and want to do something different, I can.
I've taken the pics 2 ways so that you can see how it looks with the curtains "closed" and "opened."
Oh--pls ignore the boxes. As soon as we get one box unpacked, we bring in another. They've sadly become part of the landscape! (But at least we're making progress!)
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
To Heaven and Back
It was a good example (retrospectively, of course) of how easily things come together when one is moving in the direction of God's will. It has taken many years to truly learn that when everything seems difficult and feels as though you are swimming upstream, it is usually because you are not following the direction of God's will. When you are doing God's will, everything seems to happen without much effort or many obstacles.
The only scriptures she was able to focus on in the hospital:
First--"Rejoice always." 1 Thess 5:15
Later in the day--"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thess 5:17
Finally--"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God's in Christ Jesus for you" 1 Thess 5:18
Even the most terrible circumstances and events can stimulate great change in individuals and/or societies. Without observing cruelty, we would not be moved to compassion. Without personal trials, we would not develop patience or faithfulness. It is the recognition that our earthly concerns matter little when compared to life eternal that allows us to know joy in the midst of sorrow and worry. Have you ever really changed or experienced personal growth during times of comfort or complacency? The acceptance that change rarely comes without difficulty and challenge can truly free a person to "rejoice always." It also allows us to live daily with a grateful heart and "give thanks in all circumstances." No matter what the circumstances, we can be grateful that God fulfills His promises, that our faith is sufficient to sustain us, and that our eternal life is assured.
The stories of almost everyone who has spoken with me began with some sort of traumatic situation. This is fairly predictable, and it is unfortunate that we rarely have such intense spiritual connections except under conditions of dire stress. I believe that anyone can have the same connections and experiences that I have had, but I think we are too distracted by the world around us when we are under "normal" circumstances. When we are in dire circumstances, these distractions quickly fall away and we are able to discern that which is most important: our relationship with God.
Ultimately they must not only find God, but must freely choose to accept God's love and direction. God gave humans this ability to choose freely, which makes us ultimately responsible for our choices, our actions, and our lives.
People ask why so many miracles occurred in ancient days but not in our present time. I contend that there are just as many miracles occurring today, in the lives of ordinary people. But I also assert that most of us don't look for miracles, don't recognize them for what they really are, and don't really believe them to be of divine origin even if their miraculous nature is noticed.
My life's experiences would argue against the concepts of coincidence and luck It would support the belief that there is only the guiding presence and plan of God, who uses His assortment of angels and messengers to lead us and communicate with us.
King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that "people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end" and I would heartily agree. We live our lives in forward motion, but only understand them when looking backward. I would therefore challenge you to keep a six to twelve month journal of coincidence. In that journal write down the details of every "coincidence" you experience. In one column, write the details of each major event in your life...What are/were the circumstances surrounding your acceptance into college, meeting your significant other, finding your job, choosing where you live, and so on. Note every time the arrangements easily fall into place. Similarly, every time you struggle with a situation write down the eventual outcome. Write down the "bad" things that happen to you or others and, in an adjacent column, list what happens as a direct or indirect result of these bad things. I believe that when you look back through your journal at the end of your exercise, you will clearly see how many of people, events, decisions, and outcomes are interconnected. I think you will see a pattern of linkage that cannot be attributed to statistical chance. You will see evidence of God's work in your life, giving assurance that God has a plan for your life. you will begin to recognize coincidental events for the miracles they really are, and you will know that God is with you even in times of sorrow, loneliness, or other misfortune.
The only scriptures she was able to focus on in the hospital:
First--"Rejoice always." 1 Thess 5:15
Later in the day--"Pray without ceasing." 1 Thess 5:17
Finally--"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God's in Christ Jesus for you" 1 Thess 5:18
Even the most terrible circumstances and events can stimulate great change in individuals and/or societies. Without observing cruelty, we would not be moved to compassion. Without personal trials, we would not develop patience or faithfulness. It is the recognition that our earthly concerns matter little when compared to life eternal that allows us to know joy in the midst of sorrow and worry. Have you ever really changed or experienced personal growth during times of comfort or complacency? The acceptance that change rarely comes without difficulty and challenge can truly free a person to "rejoice always." It also allows us to live daily with a grateful heart and "give thanks in all circumstances." No matter what the circumstances, we can be grateful that God fulfills His promises, that our faith is sufficient to sustain us, and that our eternal life is assured.
The stories of almost everyone who has spoken with me began with some sort of traumatic situation. This is fairly predictable, and it is unfortunate that we rarely have such intense spiritual connections except under conditions of dire stress. I believe that anyone can have the same connections and experiences that I have had, but I think we are too distracted by the world around us when we are under "normal" circumstances. When we are in dire circumstances, these distractions quickly fall away and we are able to discern that which is most important: our relationship with God.
Ultimately they must not only find God, but must freely choose to accept God's love and direction. God gave humans this ability to choose freely, which makes us ultimately responsible for our choices, our actions, and our lives.
People ask why so many miracles occurred in ancient days but not in our present time. I contend that there are just as many miracles occurring today, in the lives of ordinary people. But I also assert that most of us don't look for miracles, don't recognize them for what they really are, and don't really believe them to be of divine origin even if their miraculous nature is noticed.
My life's experiences would argue against the concepts of coincidence and luck It would support the belief that there is only the guiding presence and plan of God, who uses His assortment of angels and messengers to lead us and communicate with us.
King Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes that "people cannot see the whole scope of God's work from beginning to end" and I would heartily agree. We live our lives in forward motion, but only understand them when looking backward. I would therefore challenge you to keep a six to twelve month journal of coincidence. In that journal write down the details of every "coincidence" you experience. In one column, write the details of each major event in your life...What are/were the circumstances surrounding your acceptance into college, meeting your significant other, finding your job, choosing where you live, and so on. Note every time the arrangements easily fall into place. Similarly, every time you struggle with a situation write down the eventual outcome. Write down the "bad" things that happen to you or others and, in an adjacent column, list what happens as a direct or indirect result of these bad things. I believe that when you look back through your journal at the end of your exercise, you will clearly see how many of people, events, decisions, and outcomes are interconnected. I think you will see a pattern of linkage that cannot be attributed to statistical chance. You will see evidence of God's work in your life, giving assurance that God has a plan for your life. you will begin to recognize coincidental events for the miracles they really are, and you will know that God is with you even in times of sorrow, loneliness, or other misfortune.
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