Inner Companionship

       We are companioned beings – never really alone.  There are “people” inside us.

       Within us, there is a wise, loving presence, whose stance toward us is compassionate and spacious.  This aspect of our consciousness makes room for everything we feel and everything we experience.  It accepts us and values us.  It invites friendship and connection.  And, because its voice is quiet, we need to listen carefully and remind ourselves often of its love.

       Most of us also experience a judging presence, an internal critic whose job is to find fault with us and to invite us to feel small, unworthy, inadequate and disconnected.  The critic’s message is often blunt and bludgeoning, like a sledgehammer.  And, sometimes, it’s sneaky and subtle, like a stiletto.  

       From the standpoint of brain functioning, inner conversations can be understood as neural pathways – habits that grow stronger with repetition.  For example, most of us have had years of practicing self-judgment.  And, while that pathway is well established and easy to follow, we can consciously tune into and nurture a more life-affirming inner conversation. 

       We pick our friends.  Why not also choose whom we’d like for inner companionship?

Mantra Re-Visited

       It’s not unusual for me to have a second thought about something I send out.  Often it’s a clarification or an additional point I wish I’d made – or an aesthetic turn of phrase I wish I’d used.  Typically, after some regret, I let go.

       This morning I awoke with three substantive points I’d like to add about mantra practice.  And I decided, in this case, to act.

       Mantra as first aid:  When I notice that I’m caught up in swirl of suffering stories that evoke fear, shame or resentment, I congratulate the awareness, breathe compassion to my suffering, and use a mantra to re-orient the mind.  I stay with the mantra as long as needed; then move on with my day. 

       Note: the mantra helps us disengage from negative thinking.  Generally, this is not the time to debate with our negative patterns.

       Mantra as formal practice:  When I use a mantra as an aid in formal meditation, I may begin by saying (or singing) it aloud or at a moderate-to-high internal volume, to match or slightly exceed the level of chatter in the mind.  I give myself a clear invitation to attend to the mantra. 

       As the practice unfolds, I allow the mantra to grow gradually quieter.  This helps me move toward the deeper quiet of inner spaciousness.  There are times when the mantra goes silent, mirroring a silence inside.  Inevitably, I pick up a distraction, and, when I notice the distraction, I begin with the mantra again at a level that slightly exceeds the level of the distraction.  Then, I move again toward the quiet.

       Please check out the Richard Moss videos, referenced yesterday, for an excellent tutorial on using mantra in formal practice.  www.richardmoss.com

       Mantra and engagement with life:  Mantras are tools – used as needed – to help us disengage from negative narratives that create suffering, so that we can re-engage with life with an open heart and a spacious, creative mind.  Mantras are not meant for permanent refuge or escape from life.  The goal, always, is to be fully present – right here, right now, embodied.

May we be happy.

May we be well.

May we be at peace.

May we be fully alive.

Mantra Re-Wiring

       Every now and then, I experience a professional workshop that’s actually a healing experience.  A recent two-day training – integrating radical self-acceptance, mindfulness and yoga, led by author/teacher/therapist Mary NurrieStearns – was just such an experience.  I’d like to pass on some ideas and practices stimulated by the workshop. If you’d like to learn more about her work, please visit her website: www.personaltransformation.com

       Our brains are wired with a negative bias – a propensity to focus on what’s potentially dangerous and threatening.  We learn danger quickly and forget it slowly.  We learn shame quickly – and hang on to it.  We find it easy to orientate our inner narratives around negative judgments of ourselves and others or around regretful and fearful stories about the past and future.  After years of practice, these negative narratives become the “default setting” – internal habits of thought we automatically and routinely revisit – habits that harm us more than we realize.

       Fortunately, mindfulness practices provide opportunities to notice what’s automatic and to make conscious choices about what thoughts to encourage.  We can actually re-wire our brains.  Doing so, however, takes much repetition and practice, practice, practice.

       In the teachings of Richard Moss and Mary NurrieStearns, there is an emphasis on embodying deep truth, not just encoding it intellectually or conceptually, but integrating it into the body.  So, with the mantras (healing phrases) I will be sharing, it’s helpful to sing them, move or dance with them, and use touch, tapping or holding as you repeat them to yourself.

       Here is a menu of mantra meditations I’ve been practicing.  Perhaps, one or more of them will be meaningful for you.  Please feel free to experiment with your own healing affirmations and approaches.

       On my morning run, I’ve been singing in time with my footfalls:  

       I’m connected.  I am loved.  I am one.  I’m free.

       With this or any of the four-phrase mantra affirmations, you can touch thumb to index finger with the first phrase, thumb to middle finger with the second, thumb to ring finger with the third and thumb to little finger with the fourth.  I’ve been doing this thumb-to-finger touching practice in seated meditation, as I repeat four affirmations from the Buddhist practice of Metta (loving-kindness meditation):

       May I be happy.  May I be healthy.  May I be peaceful.  May I be love.

       The other pronouns – you, we, he, she, and they – are also used in Metta to send loving-kindness blessings.  Feel free to create other affirmations to bless yourself and other folks.

       Here’s another self-healing practice I find especially powerful as an antidote to shame narratives.  With eyes closed, I lay my crossed hands on my chest over my heart – perhaps patting or tapping or gently rubbing or just holding – and say or sing, usually not out loud:

       I accept you.  I forgive you.  I trust you.  I love you.

       For me, this practice embodies a commitment to stay in compassion with myself – no matter what.  It weakens old habits of self-abandonment, self-rejection, and self-judgment.  It promotes what Mary NurrieStearns calls “profound self-acceptance.”

       Richard Moss teaches mantra practice as a wonderful way to reclaim ownership of our minds from the old conditioning that so often dominates our inner landscape.  His recent teaching videos on this subject, excellent resources, are accessible for viewing, at no cost, through his website:  www.richardmoss.com  From his home page click on Resources, then on Free Videos and Audios, and then on YouTube in the line “For more videos take a look at Richard’s YouTube channel.”  The videos are titled:  Introduction to Mantra Practice for Calming the Mind – Parts 1 & 2.

       I like the mantra he recommends.  It’s great to sing to, run to, hike to, dance to or sit with:

       Thank you. Thank you.  I’m so grateful.

       Lately, when I run or tap fingers with it, I’ve been breaking the mantra into four, two-syllable phrases:

       Thank you.  Thank you.  I’m so.  Grateful.

       The brain likes habits.  It likes to conserve energy by following old, familiar paths of least resistance.  Conscious effort and practice is required to re-wire these pathways.  With mantra work, we make conscious choices to interrupt habitual negative narratives that capture us in fear, shame and outrage.  We make conscious efforts to create a compassionate inner space – a nice place to live.

       We move toward friendship with ourselves and comfort inside our own skin.  We shift the emphasis from looking out there for healing and nurture to finding more of what we need in here. 

       We exercise our love-ability.  We partner with a wise and loving presence inside.  We meet ourselves, and discover ourselves, in an inner I-Thou connection.   We remember that we’re never alone.

       Note:  I am taking a break from this space for a few weeks to complete the mentorship program with Richard Moss.  Will return in May.

      Thank you.  Thank you.  I’m so grateful. 

       A piece of writing meant for this space has been resisting my efforts for nearly a week now.  I don’t think it’s being coy – shy, perhaps, not ready to show itself. 

       Last night, I chose early bedtime over another attempt at writing.  Just before lights out, I read these paragraphs at the beginning of a chapter, The Gift of Surprise, in Mark Nepo’s book, The Exquisite Risk  (pp. 114-115).

       Their discovery was a pleasant surprise for me – a reprieve – and an invitation to keep my heart open. 

       Enjoy!

The Gift of Surprise

       Our capacity for surprise is often an unused blessing.  Brother David Steindl-Rast has described surprise as another name for God.  With each appearance, it prods us to ask, Beneath our problem solving, what is life asking of us?  Beneath our ideas of happiness or suffering, what does it really mean to live?

       So often, we seek to change things, only to find that our honest engagement with experience often changes us.  In trying to make life fit our needs, our sense of need is often softened or broken until we fit life.  Humbly, this inversion of intent is, in itself, a subtle wind of miracle.  And surprise often announces that this miracle is near.

       Because of the very nature of surprise, our first challenge is to stay open to the unexpected, not to harden into the position of our initial reactions.  For this sort of stubbornness makes change a monster and makes learning next to impossible.  We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open.  In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart.

Mark Nepo

No Promises

       While the Universe is abundant and generous, always working with us toward our highest good, it’s not at ego’s beck and call.  It’s not a cosmic vending machine, offering just the refreshment we desire at the insertion of a dollar and the push of a button. 

       When I need a grown-up dose of spiritual medicine, Pema Chodron often has just the right prescription.  Yesterday, I opened a small book of hers, The Pocket Pema Chodron, to passage 77.  Here’s what greeted me. 

There are no promises

       When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.  In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all.   Instead, we are encouraged to look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies.  We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.

Pema Chodron

The Gift

It’s all

a gift

every moment

an opportunity

to learn

to grow

to deepen

an opportunity

to be

fully present

fully alive

fully in love.

It’s all

a gift

sometimes

well-disguised.

A Path to Yes!

       Last Saturday, I went for my first snowshoeing adventure of the season.  I had skied in the morning and was hankering for more immersion in that gorgeous day – with its deep blue (almost blue-violet, almost cloudless) sky and pristine-white snow piled high on pines, oak branches and downed tree trunks.   Two days previously, we had over 8 inches of new snow, giving St. Cloud a 25-inch base, with drifts up to several feet.  While not always fun to drive in, it’s been awesome to behold.

       I strapped on my snowshoes and headed across a field en route to a large, protected, wooded area at the edge of my neighborhood.   Frequently, the snow would give way and I would find myself suddenly hip deep – not exactly the immersion I had anticipated.   Each step became an exercise in mindfulness – and an aerobic workout.  I was sweating, breathing hard and very focused.

       The woods were a crisscross of deer trails – ideal paths to follow.  With trail partly broken, I only sank a foot or so into the snow as I tromped along, apparently the first human in the woods since the new snow.  It didn’t take long for the wonder of it all – the adventure, the exertion, the solitude, the beauty, the sunshine, the crisp air and the bracing breeze – to burrow somewhere deep inside.  Off and on, for much of the next hour, rhythmic with my steps, over and over, I breathed out loud: “Oh yeah!  Oh yeah!” – like a mantra. 

       I was saying Yes! – yes with an exclamation point, a full-bodied, open-hearted embrace of life in the moment.

       It’s exhilarating to feel that “Yes!” inside.  And, if I hadn’t first said “no” to my plans for work in the afternoon, I would not have arrived there.

        Developmentally, no comes before yes in a sequence that goes like this:

No!       No.       I know.       Yes.       Yes!

       As toddlers, our first no’s come out loudly.  If the loud no’s are met with respect, we naturally move toward saying no with less intensity.  Saying no allows us to know.  (No-ing leads to knowing.) Once we know, then we can say yes – and, eventually, a wholehearted, life-embracing Yes!

       If saying no is punished or not permitted, we learn to disregard ourselves – to rely on external authority rather than our own knowing.  Our deep yes doesn’t have the chance to develop.  And the yes we do say, without being grounded in knowing, comes out tentative and half-hearted – more like a “maybe” than a real yes.

       So, we have to be free to “no” (and know) before we can truly “yes”.  No-ing and knowing – a path to Yes!

A Valentine Thought

As a matter of

Self-integrity

Writers write

Teachers teach

Lovers Love

And children

Of the Universe

Play.

Have a light-hearted Valentine’s Day.

Courageous Connection

Knowing and being known

Receiving and revealing

Hearts connect.

Truth: seen and told.

Danger remembered:

Risk of revealing

Risk of receiving.

Fear dances with longing.

Make space.

Befriend both dancers.

Know neither is love.

Choose love.

Knowing

Being known

Receiving

Revealing.

Present, embodied

Intimate within

Intimate with life

Courageous connection.

Relational Economics

       I’d like to share a hodgepodge of thoughts on the economics of relationship. 

       A prosperous relationship is one with an abundant flow of giving and receiving – both of which are crucial to the vitality of relational life.  When we give freely, without expectations, we are enriched.  When we receive freely, without hesitation, we are equally enriched.  In a prosperous, generous relationship, distinctions between giving and receiving dissolve.  It’s all part of one flow.

       When a relationship is in economic recession, the flow of giving and receiving is clogged.  We get stingy with each other and withhold giving.  Withholding can be a way of life - or a way of attempting control in a relationship.  Some of us watch carefully to make sure we don’t give more than we get.  Sometimes, we give in order to get.  In that case, our gift is really a form of taking.

       I find myself, at times, following the golden rule.  I give unto others what I’d like them to give unto me – often a good strategy, but not always.  Skillful giving requires me to appreciate the other person’s language of love, to know the kind of gift that speaks deeply to him/her, to embrace the stretching of self that relationship requires.

       We can also clog up the flow of relational life by not permitting ourselves the fullness of receiving.  Perhaps, stuck in scarcity thinking, we see a gift to us as a loss for the other.  Perhaps we feel unworthy or suspicious or reluctant to incur a debt. 

       The economic model of abundance starts with receiving – daring to open ourselves to the energy flow of an extravagant universe.  If only we allow it, this energy comes to us in myriad ways:  from the sparkle of sunshine on freshly fallen snow, to the smiling eyes of a dear friend, to the vast quiet of a morning meditation.   

       In the economic model of abundance, giving freely – from a place of connection with ourselves and with the energy of life flowing through us – does not deplete us.   Pushing ourselves to give from a place of obligation, disconnected from the natural flow of life, does deplete.  And, as we are mindful of depletion, we are invited to re-connect and let ourselves be guided by that re-connection.

       There’s an old saying:  The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence – it’s greener where we water it.  As we water the grass of our life energy and the grass of our important relationships, we create a pasture of plenty.

       How good can we stand it?