Live What You Know

Waking up is more than it seems. You KNOW more than you've ever been "taught"! You chose to be here now. Make yourTRUEself proud!

Tag: Consciousness

October 6, 2013

From Status Quo To Status No

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.  –Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have a little saying I love to say to myself and to my friends…or anyone who will listen really.  I say, “Don’t should on anyone and don’t let anyone should on you.”  If someone is discussing another’s choice and wants me to agree with their point-of-view or comment in some way, I like to say, “I don’t like to should on anyone and I don’t enjoy others should-ing on me.”

Sometimes it feels like there is an awful lot of “should-ing” in the air.  It all makes judging others and comparing ourselves so easy.  The technical term for what it brings is what we call “yuckie energy” around our house.  Truly, if you are judging yourself or others or just commenting on what someone should be doing or running dialogue in your mind that tells you that you “should” be doing something, it feels yuckie and it spreads.

Over four years ago, we made the choice to switch to a vegan diet and remove all animal products from our plates.  It was scary and strange and brought about all kinds of expected and unexpected results.  As I look at my life since making this choice, I notice that it was the first time I really chose to go against the status quo and make a big life change that would make some people uncomfortable.  My reasons for a vegan diet are many.  It started with a choice to read a book called The China Study.  From that one choice, many followed.  I kept researching and trying to figure out what made sense to me and what I wanted for my family, etc.  I read and read and read and the reasons mounted.  We jumped and went completely vegan overnight.  I am so grateful!

Obviously this had a major impact on us in the nutrition department and our health and how we live, etc.  What I can now see is that this choice to figure things out for myself and make the best choice for me and my family without worrying or being influenced by what those around me will think (okay, I did worry some at the beginning) changed our lives in many more unexpected areas as well.  This change allowed us to embrace that practice in many more areas of life.  I think this first jump into trying something so completely different from the way we used to live opened us up to life more and made it possible to make other important choices for our lives.  We began making huge steps toward charting our own course.

Clearly, we’re not the first vegans and we are super fortunate to make this choice at a time when it is so easy and becoming much less out of the norm.  Even in the years since we started, it has changed a lot (or maybe we did).  We think its normal now.  Ah, normal.

We have gone on to making many more choices that don’t fit the status quo.  We chose to homeschool/unschool our children a few years ago and that one made vegan seem simple.  Except, now that seems normal too.  In the beginning, it seemed like explaining these choices when someone asked was important and worth the time.  I would be sure to give the most eloquent, educated sounding explanation I could muster.  Now, it’s just normal to me.  I really don’t need to go into these choices much, except to say that we’re happy and it works for us.  If people are sincerely interested or curious I love discussing all the details of both issues, but I don’t feel the need to make them interested or try to convince them of my point-of-view.  It feels nice now.  It feels like being comfortable in your own skin.

I love researching things, implementing new lifestyle choices, trying new things, basking in the unfamiliar…I love taking bits and pieces from all I see around me and creating my own world with my own design…some borrowed, some new, some tweaked.  In the beginning of my newfound willingness to make big choices with big change, it felt like people thought I was judging their choice by sharing my own.  I don’t really notice that feeling anymore.  I may have felt it because I was judging on some level…it is nice to see that slip away.  I remember just not wanting people to judge me.  At this point, I don’t really notice any wasted energy going into worrying about what others think.  I’m just being me.  It feels great…not always a walk in the park of course, but it feels like home.

I love my choices and I love everyone else’s choices too.  I love sharing why I made mine if people are interested, but I no longer think mine are better.  I do like to encourage people to find their own way…but I won’t tell them they “should” do that.  I just like to share that it feels free and wonderful!  When I was a little girl, I was afraid of everything!  Truly!  Even butterflies!  That seems so long ago.  I am grateful for learning to listen to all the messages that come our way to take us from fear to love and open us up to becoming more of ourselves.  Now, the thought of following along and doing things because I “should” is the only thing that sounds really frightening to me and butterflies aren’t scary anymore…they are a magical message about change!

Important note – I am super grateful to those people who feel strongly about sharing the reasons for their choices and helping others make the same ones.  We all hear messages in different ways and those using their voices to bring change are an important part of how we all learn and grow.  I am grateful to those that follow the message to speak loudly about certain things!!!  Someday I may speak loudly about my choices, but for now, it seems my soul is telling me to quiet down and BE a bit more.  Still happy to share, just in a quiet and open to life way.  Actually, quiet is much more challenging for me…so it must be what I am meant to work on at this point in life.

Sending you love and wishing you the courage to chart your own path and listen to your soul…not in a “should-ing” way…just a loving way.

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October 1, 2013

The Wisdom, Kindness and Courage To Celebrate The Joy and Success of Others

When you meet anyone, remember it is a holy encounter.
As you see him you will see yourself.
As you treat him you will treat yourself.
As you think of him you will think of yourself.
Never forget this, for in him you will find yourself
or lose yourself.
–A Course In Miracles

As I learn and grow I marvel at just how connected we are to each other.  It really is amazing and awe-inspiring to try to grasp just what truly connects us and to what extent we are connected.

This week I have been feeling so very grateful for that fact and at the same time a bit sad from the longing it creates in my soul.  As you realize this truth and try to go about your business in this world it can sometimes feel difficult to function in environments that just don’t seem to understand what we’re looking at when we see each other and what is happening when we judge or compete with each other.  It can feel so brutal to see the many ways we create the illusion of separation.

I no longer feel sadness for me when I know someone doesn’t want to hear good news or share in my joy, I feel sad for them and I long to reach them and show them the beauty of celebrating each other.  I want to help people connect to the world around them and everything in it in a more meaningful way.  I think this desire came naturally from wanting to connect to it more myself.  You figure out that you cannot walk that path alone…we must go together.  How we choose to see, think of, feel about and treat each other is how we choose to live and how we choose to be with ourselves.

I know the answer is always love and I must give to the world that which I feel it is lacking.  I want to celebrate everyone and truly care about their joy and well-being.  I know deeply that I share in any success or joy anyone may experience.  I will choose to see the good that is in all of us and to be the space for others that allows them to feel it and see it in themselves too.  I will choose not to recognize what judging or competing looks like, I will simply be the space that welcomes joy and love and comforts others.  I will see the connection we have even when others can’t see it…maybe my seeing it will help them see it too.

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
–Henry David Thoreau

Having this space to connect with followers, visitors and fellow bloggers comforts me so much and helps with the longing of my soul to feel the connection we all share.  For that, I thank each and every one of you so very much!  I am truly grateful!

Wishing us all the wisdom, kindness and courage to celebrate the joy and success of others today and always!  I pray I may live what I know today!  Sending you love!

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September 13, 2013

Smile!

smileWishing  you a wonderful weekend full of smiles!

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September 11, 2013

Staying Home

Once we understand that the best place to BE at home is within ourselves and that we can be at home whenever and wherever we are, we just need to practice actually doing it.  For today, I want to share a quick tip for staying at home within when distractions arise.

The term being at home is really about inner peace.  Somehow “being at home” sounds a bit more attainable than inner peace, kind of like a stepping stone to the real deal.  Plenty of being at home within will take us toward inner peace…where else would it lead?!  The path toward peace begins with quieting the mind.  There are many stages and paths and practices that help with quieting the mind.  Different things work for different people.  I want to just give a quick tip today that might help us all stay home well this week.

Let’s identify a few of the many things that take us from our true home and fill our mind with noise:

  • Worrying
  • Rushing
  • Resisting situations, wishing things were different
  • Thinking about the future and what may happen
  • Wishing something hadn’t happened
  • Being annoyed
  • Stress in general

To be clear, we are meant to live a peaceful life and feel at home within ourselves all the time.  So, anytime we are not experiencing utter peace, we have left our rightful home and chosen fear instead.  Most people live in constant stress, so they may be surprised to hear that what many consider to be “normal” stress is actually not living at all and a complete waste of energy.

Knowing our home is within we can use our bodies to anchor us there.  A little thing I like to do throughout the day when I feel my mind stray or stress begin to take hold is to simply shift my attention towards some part of my body.  If I am walking when I notice the mind activity, I simply change the thought to “I am home” and feel my foot hit the ground or floor with my fullest attention, then I keep my attention there for my next steps.  Repeating the “I am home” thought again, I then notice more of my body.  I soon notice my heart feel good and a smile always comes to my face; when you stop to notice your heart feel good, it is impossible not to smile (try it).  As you keep walking, you find the quiet mind and peace again.  If I were doing the dishes or writing when my mind went towards noise, I would bring my attention to my hands and do the same thought replacement and feel my heart relax and inevitably feel a smile on my face.  It really works and can bring you right to where you are most at home…in joy.  You can use an arm movement, notice your fingers, stretch your neck or simply stand still…anchor yourself anywhere in your body and out of your mind…it will bring the peace of being at home within.

On this wonderful Wednesday, I just have to say…I wouldn’t wish happiness on anyone.  That may sound strange, let me explain.  To me, happiness means something has happened that brought it and inevitably it swings to the opposite at some point.  What I wish for everyone is true peace that comes from within.  I wish it for you with all my heart!  Try this little tip to anchor your attention in your body and you will love how it feels to quickly and effectively quiet the mind and all the trouble it likes to create.  When I first started watching my thoughts years ago, I remember I would often find myself counting my steps.  It was as if my mind was so used to constant noise that it couldn’t just be quiet, it had to count.  It was okay, I just went around counting steps and stairs…it passed.  The quiet is where life is at…I am so grateful for the quiet.

I hope this little tip helps you enjoy the quiet.  I am sending you love and peace!

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August 29, 2013

The “Sweet Little One” Inside Me… and You

I can remember a time during childhood (well, it lasted a long while) when my mom would say to me after some silly choice, bad decision or rude interaction, “What happened to sweet little Stacy?”  I heard this for a long time whenever I kind of got out of line or needed some parenting I suppose.  In the beginning this question really upset me and made me feel like I wasn’t a nice person.  Over time it haunted me even more and I began to ponder it myself.  Had I quit being sweet?  Was I a bad person?  During adolescence I distinctly remember her asking this question again and I had this fury inside where I screamed, “She NEVER existed, all I have ever heard is ‘where is she?’, she was never here, it’s just me, quit asking.”  (I don’t think I had the courage to say it aloud to her, I think I imagined I did, but didn’t…I probably played that scene in my head over and over, I’m really not sure if I ever discussed it with her).

Now I am the mom to an eight-year-old daughter.  I sometimes wonder what has happened to her.  I wonder where my sweet baby has gone.  That is how I became reminded of the question about “sweet little Stacy” above.  I am truly grateful I had the experience of thinking about who I was.  I am so glad my mother asked this of me and especially now, at this point in life, I am truly grateful my mom continued to direct that question to me.  I can go really deep with this question now and I am thrilled with the answer.  I almost feel like picking up the phone to call my mother and tell her that I found her after all these years…I have found Sweet Little Stacy.  She is there in me and she is in you too!  I will explain…

First, let me say, my daughter is amazing.  She is so many wonderful things…too many to list here.  Because I am her mom, I also see another side to her.  The mom gets to see it all.  I can see she is growing and changing.  Because of all the reading about spiritual things I do, I can see that the ego is trying to take hold and her identity is changing.  I can see when it happens and I am also painfully aware that I am the one she is most comfortable lashing out at.  She is so kind in her heart…its just me she will melt down with and show another side to, growing up is tough.  I have heard myself say to her so many times, “you would never treat anyone else that way, only me.”  Sounds a lot like the question my own mother had of me.  I am sure I have said even worse to her in tough moments (forgive me sweet girl).  This parenting stuff is not easy.  When I can lean back and look at things I can see what is happening and not take it personally.  Other times, it hurts so bad.

It’s tough to juggle knowing if we’re parenting or judging.  I have been thinking about this recently and trying to watch it with her.  I don’t want to judge her or make her into me.  I want to help her be the best version of herself.  I want to honor her growing and help her learn to make good choices.  If she feels judged by me, she won’t be able to feel my love, she will turn towards her fear instead.  Oh, how I want to be the mother that doesn’t judge.  I am so trying to figure out how to parent well without judging.

Recently, she lashed out at me because she was struggling learning something.  Often, when something seems hard, her fear brings out the worst.  Understandable.  Anyway, like I said, I struggle with allowing her to be herself and still guide her towards making good choices.  After appealing to her with explanations of kindness, etc., she just kept pushing, I allowed her actions to hit my buttons and I decided she needed a break and told her she would be in timeout.  In fact, I gave her a double timeout.  This would mean 16 minutes to think about her actions.  As she stormed down the stairs in anger, I had a change of heart.  I sent her brother to tell her that mom had changed her mind, this gave me a minute to breathe and pause and choose well (that non-reactionary living I am striving for).  When she returned to me, I said to her, “You get to choose who you want to be.”  That was all I said, she returned to her work.

Within a few minutes, she came to me and gave me a sweet kiss and hug and apologized.  She had found her “sweet” and turned towards love.  I knew she could do it!  We talk to the kids so much about character and our choices.  We explain that your choices make who you are.  We have so many ways of explaining it to the best of our ability.  I also believe that people treat you how you let them treat you and I don’t want to raise kids that are rude and disrespectful to their mother.  Not just for me, but I know they won’t feel good about themselves if they choose that.  Allowing my sweet daughter the space to find who she wants to be on her own with just the right amount of guidance and a big dash of modeling my own good choices seems to be the recipe.  For now.

I am going to continue pondering parenting without judging.  I think it’s worth the effort to try.  As I embrace the freedom from being right or wrong, I do want to impart some of this concept to the kids.  It is tough because they so badly want to be right…all the time.  I told them recently that I really don’t want to parent every single little thing and be right and make them wrong…but what I do want to do is parent for peace.  I explained that even when they are corrected or get in trouble, they really haven’t done anything wrong, but we must try to work towards creating more peace and harmony.  If we’re behaving in a way that creates more peace and harmony, then there won’t be much chance of getting into trouble.  As we discussed this more and exactly what harmony means…we were turned to look outside at nature and observe the perfect harmony all around us.  I love how the answers are always there in the perfection of nature.

Mom – THANK YOU so much for guiding me towards finding “Sweet Little Stacy” – slowly over time I am finding her in the essence of my true nature.  What a gift it is to know she does exist and she is there in the purest form in me just as she is in everyone else.

Wishing you all a quiet moments with the Sweet Little One inside you.  Joy!

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August 25, 2013

The Universe Went To A Lot of Trouble To Create This Exact Moment For You…Come To The Party

The Universe (God, Life, Love, All, Everything…) went to a lot of trouble to create this exact moment that you are experiencing.  It has been arranging millions of things and designing perfection for you.  It has then invited you to come.  That is the case in every moment.  Always.  Each moment is perfectly created for exactly the right circumstances for you and the evolution of your soul.  All we need to do is simply be there in the moment fully to experience the perfection we are meant to have.  Unfortunately, we often skip the moment entirely by bringing past issues or experiences and future worries or stress with us in our minds that keeps us preoccupied and unable to BE where we are at fully.  The moment that the Universe worked so hard for us to have is completely lost on us, we just can’t feel it.  We are more blessed and loved than we can imagine because the Universe (God) loves us so much that at the very  moment we miss yet another of its precious gifts it had picked out for us, it is already working hard to create another one to invite us to that is just as perfect.  It lines up infinite details to create divine experiences for us and no matter how many moments we miss, it continues to invite us to the next one.  Continuous understanding, compassion and invitations.  Amazing!

Imagine if a loved one had decided to throw you a special party…they organized every last detail to make it the best celebration of your lifetime and you just didn’t show up.  You just never went.  When we live with constant distractions, mind chatter and stress, we just aren’t showing up at the party the Universe has planned for us.  Lucky for us, the Universe will go on planning, arranging and coordinating the perfect experience for us…but, our soul longs to skip the detours and delays.  It will all work out just as it should, but perhaps by understanding what we are missing we can truly focus on figuring out how we can show up at the party now.  Let’s do everything we can to go to the party the Universe has planned for us…the joy.

Wishing you joy today and always!  I know you can get to the party and feel the joy; my faith in you helps me feel I can dwell in the joy more often myself.  Let’s Live It!  We have people to meet, things to see, stories to hear, love to create, adventures to encounter…the joy is always waiting for us.

 

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August 23, 2013

Perception – Lessons For Children of All Ages

Perception is a wonderful lesson for children of all ages.  It is so helpful to teach them to step back and consider different points of view.  We want to raise kind compassionate children and teaching them the skill of looking from various perspectives is a great way to start.  My daughter and I first began talking more deeply (past simple sharing) about perception in preschool when she was dealing with what seemed to her like a mean little girl.  We discussed the other possible options or reasons why it may seem like she is being “mean” and tried embrace other scenarios, etc.  We tried to put ourselves in her shoes and see things from her eyes.  It helped.  In the end, they became friends.  These conversations continued throughout the years.  It also helped me teach her to try not to take things personally and to always look for the good in others because it is always there.

Perception can open up so many things in life and you can take the lessons as far as you are willing to open up your mind.  You can start with simply seeing things from another view-point and take it all the way to the ultimate illusions in life that we all experience.  Ultimately, perception can lead you to constant peace.  For children, just introducing and discussing the concept can free them from a lot of heartache that would stem from judging others and insisting they are right, etc.  Some of these concepts may go over their head at first, but not for long.  I figure it’s like songs written in consciousness, at first they just seem like catchy tunes and then as you change over time you hear the profound wisdom within and it’s like being hit over the head (I remember singing Imagine along with the radio one day and finally hearing the words I had memorized long before, I had to pull my car over I was so awestruck and thrilled to finally understand what was being said).  I figure someday they will have a moment where it clicks and they will say, “Wow, that is what my parents were talking about.”  Sometimes they surprise me and say something so profound I am sure they remember where they came from.  I often wish I was as present as my son, so I am sure we are learning from each other.

My daughter and I have continued these conversations about perception over the years to help her embrace her compassion and willingness to see things from various points of view.  We are a homeschooling family so we can spend a lot of time on subjects that interest us, it’s just one of the many perks.  We have a lovely assignment we would like to share.  This year we saw Wicked at the theatre and knew immediately we could make a great perception assignment out of it.  My daughter already knew Wizard of Oz very well, she had seen the movie several times and played Oz in her children’s theatre production.  Once we saw Wicked, it opened up an entirely different viewpoint of the story.  We loved it and we spent a lot of time on her related essay about perception.  Her essay is below.  She was seven years old when she wrote it.  We spent a lot of time having editing meetings and getting to this final draft.  Another home school perk we enjoy is learning through editing and editing until we get to her personal best version.  From a seven-year old point of view, it is just precious.  It is a great lesson for us all.

Please enjoy the essay below on perception from my kind and compassionate daughter.  I had to include this adorable title sheet she created.

Perception

Perception

            People see situations in different ways.  Perception means how you see things.  This paper is all about how you look at things.  The Wizard of Oz and Wicked are great examples of ways we can perceive things differently.  My fright of the Wicked Witch of the West in Wizard of Oz was equally matched by my love for her in Wicked.

The Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz was so scary.  The Munchkins were terrified of her. They were so scared that every time the Wicked Witch came they would hide from her.  She always had this funny and terrifying laugh.  Whenever she saw Dorothy she would say, “I’ll get you my pretty,” and then laugh afterwards.  The Wicked Witch wanted to kill Dorothy and her friends Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man.  She really wanted the ruby slippers badly and she would do anything to get them.  She was completely terrifying and I felt so relieved when Dorothy melted her!

In Wicked, the Wicked Witch of the West was loveable!  Her name was really Elphaba.  She was born green and everyone was mean to her.  She was smart.  She took good care of her crippled sister Nessa.  She wanted to help the animals.  She tried to do good things but they did not go well for her.  She was totally tricked by the Wizard of Oz and everyone thought she was bad even though she was good.  She just wanted those ruby slippers to remember her sister.

In the Wizard of Oz I was so scared of the Wicked Witch of the West but in Wicked I loved her.  In the Wizard of Oz the story was told from Dorothy’s perception, it made you see things how she did.  In Wicked, the story was told from Elphaba’s perception, throughout the whole show you see her side of the story.  The way these stories were told from the perception of different characters made it possible to equally fear the Wicked Witch in one story and love her in the other.

My fright of the Wicked Witch of the west in Wizard of Oz was equally matched by my love for her in Wicked.  In both shows there was a different way of looking at things.  This is what perception is all about.  In all things in life people have a different perceptions of things.  This explains why people make different choices.  Understanding people’s perceptions can lead us to kindness and compassion.  I want to always remember that people have different perceptions because kindness and compassion are the most important thing in life!

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August 18, 2013

Let Beauty Awaken Your Soul

“When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see.”
―John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace

Beauty.  What is it?  Where does it come from?  Why does it touch us so?  What happens to us when we experience it?

When we experience true beauty, everything stops.  We take it in.  We experience the stillness that it came from.  I believe that we remember where it came from and it feels like home to us.  It awakens us from our daily life for a moment and takes us somewhere else.  It moves us.  It thrills us.  It is love sent to remind us of who and what we are.

When we experience a beautiful song, a masterful dance performance, a great poem, a theatrical production, a scene in a movie, a sunset, a beautiful piece of artwork, even an amazing sports moment…anything that has true beauty, we are changed in that moment.  Beauty can wake us up to more of life, it takes us out of the ordinary and out of our thinking mind — into our senses fully and it is a gift when it does.  We stop thinking, we have no worries, we aren’t planning or distracted or bored…we are really there experiencing the beauty and relief in being taken to a more meaningful moment.  We all have experienced those precious moments when we sit in awe of something so beautiful, we feel it deep inside.  Remember it and you can feel it now.

That moment is always there for us.  We must remember that stillness and invite it to visit more often.  We can bring more beauty into out lives, we simply need to be open to seeing it.  We need to add enough space to let it in.  Beauty is all around us.  It is everywhere, not just in the so-called works of art.  There is magical beauty in the smallest of things everywhere.  Everything was created in that stillness.  The truest of beauty is in the lines on an elderly face, the wag of a dog’s tail, the way the sunlight hits the sink full of dirty dishes, laughter, smiles, eyes, the book in your hands, the sound of your child calling “Mom”, kindness in any form, the mess you made having fun…beauty is everywhere.  We don’t have to wait for the sensational, we can see it everywhere.  We can let it wake us up to more of Life.

Today, in many ways, beauty has been reduced to idealized notions of what society deems beautiful.  It is actually rather frightening to see what is happening in the name of beauty.  That is not what we are talking about here.  We are talking about true works of Life.  God is experiencing himself in so many ways and through that experiencing, comes beauty.  We can bless our lives by looking with fresh eyes that are open to the beauty that surrounds us all the time.  We can help others see the beauty too.

Let’s take the time to touch beauty in a more meaningful way today and see how it changes our experience of life.  Let’s not wait for the big obvious moments, lets find it in the imperfection that is called Life.

Have fun seeing the beauty around you today, your soul knows how…today is the perfect day to spend more time with your soul.  Your soul is pure beauty!

Below is my son’s favorite poem, Little Things by Julia A. F. Carney.  The beauty in his five-year-old writing and the sweet joy he gets in reading this poem and knowing he is one of my favorite little things is simply stunning…to me, better than any masterpiece or work of nature I could ever encounter.

Little Things

Wishing you lots of joy in the beauty found in little things today and always!

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August 12, 2013

Mental Movie Making – Make Movies in Your Head or Live in Stillness and Inner Peace

“We can learn not to keep situations or events alive in our minds, but to return our attention continuously to the pristine, timeless present moment rather than be caught up in mental movie making.”
–Eckhart Tolle

When I first heard Eckhart Tolle talk about mental movie making some years back, I can’t say that I got what he meant right away.  It took some time and lots of mulling it over.  I remember hearing him give a talk and trying to figure it out on a conceptual level rather than the knowing inside me that would have understood right away.  Funny, I am sure the ego was wrapped up in all that mind chatter.

In a recent conversation I was having with a friend, I heard myself explain it so clearly.  I had been listening to my friend and feeling compassion for her suffering.  I was just really listening presently, I wasn’t thinking about what I would say, I was just really in the vibration of stillness and non-judgement and when it was my turn to respond to her, these words explaining the concept of mental movie making came through.  As she reacted with enthusiasm and excitement about how true and helpful that was, I also heard it and understood it so much deeper than I ever had before.  I heard my own words (or words borrowed from stillness really) and learned something more deeply from them.  It was like one of those hugs from the universe I believe in when you just feel so connected to everything.  It was such a lovely lesson that I thought I would share it here.

My friend had been describing dealing with a hard situation with a family member and sharing her disappointment over their actions, etc.  She felt very sure of her position and even more sure that the family member was doing others wrong.  The suffering she was creating for herself was obvious.  I wasn’t judging her for doing that or judging the family member for her actions (which can be easy to do), I was really just listening in presence and feeling compassion for her and then the right words came.

I said to her – We get to decide how we let things effect us.  When we interact with others, they have their perception of the situation, we have ours.  Neither one is true ultimately and neither one actually happened.  None of this “stuff” is actually happening, it is all in our minds.  It’s all a movie we are creating as we look through the veil of our perceptions.  In our movie we are the star and we have our supporting characters and guest appearances, etc.  In the other person’s movie, they are the star and we are their supporting actors or maybe just an extra.  Depending on the veil we look through and all the past experiences we bring with us, we decide how to interpret things and how much importance to give them.  Sometimes things just roll right out of our awareness and sometimes we obsess and keep the movie running and running and running.  We can make it get bigger and worse and keep it alive with all the movie creating in our heads.  None of it actually happened.  At about this point in the conversation she said “wow that is amazing, I never thought of it that way.”

We went on and had a lovely conversation, it is hard to explain the added depth in the discussion, it was just there.  When we concluded our conversation, I felt so peaceful and I had this knowing that we had really shared a moment of glimpsing a truer reality.  It was special and I was grateful.  Conversations and moments like this when we can ease suffering and grow consciousness are miraculous.

It can be easy to get caught up in mental movie making, it’s even thought to be normal and people go on consoling each other and adding to each others movies by agreeing with their version, etc.  Even in the exact moment of the very thing we think we are upset about, it didn’t happen.  It was just the way we created it in our head and someone else created a different version in their head.  No other mind saw it exactly the way we did.  Once we understand this we can step back and begin to figure out how we are creating these movies and keeping situations alive in our minds that never even happened.  We can begin to watch this happening and explore other options.  We can free ourselves from this false reality and gain peace and learn to dwell in the power of stillness rather than an ever-changing movie.

As I mentioned before, I had heard Eckhart talk about these things many times and I had been reading The Four Agreements and applying all of that wisdom as well.  I am so grateful for all of the great teachers presenting this information in so many different ways, yet saying the same thing.  We can continue to grow and grasp the teachings and then we can learn to live it.  When we hear ourself explain something more clearly than we had ever understood it, we know we tapped into the stillness that is Everything.  If we can listen and be still and let that voice come through then we can truly become more of our essential self and much less of our reactionary self…one response at a time.

I believe our judgements can block the real answers from coming through.  If I had been judging my friend for her feelings or the family member for hurting her so much, we may not have had that special moment when we could grasp a deeper truth.  It’s so worth all the searching and practicing and trying to chip away at the ego to have true moments of stillness like this one.  It wasn’t the little false sense of me that was able to stay away from judgments and touch the stillness, it was the big Me that is connected to everything.  It was the one that I have been trying to spend more time with and get to know more in stillness.  It was beautiful.  I highly recommend it and I know that it is always there waiting for us to enjoy.  We ALL have the ability to touch that very same stillness!

As we go out into the world today and always, lets practice living in stillness and turning towards presence rather than creating movies in our head that trap us in the past or take us to future worries.  Wishing you all love and joy!!!

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