Too-Much-itis

It is great to heal our emotional pain. It is freeing to quieten the egoic mind. It is wonderful to learn yoga and meet spiritual masters. It is exhilarating to practice meditation and feng shui. It is liberating to read spiritual literature, to appreciate everything, and to float in a flotation tank, but sometimes we suffer from too-much-itis.

Rather than going on a spiritual journey, we often go on a spiritual race. Early in my spiritual life, I was plagued by a not so helpful enthusiasm. I read the works of philosophers, psychologists, metaphysicians, saints, and scientists. Everywhere I searched I encountered a teaching that disagreed with something I just read. I pushed myself harder to discover truth and to reconcile opposites.

One day, I collapsed – figuratively speaking. I was one tired seeker; so I retired. I no longer cared whether I needed to surrender or to take charge. I couldn’t care less whether I should be meek or expressive. I didn’t care about the existential dilemmas of life. I quit trying to be positive about everything. I stopped being hyper-vigilant about word usage, and expended my lexicon beyond only spiritual or life affirming words. No more figuring out if my desires were egoic or if they had come as God’s will.

At the time, I had stopped trying to be successful. I thought that would cure me, but then I fell into the trap of becoming a successful spiritual person. Obviously the solutions weren’t “out there” in the world, so I plumbed the depths of the inner world. But life didn’t get better. It was more confusing. Some days were better than others, but mostly my life got heavier and I felt desperate.

I never thought this could happen. Ten years before I experienced an extraordinary awakening, but here I was, asleep again, and going faster and faster, so I could recapture Nirvana.

Now, there was to be absolutely no mental agenda. I was finished. I would drink mint juleps on the patio and turn into a lazy, brainless person. I closed the books, stopped listening to my cassette tapes (no mp3s at that time), and started watching the soap opera I had previously abandoned.

A friend commented, “You look so relaxed. I was worried about you. You looked burdened before. What are you doing?” “Nothing.” I replied “I quit reading all my books and gave up searching for the truth.” Until he pointed it out, I was unaware of the shift in my energy. I was feeling lighter. I had more energy and felt happy. My too-much-itis was in remission.

The spiritual path is delicate, fraught with mysteries and seeming inconsistencies. Sometimes we have to do something different, take a chance and move forward, and at other times we have to back down. I had been trying to attain a state of consciousness, rather than being awake to the transcendental awareness of the okayness of life as it was. In that okayness my identity rested, waiting only for me to recognize my Self.

Since that experience of too-much-itis, I have ceased being an avid seeker. I don’t respond optimally when well-meaning people tell me how to do spirituality. I find myself contracting when people try to teach or advise me, and shiver to think of the times I’ve given tepid, unsolicited advice. When I was in the spiritual race, I probably wanted others racing alongside me.

So many people believe the spiritual journey is hard and it takes supreme effort. The spiritual path is littered with pseudo martyrs who wear their hardships like a badge of courage. The idea of endless burden and difficulty is wrong. The less I do, the more I have. I’ve found that it’s easier to love than hate, easier to forgive than hold resentments, easier to surrender than to control, and that our Source doesn’t jerk us around - plaguing us with harder and harder tasks until we pass the test of fire. The spiritual quest is a journey without distance, and we no longer need to be the sacrificial lambs of outmoded beliefs. We are free now. We don’t have to earn a place in the annals of spiritual masters; all we really have to do is love what we can, forgive what we can’t love, and be willing to surrender what we can’t forgive. It’s simple. There are leagues of unseen support we can’t even fathom.

When we stand grounded in the belief that the spiritual path is hard, we will be tested again and again, by ourselves, not by our creator. I’m asking you to stand down and consider that our expectation of difficulty continuously obscures the pristine Presence available in this moment. Are you willing for life to be EZier than you thought it was? Can you let go of the complex, complicated, burdensome perception of life and claim your freedom, because if you can, you will find that life will be EZier and EZier

Keeping Tabs: EZosophy

Too often we keep tabs on the problematic issues in life. It’s a limited viewpoint: life is a problem. This is how we make life hard. This is how we become Hardaholics – through our perceptions. For numerous companies, Y2K was problematic, but for hundreds, if not thousands, of well-paid programmers, Y2K was a job. It meant employment.

Rather than building problems with our minds, we might do better building emotional and mental scenarios of gains, rather than those of loss.

Please consider playing some of my favorite building games:

• Expected and Unexpected Income I start the day with this thought: “Today I receive expected and unexpected income.” Each day I keep tabs on my income, based on that intention. Recently I found $12 between some papers. One day a friend gave me a book. Another day we got one free bag of dog food for making our tenth purchase. That same day we received a free bottle of flax seed oil. My husband was told by a store worker that the store did not carry flax seed oil. My husband checked out, but before he left, the employee caught up with him and handed him a bottle of flax seed oil. “I was wrong. We had it. Just keep it for free.” That was $10.00 worth of oil.
• What good happened today? At the close of the day, review what happened and find at least one good thing that happened that day. Let the last thing on our minds be a life-supportive thought.
• Synchronicities of the day Synchronicity means meaningful coincidences. One of my most profound incidences of synchronicity happened when I was explaining the concept of synchronicity to a client. “If I am saying something to you and a tree falls in the backyard, that would be a sign that what I am saying is important. It would be as if the tree falling was the Universe’s way of saying, ‘Listen’.” As I was saying that, a tree fell in the backyard of my office. There was a window in my office, so we had a clear view. The falling of the tree pointed out that synchronicity would probably be important in her life. These events are magic and they make wonderful journal material.
• Keeping up with the miracles – the small ones. A miracle could be changing the way I react to something. The behavior or activity that used to upset me no longer disturbs me. Another miracle would be a deep feeling of peace even in the face of a loss. I remember flying home for my father’s funeral and feeling uplifted on the journey. It felt like invisible arms were holding me. A miracle can be meeting an influential friend or turning to the very page in a book that you needed to read for information or inspiration. Maybe it’s a good night’s sleep when you are an insomniac. Look for those miracles.
• Keeping tabs on me This involves taking a second throughout the day to feel what it’s like to be me, when I feel me, and I connect my mind and body. “Oh, here I am.” I check in throughout the day and it keeps my mind from too much chatter and calms me. Simple task; profound results.
• Keeping tabs on my breath I check my breath during the day. Just noticing my breath makes me sit up straighter and breathe deeper. If I’m holding my breath or have shallow breathing, it tells me I’m stressed. I relax my body. I let go in my belly and shoulders. Relaxation is the secret simple key to health. (I heard that relaxation quote recently, but don’t remember who said it).

The eastern trinitarian concept highlights construction or creation, sustaining life, and destruction or tearing down. Brahma creates, Vishnu sustains, and Shiva destroys. What does your mind keep tabs on? Is it the constructive or the destructive nature? Are you mentally affixed to the negative side of Shiva’s nature? Life is always falling apart; that’s the Shiva nature, but focusing on that aspect alone will bring despair. Things need to fall apart, but watching the fall may not be the best use of your time!

I have a compost bin in my kitchen. It lives in my pantry. I don’t deny its existence. I use it to dispose of my vegetable and fruit trimmings, but I don’t stand over the compost bin for hours and smell the stench. It really stinks. I know it’s there, covered and tucked inside my pantry, but I don’t let its existence determine my life’s view.

What we keep tabs on colors our world view and either builds or destroys personal realities. What are you keeping tabs on? Tim Bays says it so well in his song, A thousand things went right today and will again tomorrow. The exercises above build the mind and heart and take us from hopelessness and helplessness and deliver us to peace, ease, and happiness. Please join me in creating an easier and safer world. Your world view is up to you, and it’s time to make it easier, freer, and lighter.

FIRST CORINTHIANS 13, CHRISTMAS VERSION

Author Unknown

Anne and Jim

 If I decorate my house perfectly with red velvet bows,

strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another decorator.

 

 If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I'm just another cook.

 

 If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home, and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.

  

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir's cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

  

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.

  

Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.

  

Love is kind, inexhaustible, willing to push our physical limits.

  

Love doesn't envy other's home that has

coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

  

Love doesn't yell at the kids to get out of the way,

but is thankful they are there to be in the way.

  

Love doesn't give only to those who are able to give

in return, but rejoices in giving to those who can't.

  

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes

all things, endures all things.

  

Love never fails. Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust.

But giving the gift of love will endure.  Merry Christmas!

Happy Face Day

Be nice to your face today. I used to get up in the morning and look in the mirror on my way to the toilet. As I passed by I would wince. One day I woke up, “How crazy is this? I expect to look perfect in the morning when I get up.” From that day on, I never used a look in the mirror to put myself down.

The face holds all kinds of emotions. The term shamed-faced is not a metaphor, we actually hold the vibrations of shame and other emotions in our faces.  The face is the canvas for tears and the first thing people see when they look at us.

Try this exercise to help integrate and heal emotions in the face. First do a baseline check on your face. How does it feel or not feel? Now, sing the sound “E” while stroking your face and neck area with loving strokes. It feel so good and nurturing.

Next do the exercises in this video. The exercises are to keep wrinkles away, but they also wake the face up. After you do the exercises, notice how your face feels. It feels more alive doesn’t it? Wow this is fun.

Another little face hint. Scowl and look at yourself in the mirror. Now smile and look at yourself. Notice how much younger you look when you smile! There’s a vast difference.  Happy Face Day. Face it, it’s time to glow up.