Tag Archives: #practice

Here now – the difficult art of being still (part 1)

25 Monday Mar 2019

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Week three here now in Mexico and feeling like I actually just arrived.

Last week was messy!  All about coming to terms with how far I’d wandered away from the contemplative path that has grounded me spiritually for the last decade or so. And in that process of necessary confrontational love and honesty, I had to accept how crucial it is to my actual creative goals here to first restore and reestablish my spiritual practice of contemplative meditation.

Before I can DO, I must BE.

It was jarring (to say the least) for me to confront how uncomfortable I was feeling being here with no one I know and nothing to do. I’m what most people would consider an extremely chill person who is completely comfortable spending time alone. I don’t strive to be busy and I am not at all impressed by people who always feel the need to be doing something. I do not bore easily. I do not need to be out and about a lot. I do not see the sun out and think, “Oh my gosh. What a beautiful day, I need to get out and enjoy it.” Nope. Not me. I am not outdoorsy. I’m indoorsy. And I’ve been this way since I was a child.

So then, you could imagine the discomfort I was experiencing in coming to terms with how badly I was lying to myself about myself :/  But it’s not easy to hide from yourself in the powerful light of a full moon 😉  …and in this waxing and waning fullness, I came to acknowledge a truth that I’d been conveniently avoiding in LA – that while I do spent a significant amount of time either at home or alone, I have not in fact been practicing true solitude.

There’s a difference, I have learned, between the art of solitude and the counterfeit art of ESCAPE. Solitude allows for experiences of aloneness that open us up to a greater awareness of a deep abiding Presence within us and in those around us. Escapism, on the other hand, opens us up to the darker emotions – like the pain of loneliness that can often lead to or resemble depression; or even more worrisome, avoidance and denial of emotion entirely (often manifest is various forms of addiction, -isms, and co-dependancy.)

Here now, in returning to my own practice of meditation known as Centering Prayer, I am accepting an invitation to enter into this solitude and to be met in my aloneness by this deep abiding, loving Presence. And this practice is in turn giving me an unspoken permission to resist the constant urges to go do something. (In fact, the few times I have actually left my cozy neighborhood here, I’ve been less than impressed. What the locals say about Coyoacan I am finding to be completely true. Here, I am in an oasis of peace and charm in an otherwise very hectic city that is honestly, in my opinion, both overwhelming and underwhelming at once. But I digress…)

This invitation and unspoken permission to Be Still is also crucial to my creative process because well, I am a writer and in all practicality, writing requires stillness – a lot of inactivity. Being a writer AND a contemplative, I can’t accomplish my goals, neither creative nor spiritual, by running around all day, constantly looking for someone to hang out with, or something to do or see. It’s pretty cut and dry – if I’m out being busy, I’m not doing what I really want to do which is write.

When I accepted this reality last week, and 1) shut down all of the self-imposed pressure to wake up everyday and do something or see something, and 2) cut lamenting the lack of friends I have or don’t have here, I actually found a flow and a contentment with being still and being alone. And as a result I was able to productively engage in my writing projects AND enjoy my moments of solitary wanderlusting for necessary inspiration.

Now I have a rhythm and it’s my own.  Now I accept the best part of not having anything to do, is doing whatever I want to do. When I wake up, when I get to work, when I leave my house, when I get back home…it’s all up to flow. I am free to be as still as I want to be, whenever I want to be.

HOWEVER…the one consistent, non-negotiable part of my day that I am being super intentional about is how it begins. The first thing I do when I wake up is SIT STILL. I get out of bed, I sit in a little chair in my studio, I set the timer on my Centering Prayer app for 30 minutes and I just sit there silently and practice the art of being “present, open and awake” as my teacher James Finley says.

In a later post I will share some more insight from this powerfully transformational audio teaching journey I’m on with Jim. Trying my best to keep these posts to a shorter length. And it’s about that time for my midday stroll through my barrio to find some food. But trust…Hasta pronto 😉

Namaste.

 

Making a U-turn

27 Wednesday May 2015

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Last weekend I spent Saturday at a retreat/lecture with one of my Christian Mystic teachers, Jim Finley. He’s amazing. Wise and profound. But what moved me more than his godly insight was the presence of several other teachers I saw there. My very first ever, spiritual director, Ravi. A woman named Carolyn who counseled me during a challenging post-seminary transition. And my current spiritual director, Greta. They were all thrilled to see me. They are the kind of teachers I’ve always been blessed with throughout my life. The ones who look at me and think I’m just amazing, and see my future as so big and bright. I cherish their vision of me, especially at times when seeing my own potential is clouded by doubts and fear.

During a break, I chatted with Carolyn about how things were going in my life. I told her I’m still on the journey. For a moment as I talked with her, I looked around the room, at a sea of mostly Caucasian faces, mostly 50 years old and up, and I found myself telling Carolyn, that sometimes I feel like an outcast. But it’s not here at events like these that I feel like I don’t belong, here where it may seem obvious I was out of place. No, I told her. It’s out there…amongst my peers, my friends in their thirties, living life, working jobs, starting families, having fun. Out there, this spiritual life isn’t a popular course of life to undertake. “Maybe, to be fair,” I ask her, “it’s not an easy undertaking any age?” Carolyn listened, and when she spoke she told me, “Remember what Jim said at the beginning of the day…the mystic way is like making a U-turn on the freeway in the middle of rush hour.” “Yes,” I told her, “I remember.”

I am one of those wild ones who dared enough to make the U-turn on the freeway…but now I’m sitting here, facing traffic head on, thinking I’m now actually going to get somewhere.

The foolishness of it all. The audacity to believe.

When doubt sets in, you need something to stand on. You need to remember that you’ve made moves like this before and you did in fact get somewhere. You need vision. You need to be able to look back, and look ahead all the while staying present to the now.

One month away from my 35th birthday I find myself excited. Sitting in rush hour traffic, excited. Now I’m five years closer to the big 4-0, which I know many women dread, but I have always had this strange fascination with turning 40. Because when I look ahead, I can see myself there. The same me, just a little wiser, a bit more content, a lot less concerned with what others think of me. I can see her there. Stronger, more convinced that this path she’s chosen is actually trustworthy.

Because I’ll be honest, even as I write and share, the more I write and share, the more people encourage me and thank me for sharing, the more convinced I am I know nothing! Nothing at all. Some days, to be honest, I’m not even sure there is a God, truly. And on those days the peace and the joy that are the promised fruits of the spiritual life, elude me.

So that’s when I look back.

25 was real, wasn’t it? I was just getting set to move to California. I had no idea what was ahead of me, but I had enough money saved to drive cross-country and pay a little rent. I entered seminary, graduated 3 years later with NO MONEY. But I kept following whispers. God kept favoring me. Every turn I took there was a teacher, a minister, a wise counselor. My whole life people have committed themselves to helping me make it through, seen something special in me, walked with me for a season, taught me the way. Taught me to notice God. So now I notice my life seems to follow a pattern. This isn’t my first U-turn on the freeway, and it won’t be my last. Taught me to pay attention to the unfolding. Taught me to embrace my becoming. Taught me to see that if here is good, next is better. Taught me to trust, that I’ve never gone backwards and I won’t go backwards now.

But believe me, when you make that first U-turn…it certainly feels like you’re going nowhere slow. Just breathe. Remember where you’re going, and remember where you’ve come from.

Practice saying Yes to yourself

04 Monday May 2015

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I just took a big risk and forfeited a great paying job…two of them actually. Although I have a decent amount of money saved, choosing not to work right now is totally illogical.

But I have dreams. And in some downtime between a job that ended and another that was to begin, those dreams began to recur. Rest realigns your purpose. And that rest in between jobs gave me the space to remember what makes me happy, remember who I am, remember what I was born to do, who I was created to be. And all of that rest and remembering served me well. I remembered so well, and so vividly, that saying yes to another well paying job became more and more difficult.

What struck me most as I was making my decision, was how difficult it was for me to actually act on what I knew I wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to take the jobs, I knew I had the financial freedom to say no to them, but the paralyzing crisis of freedom perplexed me. Why is it so difficult to actually do what you want, to say yes to yourself?

Trusting yourself is one of life’s greatest challenges. It takes practice. It requires a daily commitment to affirming yourself. Trusting yourself forces you to ask yourself everyday – Do I believe my potential? Are my dreams supported by the universe, God? Am I determined enough to make what exists in my imagination a reality?

Saying yes to yourself demands courage. You have to be daring enough to take a risk. Wild enough to follow your heart. Audacious enough to believe it is possible. And as I get older, my fearlessness in the face of the unknown is threatened with every obligation, every financial commitment, every idea that I must be, do, or have this or that, and everybody else’s better idea of who I am supposed to be according to them.

In the end, it all came down to a matter of the heart. When I lived out of my heart in the reality of working those jobs, I felt anxious. When I lived out of my heart in the reality of having the freedom to take time for myself and work towards executing my ideas and my vision, I felt peace. So, I chose peace. But I also learned that choosing peace doesn’t always mean you won’t be uncomfortable. There is always discomfort in the gray…in the space between black and white…that certainty of knowing, there is always discomfort. We prefer to be certain, we prefer to have answers, we prefer to have a plan clearly outlined, to follow a map. But there is also a map of the heart. And the only way to follow it is to rest in the peace of knowing that our hearts desires will in fact lead us somewhere. To some place where freedom and joy meet. Some place far off in the distance that even with perfect vision we can barely see. But it is there. We can glimpse it. And it can be felt, deep in our soul. It can be heard in the quietest of moments. It is a God whisper, saying to our soul…Yes. And we have to listen for that whisper of a feeling every day. We have to practice hearing it, practice saying yes to the unknown. Like a child who jumps in a pool for the first time, or takes her first ride on a bike. Children see other people do what they cannot yet and trust and believe they too will be able to swim and ride and be free. It just takes practice.