Surrender to the breath

Notice what it is to surrender to the breath. This requires courage During meditation, you focus on the breath to confront yourself with your problems again and again in the mind until you finally understand the absolute need to let go. Mindfulness aligns our priorities and behaviour in business, community and relationships. Unconscious choices keep us striving, experiencing lack of success, lack of acceptance restlessness and discomfort.  Being in harmony with yourself is about getting into harmony with universal laws.  This makes all the difference in having dominion over life and what you make of it.

Reaching a Fork in the Road

Reaching a fork in the road is an invitation to reflect on where we have been as well as on where we are headed.  It is about recognizing we have the power to make different choices.  Making more conscious choices enriches and strengthens us from the inside out due to acting from a state of deeper awareness about ourselves. Feel the urge to change focus and/or priorities?

Now is the moment to recognize and act more based on things that really matter: the power of vulnerability, courage, innate worthiness.  Part of the journey involves bravely exploring our shadows, the characteristics and behaviours we adopt that echo we are less than we actually are.  More specifically, this is about making the unconscious,  conscious, growing aware of self-defeating and self-sabotaging choices that point to patterns. Our overt and covert behaviours are linked to our sense of belonging and fear of rejection. 

As we reflect on how we are taught to live, what we are taught to achieve and the persona/ role we project, underneath words like "success" and "fulfillment" is that compass that gauges our sense of belonging.  This points to our unspoken desire to be seen, heard and validated. Beyond that is a yearning to “be part of something bigger than ourselves, to experience genuine connection with others. Beig true to ourselves is what makes us aware of the nature of authenticity, true freedom and innate power.

The root of everything

Getting to the root of who you are involves true courage.  This is not the heroic kind, putting your life or reputation on the line, that western society has come to focus on.  Its about remembering how it feels to speak openly and honestly, fearlessly putting our vulnerability on the line. 

In other words, we must be willing to take responsibility, set an example for living authentically.  Otherwise, we simply create and encounter a mirror of our own deception.  When was the last instance you risked being vulnerable and disappointed? How did that turn out for you? 

Practicing true courage involves selectively sharing your vision with people who support you, not downplaying your dreams. Its about allowing tears or emotions to flow as they will, not hiding your true feelings as society so often teaches.  Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others and relate to them with compassion on equal footing.

If the root of everything is genuine connection, then everything you think, do or say either strengthens or weakens this connection.  The topic certainly merits some attention.  What if you feel energized or drained based on the degree you feel seen, heard and valued, based on the freedom you give yourself to offer input without fear of judgment?

Through her research, Brene Brown reveals that only one thing separates people who feel a deep sense of love and belonging (connection) from people who seem to be struggling for (or running from) it.  This is the depth of belief in worthiness.  True connection arises from an equal exchange of energy. How do you share or exchange energy to derive your self- worth? What are your behavioural patterns telling you about the nature of connection in your life? 

If we want to fully experience connection, we must act as if we know we are worthy of it.  We must also recognize being who we are doesn't require us to change. It simply requires self-acceptance to guide our life choices. Take an inventory of how you feel. Let go of who you think you are supposed to be. Olny seeing through the falseness can you embrace who you are.

3 Ways to get closer to truth

Whenever an imbalance or illness arises, while its important to treat physical symptoms, unless you recognize and address underlying causes, physical difficulties simply continue.  There's always more going on undetected by the logical mind and physical senses. This is an invitation to pay closer attention, to go deeper into what you resist seeing and addressing within.

1. Take responsibility for the process of your own healing 

This is not about always doing everything yourself. Reaching our for guidance can be helpful.  Deep healing is not about fixing physical issues. Rather, its a much broader process that gets at the root of underlying causes of physical, emotional, psychic or social disfunction. 

2.  Recognize your dysfunctional behaviours

Few people see themselves clearly.  We see through distorted filters of belief which allows us to avoid facing what drives us at the core. This is about making core values that drive the shadow, conscious. So long as you feel unfulfilled or unworthy, for example, you are programmed to compensate for perceived inadequacy in your behaviours.

3. Sacrifice your dysfunctional behaviour

Making the conscious choice to give up certain behaviours takes a lot of courage. It may feel like a sacrifice. Yet, you cannot give up anythng real. When you are ready to explore the true meaning of integrity, and live this on many levels, you are getting closer to who you are. This is about remembering what the flow feels like. It is not about appeasing anyone. It is about letting go.

What I want is what you want

Excerpt from Alan Watts:

Notice what I want is what you want and I cannot specify what you want. 

When you do not know what you want, you may not have thought about it, or so many choices arise, you cannot choose.  A naive view is a desire to control everything, some kind of technological omnipotence or power where the"I" (ego) is in charge.  Craving is the source of suffering and exists due to ignorance. All disappointments are the result of frustrated desire and believing in the illusion and constraints of time.

When you reach the state of not wanting, not seeking, this is desirelessness. You have to let go and let it happen.  Its not about arriving anywhere, not about a journey or being results-oriented at all.  To be in complete control is not something any sensible person wants. Every moment, the universe is simply reacting to your perceived problems until you see they are imaginary.  See if you can calm desire and be a master of life.  When you get control of everything , what would you do with it? Turn off pain, foretell the future, read your thoughts, be above ordinary human frailty. Go beyond all pleasures at your command.

Why don't you know what you want? 

a) You have it

b) You do not know yourself because you never can. The Godhead is not an object of its own knowledge.

I do not know is the same as humility, and unconditional love. If you know you do not understand. When you cease to cling to yourself, you access infinite power.  It is common to waste energy trying to force things. The moment you stop, that wasted energy is available.  When you stop defending yourself, you are letting go of energy you suppress, allowing it to flow.

 What is helping you ?

1) Courage to see beyond fear

2) The fact that everything is in decay, dissolving, process of constant death is helping you because you do not have to let go.  Nothing exists to hold.

3) The power that comes to you does when you do not reach out for it.  It arises when you can be trusted fully with power (and do no harm)