Love the Hell that You’re In

One of the most striking comments I heard at WDS was from Danielle LaPorte. She was describing her formative years of growing up as “white trash.” I don’t remember the specifics of her childhood, but I was spellbound when I heard her say “You have to love the hell that you’re in before you can leave it.”

You rarely hear someone talk about any reasons to stay in a hell-hole. They do say wherever you go, there you are. If you don’t find the lesson before you escape, the lesson follows you.

Danielle said that if you have made a decision to leave, you need to set a date and honor it or you betray yourself. I come from a long line of people who believe that the promises you make to other people are more important than the promises you make to yourself. You think there’s always going to be time for working out or relaxing later, but that time never comes.

She encouraged us all to make a “Stop Doing This” list. I mentally started the list at WDS. At the top was to stop feeling responsible for a website that the corporate office behind it no longer wanted. Second on the list was to stop being a realtor. Everything has changed about the real estate market and the players since we got into it seven years ago. It had turned into nothing more than a continual monetary vampire. It was no longer fun.

Danielle left us with the thought that “The universe wants you to win.” That was one of the things I found most helpful in overcoming my fear of public speaking – that the audience wants you to be successful. It is much more positive to look at things that way.

Planes, trains, and automobuses

We were eagerly looking forward to riding the Amtrack Empire Builder from Saint Paul, Minnesota to Portland, Oregon for the inaugural World Domination Summit. We had reserved a family sleeping compartment for the two of us  with windows on both sides of the train car, which would’ve saved us 4 nights in the hotel (two each way). I had packed my bags before leaving for work this morning, including post it notes we were planning to use to work on our elevator pitch during the 36 hour train ride. We were even looking forward to sampling the cuisine in the dining car.

Then this morning we found out that the train bridge in Minot, North Dakota is under water due to spring flooding caused by heavy rains. They are evacuating all 10,000 residents. The newly renovated train station is under water. Amtrack has another train, the SW Chief, that goes from Chicago to Los Angeles. But no availability until Friday. We wouldn’t get to Portland until Sunday.

Our remaining options were to drive or fly. Driving 1700 miles over three days is certainly doable, but then you have to turn around and drive back. For a weekend conference, it hardly makes sense. No post-it elevator pitch brainstorming. Lots of South Dakota and Montana. Too little Portland.

So we cashed in our train tickets and got on the first flight to Portland, with a short stop in Phoenix. We’ve already had a crash course in applying “Action Trumps Everything,” demonstrating flexibility and offsetting the disappointment of our imaginary train adventure with more time in Portland.

And if there was anyone from Minot who was planning to attend WDS, our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Infinite Well of Love

This affirmation is from You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay:

Deep at the centre of my being,
there is an infinite well of love.

I now allow this love to flow to the surface.
It fills my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness,
my very being, and radiates out from me in all directions
and returns to me mutliplied.
The more love I use and give, the more I have to give.
The supply is endless.
The use of love makes me feel good,
it is an expression of my inner joy.

I love myself;
therefore, I take loving care of my body.
I lovingly feed it nourishing foods and beverages,
I lovingly groom it and dress it, and my body lovingly
responds to me with vibrant health and energy.

I love myself; therefore provide for myself
a comfortable home, one that fills
all my needs and is a pleasure to be in.
I fill the rooms with the vibration of love
so that all who enter, myself included,
will feel this love and be nourished by it.

I love myself; therefore I work at a job I truly enjoy
doing, one that uses my creative talents and abilities,
working with and for people I love and who love me,
and earning a good income.

I love myself; therefore, I behave and think in a loving
way to all people for I know that that which I give out
returns to me multiplied.
I only attract loving people in my world,
for they are a mirror of what I am.

I love myself; therefore I forgive and totally release
the past and all past experiences and I am free.

I love myself; therefore I live totally in the now,
experiencing each moment as good and knowing that
my future is bright and joyous and secure,
for I am a beloved child of the Universe
and the Universe lovingly takes care of me
now and forever more.

And so it is.

Cope with a crisis

David Allen, the Getting Things Done guy, is now writing for the Wired.co.uk. He wrote an essay called Cope with a Crisis that points out some of the effects of trying to be connected to everything everywhere 24/7.

He points out that:

There’s a chance that, in the last three days alone, you’ve had more change-producing, project-creating, priority shifting inputs than your parents, once upon a time, got in a year. Dancing to that music, they had to do a slow waltz, whereas you’re doing a jitterbug, with unknown gunslingers shooting at your feet. “Dance, you yellow-bellied knowledge worker! Let’s see you move, you caring and connected global citizen!’

and then provides some advice – “Ask yourself what has your attention now. Then ask, What do I need to decide, do, handle, and organise, to be able to have my mind let that go?”

He includes this wonderful quote

Reflecting that the dark sky was the most profound backdrop for appreciating random lightning, Zen priest Shunryu Suzuki said: “When we have emptiness, we are always prepared for watching the flashing.”

May we all be prepared for appreciating the random lightning.

The purpose of Meditation

<Clipped unedited from an Email from Rob Muir to a distribution list>-

Dear Friends,
This was shared with me by way of Rhonda,”Thank You Rhonda”
Meredith was kind enough to share this with his blessings ,”Thank You Meredith”
I hope this will  help you  & others……………………………………………………………The Purpose of Meditation
A Lecture by Chunyi Lin
As recorded by Meredith; another leaf on the tree in Spring Forest Qigong

I. Balance your energy
II. Tap into the infinite source
1. To enhance life’s joy, peace, and happiness
2. To connect with wisdom(s)
A. Wisdom to find answers
B. Wisdom to listen to our natural ability (we are born with) to tap into our energy reservoir.
III. Through deepening our meditation we are able to strive to understand the Chinese term of ‘Schen Da = Most: Powerful, Mysterious, Unlimited, Biggest…: Loves; and put that love into action leading to a deepening meditation. After we understand the purpose of meditation is not simply for the sake of meditating, the practice as an action raises our level of the vibratory or resonance of our energy frequency to a higher level of quiet and peace. This understanding of the purpose of meditation prepares us for the following 5 steps to get into a deeper meditation:
Step 1: To begin; in your mind, set your life’s goal (what design do you have or want in your life? What do you want your life to look like). Define, very specifically the questions(s) you want answered.
Step 2: What level of achievement (or outcome) do you want as a goal that supports (or affirms Step 1)…be very clear.
Step 3: The clarity of focus resulting from Step 2 will determine (consequently) the amount of energy you will spend on the goal identified in Step 1.
Step 4: If there is a passion revealed to you in steps 1-3, then the additional component that remains to incorporate or include is that of compassion; thereby putting compassion into action along with your identified passion, subsequently raising the levels of each (passion and compassion) as you open your heart…finding love everywhere and in everything around you…as beautiful. The more you put complete compassion into action, the more love you will feel, and the more blessed or blessing will be the consequence of your actions.
Step 5: Going from the head to the heart, (analogous to the conscious and sub-conscious mind) the mind being the conscious, and the heart being the sub-conscious moves us in the next phase in the process. The equation here considers that the mind receives 10% of our energy, whereas the heart 90%, and the heart is the real miracle worker, a sort of advisory board which allows us to connect to the infinite source after asking our questions…particularly as they relate to forgiveness. It is much like having a “Universal Bank Account” of love that is filled with our compassion or compassionate meditations as a reservoir from which to draw down upon
(or make withdrawals) from our savings account that we designed in Step 1. This Universal Bank concept provides us with an increased capacity (or value much like compounded daily interest in an account) that accumulates and is based on our deeper daily meditations of SFQ.
This capacity, once again, is increased by continually being mindful to move our energy from the head to the heart whenever possible in our daily activities…in our daily life; thereby increasing our capacity to love, to be loving, and to receive love. For example, we remember the basic and simple rule to ‘S.M.I.L.E.’ (acronym for: Start My Internal Love Engine)as introduced to us by Master Lin at the International Conference 2009. After starting your internal love engine, use your breathing technique effectively by mindfully noticing and appreciating each breath, feeling the air coming in and going out; feeling every breath as a gift given in love from the universe, love and light, light and love, going to the light and sinking to the heart center and lower dantian.
Technique/’Trick’ to visualize light: Light a candle and gaze at the flame. Close your eyes and you will see the flame projected on the inside of your eyelids. Follow the light of the flame within, seeing inwardly as it sinks or moves, and increase the power of the light through visualization. Then, once again in your mind, say your life’s goal as identified in Step 1 with a committed intent of clarity, while calling on the help of your Master, Bodhisattva, Jesus Christ, Quan Yin or the personal form and the universal power of respect that speaks to you. Set this goal and reset it each day as you cultivate its force to bring more clarity to the objective of this lesson as stated in the beginning of these notes by Master Lin as: The Purpose of Meditation.
As you meditate on your goal(s), remember to ask these 3 questions to guide your intent and purpose:
Do I speak positively every day?
Do I act positively every day?
Do I think positively every day? Remember that each day is a clean slate…(no baggage to carry from the past.
Ask yourself these questions: as a consequence, do the answers to these questions help (support) my goal, also as defined in Step 1 above? As the answers come to you:
Remember the teachings of Buddha, to:
Trust your masters…
Trust your heart…
Let go of your ego…

Take negatives and turn them into positives remembering that energy in and of itself is neutral…not good or bad, but rather that it is our judgemental nature of ego that attaches to perceived realities and manifest themselves in action or reaction as being negative or positive, and not of the energy from the source of creation.
Should your mind wander (as it will from time-to-time), bring your awareness back to the flame of the candle’s light and sink once again into the lower dantian and the emptiness..(stretch your finger tips outward to help you in lightly concentrating your focus.
Repeat as necessary…sitting, standing, or walking in love, kindness, forgiveness and compassion, and as you end this session, thank your Master for helping us all find the answers to discovering our life’s goals….
Thank you so much, Master Lin
Meredith

Our Earth Hour

We committed to turning off all our lights and electrical devices last Saturday for Earth Hour. We cranked up the battery power on our portable flashlight and went out to the Dudley Docker,

where we built a fire in the woodstove and did a one hour meditation.

All was quiet inside the house, as can barely be seen in the darkness below:

Vote Earth For Earth Hour – celebrate Earth Day early!

On March 28th, more than 1,429 cities and towns in 80 countries have already committed to VOTE EARTH for Earth Hour 2009, as part of the world’s first global election between Earth and global warming. People all over the planet, including us, will be switching off our lights between 8:30 and 9:30 pm that Saturday night.

VOTE EARTH

We will be celebrating Earth Hour in our Dudley Docker life boat. How will you vote?

No News is Good News

I needs me a News Fast!For the month of March, we have taken the NO NEWS Vow. We will not read newspapers, not watch or listen to news, not click on media news sites on the Internets. We will not even watch much TV, or keep up with the political machinations of the Obamachine (trademark), “the Stimulus”, or the pundits and comedians.
 
WHY? This is a part of our 2009 New Years Resolution. Which began as a consensus to do something, but not necessarily for the whole year. So over the holidays, we decided to give up Alcohol for a month. No wine, no scotch. No Jaegermeister or peppermint schnapps. Nada. Enough of a challenge that we would be reminded of it during January, but not an impossible challenge, as in forever.

Then, for the month of February, we gave up Coffee.

And why give up anything, you might ask? Because we feel like we have to give up something, some times. The old world we lived in (circa 2008) is truly no longer sustainable, in so many ways. (And I’m not just talking about Tax Cuts.) Since we personally are not marching on Washington or reducing our gas consumption much, we are looking “within” to find ways to flex our adaptability, at least for ourselves. 

So one of the lessons we have learned with our January and February experiments is that we can do it. No big surprise, but there’s a welcome sense that we are more conscious, more aware, and more able to choose our actions. That’s at least a little empowering.

News Fasting is healthy! Dr. Andrew Weil, who published “Eight Weeks to Optimum Health” actually recommends periodic fasting from the addictive habit of daily news. Not a bad idea. Certainly a good exercise, even if just for a week, or a day. (Your actual mileage may vary.) And why not try it yourself?

What are the rules?

  1. No reading newspapers, or magazines. (Not a biggy for us anyway, since that series of tubes has come of age.)
  2. No Fox TV. (OK, we gave this up long before the 2008 election cycle, happily. The whole family of stations is owned, and not in a good way.)
  3. No news shows, talking heads, or comedians (painfully, not even Colbert!). None.
  4. No radio. Which of course includes the comedian Rush Limbawful. Sirius/XM Music is OK.
  5. No Internet news sites, magazine sites, current events sites, etc. (No DrudgeReport, DailyKos, or news.google.com.)
  6. No reading Breaking News Alerts (etc.) in your Inbox.
  7. When News enters our awareness, we can simply not pay attention to it, by focusing elsewhere.

Conversation: When people talk to us, we listen. And people do talk about news and media-based ideas and events. We will be paying attention (probably close attention!) to all sorts of talk about current events, news, politics, and opinions. The keys (I speculate) are to Listen, Observe, and Experience the message. Contributing is fine, but only Original thoughts and observations, not regurgitations of the “facts”, or the statements of others. Including the “experts”.

No doubt we will adapt these rules as necessary. In subsequent posts, we’ll share how it goes, or how it went. And what is on deck for April!