Tag Archives: Joy

DANCING TO LIFE

Posted on February 5, 2014 | 2 comments

“Dance when you’re broken open.  Dance if you’ve torn the bandage off.  Dance in the middle of the fighting.  Dance in your blood.  Dance when you’re perfectly free.”  Rumi

Photo by Sandy Jones

Photo by Sandy Jones

Does your dance of life include the dirges as well as the waltzes?  Can you find some peace or joy in the really challenging parts of life?  Are you able to let go when it’s time to let go?

It has been a tough few days.  My dear friend Sandy passed on this week although I hoped somehow she would survive cancer.  Whenever I think of Sandy, I think of her beautiful photography and her eternal dance with nature.  She invited me to join her one day to take pictures and I learned so much.  She had a magical eye and each picture she took showed me some aspect of the subject that I would have overlooked without seeing it through her eyes.

Photo: Georganne Spruce

Photo: Georganne Spruce

Challenges May Often Change Us For The Better

Sandy was such an inspiration to me as I sometimes took her to chemotherapy.  During our rides, we began to talk deeper in ways we never had before.  She shared more of her life, and she opened like a blooming red rose.  I won’t try to describe the change that took place—I’ll let her speak for herself, so please take a moment to listen to this video, and meet my dear friend.

When I heard a week ago that she would make her transition soon, I began to really feel the loss.  I couldn’t bear the thought that we would never dance together again as artists as we had when she created a slide show to match the poetry I read.  Our exciting creative collaboration was really the center of our friendship, and it had been a long time since I had created work with another person.

Soon after hearing the news, I walked into my bedroom where one of her photos hung on the wall, a picture of a bridge over part of a stream with dogwood framing the scene.  And there she was standing on the bridge waving good-bye to me smiling, and every time in the last week that I have passed that picture, her image was there in my mind’s eye.  I felt such peace knowing she was ready.

Photo: Sandy Swanson copied from the original

Photo: Sandy Swanson copied from the original

We Can Always Choose How We Respond To Life

Sandy reminds me that the dance of life is so varied and we can’t always make it be what we want it to be.  I am starting a new life with the most loving partner I could ever imagine; Sandy has passed from this life.  It doesn’t seem fair.  Life—it just is.  Someday I’ll be crossing that bridge too—we all will.  And it will be my final dance, but in the meantime I’m going to dance to all of life and feel each moment completely.

Dancing to life is about engaging with whatever is happening and feeling it fully.  We can kick up our heels joyfully or we can drag our feet remorsefully.  We can jump start new projects or we can slowly waltz around them.  It’s okay if the dancing hurts sometimes because life isn’t always good to us, but if we learn to cultivate joy, it can lift the quality of life immensely.

We Can Dance With Our Bodies And Minds

There’s no better way to find joy than to dance with our bodies or our minds. When I write I dance with words.  Others make preparing food a dance.  This week, the Olympic skaters will be dancing on ice.  When we hike in the forest, we dance among the trees.  A good dinner and conversation with friends is like a dance.  When we sleep, we may dance with our dreams.

When I feel sad about Sandy, I remember that she’s now with Oneness and she is well—dancing with the stars, I suspect, and of course taking their pictures.

© 2014 Georganne Spruce                                                                   ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Finding Peace in Death, Navigating Loss and Dealing with the Pain of Letting Go

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AWAKENING TO A PURE MIND

Posted on January 8, 2014 | Leave a comment

“We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think.  When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.”  Buddha

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How do you feel about the New Year?  Do you feel anxious or at peace?  What creates this feeling that you have?  If you don’t like it, what do you do to change it?

After two days of below freezing temperatures and some snow that intensified the light coming into my dining room to the point of almost blinding me, I’m reveling in the easy blend of light and shadow coming through the trees into the room where I work.  It is soft and balanced.

Begin the Year With Gratitude

I am beginning this year with much gratitude.  I do not live where the worst of the winter storms are occurring although our temperatures have been the lowest since the 1800s.  I have a warm house, plenty of food, and love.  I am blessed.

I am also grateful for the time I was able to spend with my brother and his family, especially the time with my grand nieces and grand nephew, three of who are two years old, and one who is four.  There were also three dogs in attendance on Christmas.  It was wild and lovely.  Just being with them was a joy.  Their excitement was contagious.

How we Think Changes Our Vibration

But after the hustle and bustle of the holidays, a profound quiet and a bit of depression enveloped me.  It was time to rebalance and contemplate my plans for the New Year.  During the holidays, the joy I felt was created primarily by external circumstances, but now, living hundreds of miles from the rest of my family, I have had to return to my own resources.  The joy I felt has slipped away.

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As I thought about what I needed to do in the New Year, especially with my writing, I first saw all the things I had hoped to accomplish last year and didn’t.  Well, what was done, was done.  I reminded myself that I could only change the future, not the past.  On the other hand, the new relationship in my life has been a great joy and given me the kind of companionship I haven’t had for years.  As I began to focus on the good things in my life, I began to feel my vibration rise.

As my vibration rose, a joy began to well up inside.  I was following my greatest passion by writing and just thinking about continuing to do that brought me joy.  When I began to clean up my lists of things to do and develop a plan for this year, I let go of the self-judgment that had depressed me and I began to feel more peaceful.

What We Think Affects How We Feel

And that is how it works.  What we think determines how we feel.  As the Buddha points out, joy comes from a pure heart.  So how do we create a pure heart?  I know that meditation has always helped or writing in my journal, exploring the meaning behind the events or ideas moving through my life.  Doing this regularly clears the emotional and mental clutter that distracts me from a natural peace and joy.

Still, life is full of challenges.  Before the holidays, I had signed up for a prescription drug plan. This week I talked to them about covering two custom compounded drugs I take.  After two and a half hours of talking with several people who were unable to grasp that one drug consists of a combination of two drugs, they sent a fax to my doctor for approval with the drugs inaccurately named and spelled.  I had spelled slowly the names of the drugs several times for two people, but they did not record them accurately.  This experience tested my patience to the limit.  It seemed ridiculous.  I kept taking a lot of deep breaths, reminding myself that getting upset would not help the situation.

At the end of the day, the problem with the insurance company was still not resolved, but at least I had been able to constantly adjust my mind and center myself throughout the experience.  I was able to move on to other things and relax that evening knowing that I did all I could do.

Return to Your Spiritual Center for Guidance

Many of our challenges appear because we are living in a time of great change.  The political and economic structures we have depended upon are changing.  Remaining flexible and centered is the most effective way of dealing with change.  Oneness tells us that when our lives seem to “veer off course” and we feel we are “without a compass,” “All that remains, are the clues that begin to emerge from within” (p. 110).

In order to recognize those clues, we must return to our spiritual center and listen to our inner guidance where all answers reside.  We must clear the mind of judgment and resistance and reside in peace.  As we continue this journey, the way will not always be clear or kind, but it can lead us to a better place.  How we experience each event is largely our choice, and when things happen that we don’t like, it is our choice how much we invest in positive or negative thinking about them.

Developing a pure heart by changing our thinking will always take us to a better place where joy becomes a part of who we are.

© 2014 Georganne Spruce                                                        ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  The Pure Mind, How to Create Joy for Today: 7 Tips for a Happy Life, Eckhart Tolle: Embodying Stillness – A Guided Meditation

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AWAKENING TO OUR JOY WITHIN

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 1 comment

“Find the place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”  Joseph Campbell

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How do you create joy in your life? Do you feel it because something good happens to you or does it well up inside because of something you do?

External events Create Joy

For years, I experienced joy as a mysterious feeling that burst forth from within me because of an event in the outer world.  When I was in a play in college, I was given a role where I was the center of attention for a few minutes delivering a very funny monologue.  I was ecstatic when I discovered I could make an audience laugh.  Generally, I wasn’t a very funny person in my real life.

When I was chosen to dance with a modern dance company, I was filled with joy.  My dream had come true.  It’s true that my hard work took me to the place where I was good enough to be accepted, but it was someone else’s decision that stimulated my feeling of joy.

A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

A man and a woman performing a modern dance. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if we could feel joy whenever we wanted to?  What would that feel like?

Internal Joy

It’s wonderful that we can feel joy about the good things that happen in life.  But there is a deeper practice and a deeper joy to be found within.  There are some days when I have no idea why I feel joy.  I just do.  Some mornings it just wells up from within the moment I rise to consciousness.  I don’t remember having a particularly good dream, and I don’t have any exciting plans for the day.  In fact, it may happen on days when I have to clean house and that isn’t a task I particularly enjoy.

Following Our Passion Creates Inner Joy

So, what causes the joy to appear?  I think there are two answers.  For some time now, I have been following my passion for writing.  When we are doing what we love to do on a regular basis, it raises our vibration and energy level.  We have something to look forward to.  We are doing something that is satisfying at the soul level and it connects our deeper self with our outer life.  We feel whole, we feel complete.  We feel confident we are on the right path.  Even ego feels peaceful.

If, despite the fact that we are following our passion, we are consumed with worry about whether we will succeed at this venture or doubt whether we deserve such good fortune, we need to understand that our negative thoughts will, no doubt, sabotage our success.  They will lower our energetic vibration.

Passion flower

Passion flower (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Creating Temporary Joy

We can temporarily lift our vibration by doing things that make us feel better.  A little dark chocolate will usually give me a lift or going outside and listening to the birds sing.  Reading some inspirational quotes may help or reading from Oneness by Rasha.  Sometimes cooking a nice meal will do it because I’ve reached the point where eating healthy is an expression of self love.  But when we become mired in these negative feelings despite the good that is present in our lives, there is something missing at our core that we need to repair.

Creating Joy At Our Core

There is a deeper joy we can experience.  The joy that seems to well up from nowhere or for no reason comes from our connection with Spirit.  Only in the last few years have I come to understand this.  There were many steps on my journey to this place of comfort and wholeness.  First, I learned to release my psychological fears.  Through learning to meditate, I started to learn about mindfulness.  After I learned that our thoughts create our emotions, I learned I could decide what I wanted to feel about my experiences.

The Joy of Acceptance

But the greatest lesson was learning acceptance—to accept what is, to accept not knowing the answer, to accept that Spirit will guide me to my highest good.  I had to learn to surrender to Spirit what I could not solve, knowing that I would be guided to what was best.  And out of releasing my need to control everything, joy emerged.  It often wasn’t the joy of exuberance I felt at twenty-five or even at fifty-five.  But it was a soft, sweet, calm joy and it felt like love, and I realized that, in surrendering, I was stepping into a level of trust with Spirit and my deepest self that I had never known before.  This time, the joy I felt originated within me.  I could choose to feel joy regardless of the external events of my life.

It is this deeper joy that can heal all pain and create security when we feel uncertain.  It is part of the core of our spiritual selves.  May you find the path that will lead you to this place of joy.  It is within you.

What is the source of your joy today?

© 2013 Georganne Spruce

RELATED ARTICLES:  You Were Born for Joy – Wayne Dyer, 9 Tips For Finding Joy Within, Power of Positive Thinking: How to Find Joy Within

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WE ARE ALL ONE

Posted on December 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

Daisy's first days 032

May your holiday be filled with peace, love, and joy!

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AWAKENING TO THE FULLNESS OF LIFE

Posted on November 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.”     Melody Beattie

When life is difficult, do you take the time to express thanks for what is good in your life?  Do you focus on what you don’t have or what you do have?  How does being grateful enhance your life?

Expanding Life Through Love and Joy

It seems to me that my life has expanded this year.  So much good has come to me.  I’ve been more regular than ever about my gratitude practice, and I’ve felt my heart open and expand.

My dear spiritual teacher Gladys used to say that the reason we are in this physical life is to expand our energy through experiencing love and joy.

So, on this day before Thanksgiving, I want to thank everyone who has helped make my journey rich and rewarding this year.

I Am Thankful For Family

First, I want to thank my brother who has been so supportive in many ways.  Before I published my memoir this year, I sent it to him to read.  I have to admit I was rather nervous about his response.  We may have grown up in the same family, but everyone’s experience is unique.  I was relieved that he accepted what I had written as my story and shared his point of view about it.  Since he is also writing a book, we have become closer as a result of sharing this experience.

I also want to thank my niece for reading the book and sharing her thoughts and feelings about it.  I have valued our discussions so much and they have taken us to a deeper level of understanding our family and relating to each other.

I Am Thankful For Spiritual Friends

Secondly, I want to thank the personal friends who have encouraged me when I was down, celebrated with me when I succeeded, and bought my memoir, Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness, the moment it came out.  I also want to thank you for spiritual discussions and hikes in the woods that have calmed my soul.  I am also grateful for those I’ve met through the Jubilee Spiritual Journey Team and the Open Table Discussion Group and the discussions we’ve shared on deep and spiritual topics.  You’ve been an inspiration.

I Am Grateful For Writing Friends and Technical Guides

Thirdly, I want to thank again the members of the networking group, Freelance Fridays, especially Joe D’Agnese and Brad Swift for your wonderful support through every step of the publishing process.  The exchange of ideas about publishing, promoting, and the business of book selling has educated me in ways no books can do.  Thank you for sharing your real life experience.

Fourthly, I want to thank two technical teachers, Sarah Benoit and James Imes, for their wonderful classes in social media marketing, blogging, and ebook publishing.  Their classes were part of AB Tech’s Small Business Incubator headed by the supportive Duane Adams.  Andrew Plyler has also been a great help leading me through the quagmire of computer challenges I’ve faced, and I understand 90% of what he tells me the first time because he knows how to talk to nontechnical people.

I Am Grateful For Readers And Workshop Attendees

Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank everyone who has bought a book, and I’m especially thankful for reviews you’ve put on Amazon.  I also am very grateful to everyone who attended my “Release Your Fear” workshops.  Each time I teach it, I learn more from those who share their fears and concerns.  You are my teachers too and I have learned so much from you.

And of course, I am most grateful for my wonderful blog followers and readers.  Your comments and support and your wonderful blogs have been a source of inspiration to me.

I Am Grateful For the Abundance of Community

With all these gifts coming into my life, my ability to experience love and joy has expanded.  I have released so much fear and learned I can trust the Universe and Spirit to guide me down the right path.  Something huge has shifted too. There was a time when I would have been extremely uncomfortable accepting so much help. I had to do it all myself.  I was afraid of depending on someone else. Now I’m grateful for the community of generous people in my life and have learned that accepting what is given lovingly is as important as giving.

Was it the gratitude practice that made a difference?  I don’t know, but I will continue it for sure. I like what Eckhart Tolle says in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, “Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”

May you have an abundant Thanksgiving.   What are you thankful for this year?  Please comment.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                          ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Eckhart Tolle Quotes, Key to A Happy Life,  The science of being thankful (mnn.com), Eckhart Tolle on Gratitude

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AWAKENING TO SPREAD GRATITUDE

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 1 comment

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”  William Arthur Ward

What are you grateful for this week?  Have you expressed your gratitude to those who have been generous to you?

Accepting Transformation

It is fall again and the sound of acorns falling from the oaks onto my roof is an on-going percussive song.  There are plenty this year, and the squirrels will become so fat they’ll look like the little stuffed animals at the nature store.  The dogwoods and maples are already turning hot pink, red and yellow, foreshadowing the blaze of color that will blanket the mountains in a few weeks.

This is my favorite time of year.  The air cools to the perfect temperature for hiking and art walks.  I begin turning inward preparing for the transformation into winter.  Much is changing in my life and I am so grateful.  The “Releasing Your Fear” workshops that I do are expanding and I now have two more scheduled.  I have posted more information on my workshops page.

Receiving Gratitude Is A Gift

I had a booth at a networking fair last weekend at Crystal Visions and had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people who are light workers and artists.  They raffled off one of my books, and the woman who received it emailed me to say how grateful she was.  She knew receiving it was in Divine Order and she looked forward to what she would learn from it.

Grateful—that is the word that comes to mind today.  I am so grateful that I am at last doing the work I really want to do and that my gifts are helping others.  After spending years working to release my fears and through that process freeing myself to believe what I have to teach will help people, I am now able to facilitate this growth in others.  As I hear the individual stories of the way this work is benefitting those who attend the workshops, I am reminded about why this is so important.  It can remarkably change our individual lives, but it can do more than that.

Releasing Our Fear to Empower Others

It is impossible to ignore the political crisis in this country.  The real crisis is not really the economy.  It is the inability of our leaders to work together because they are afraid that they will give the other side an advantage.  It is their fear of losing their power that undermines their ability to solve the country’s problems in wise and equitable ways.  Because this fear is so dominant in their minds, it blocks their ability to think clearly and act in the best interest of all.

So, the energy we put out into the world can change this.  The more we can release our fears, the more we can experience love and joy and think clearly to find reasonable solutions to our problems.  We need to look around us and support what is good and working well and the people who are making that happen.  Tell them how much you appreciate them.

The Power of Gratitude to Uplift

Among the many things for which I am grateful this week is a letter I received from someone I’ve known for years and who is aware of my workshops, writing and the other work I do within the community of which we are both a part.  Although we have always respected each other, I had no idea that he appreciated the way I think, that he thought my comments in a particular setting were “rich and fertile.”   What a wonderful gift this letter was!

So I encourage you to do what my friend did.  For whom are you grateful?  Write that letter and lay it out in clear language.  Let someone in your life know what you value about them today.  It could transform their life.  It will certainly transform their day.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

  Related articles:   Managing Your Fears – Eckhart Tolle Video

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RECEIVING LOVE

Posted on June 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

Looking for Love

Remember the old song “Looking for love in all the wrong places?”  I heard it again a few days ago and thought how drastically my idea of where to find love had changed in the last few years.  In conversations with other women, the topic of where to find a mate usually touches on Match.com, activities they enjoy, church, work – the list is endless.  The idea seems to be if we are in the right place at the right time, we will meet the right person.  It’s all just timing and luck.

 The Law of Attraction

Au contraire.  A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the same idea twice in the same day.  This kind of synchronicity always gets my attention.  During meditation time, I read from The Vortex by Esther and Jerry Hicks, a book about the Law of Attraction and relationships.  In a number of places in the book, Abraham, who is the source of the teachings, points out that in order to receive anything we want, we must imagine what it feels like to have it, rather than focusing on what it feels like not to have what we want.

Later, while reading Harville Hendricks’ book Receiving Love: Transform Your Relationship by Letting Yourself Be Loved, I came across the following idea: If we are looking for love, we’re unlikely to receive it because we are in the looking mode rather than the receiving mode. (p.123) Immediately, I thought of all the times I’ve heard the longing in the voices of women and men as they talked about looking for a mate or a friend.  I’ve known what that longing feels like too.

The second thought that came to mind was “this is the law of attraction.”  Hendricks is pointing out that in order to receive what we want we must be a vibrational match to that desire.  When we are looking for something, we are emphasizing the fact that we don’t have it.  This is scarcity, emptiness.  When we see ourselves as receiving it, we know that it exists.  We can see and feel it.  We feel excited and confident knowing the relationship will manifest at exactly the right moment.

 In Order To Love Others, We Must Love Ourselves

I believe there is also another important element at work here.  To have a healthy relationship with anyone, we must have a healthy relationship with ourselves.  How can we feel we are receiving love, if we don’t love ourselves?  We have to believe we are worthy in order to feel we will receive friends and lovers who are positive and supportive.

When I am longing for something in my life, I feel sad.  There is a lack that needs to be filled in order for me to feel better.  When I find myself in this frame of mind, I often stop and meditate, seeing the white light of the Creator surrounding me and enveloping me in love.  From deep inside that eternal love wells up, filling me.  Not only am I loved by the Creator and worthy of receiving all good things, I love and accept myself.  In loving myself, I empower myself, radiating out into the Universe loving energy that will attract like energy.

Loving From Our Spiritual Centers, Not From The Ego

When I love myself from my spiritual center and not from the ego, it is not surprising that new people and new opportunities show up in my life.  They are always positive.  Like attracts like.  When we feel good about ourselves, we will attract others who feel good about themselves, and this offers us the best opportunity for a happy and healthy relationship.  It’s the lover within us that really counts.  © 2011 Georganne Spruce

 How have you manifested the relationships that are meaningful in your life?

 If you want to learn more or are having difficulty manifesting positive relationships, I highly recommend The Vortex and any of Harville Hendricks books on love as well as the Imago Relationship work that he and Helen Hunt created.

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BEING THE RIGHT ONE, Part 4, Releasing the Fear

Posted on May 4, 2011 | 5 comments

Eckhart Tolle says, “Joy does not come from what you do, it flows into what you do and thus into this world from deep within you.”

 Have you ever noticed that when you feel joy, you are totally free of fear?  Joy is really love, for when we feel joyful, we feel loved or feel loving.  It’s all one.

Years ago when I had chronic fatigue syndrome, I awoke one morning, and as I lay in bed still feeling weak, a soft cool breeze blew over me.  This was New Orleans in the summer, so a cool breeze was no small thing.  My cat lay purring next to me.  Suddenly, I was flooded with joy.  It welled up within me and I felt profoundly grateful for being alive.  For a moment, I was totally free of all the daily fears that I would never recover, feel energetic again or be able to live a normal life.  For a moment I was free of the daily depression I had experienced for three years.

In that moment, I realized the joy was always there within me and had nothing to do with what was happening in my life.  I could draw on it at any time.

 Fear Can Block Joy

When we believe joy resides outside us, we are always looking in the wrong place.  But sometimes we do not realize that joy is within us because it is buried deep beneath layers of disappointment, anger, frustration, and other negative emotions that can be heavy to lift.  All negative emotions are caused by fear, so in reality our fear is what blocks our ability to experience love and joy.  Only when we release our fears and clear the mind can love and joy flow to the surface.

The Effect Of Fear On The Mind

We all experience fear sometimes, but what is important is that we learn not to let it control us.  As long as we experience fear, it will block our mind’s ability to pull through information that will help us solve the problem that has created the fear.  Fear will only pull through information that helps us cope with the fear.

 How To Release Fear

When fear arises, we must direct our minds to release the fear, and if we are willing to let it go, a peaceful feeling will replace it.  As I direct my mind to release the fear, I often take a deep breath and exhale in order to feel the release throughout my body as well as my mind. When the fear is released, the mind will be clear to pull information from our memory and the spiritual realm that will help us solve the problem that stimulated the fear.  We will always be given the guidance we need when we need it.  If a clear solution does not appear immediately, just know that it will come in time.

By using meditation, practicing gratitude and releasing our fears, we can become more spiritually conscious and awaken to a calmer, more joyful life, empowered from our centers.  When we are the source of our own joy and feel good about ourselves, we become “the right one” and draw to us those people and experiences that will enlighten and enliven our lives.  Learning to release our fears allows us to have access to the wisdom of the Universal Mind, Spirit.          © 2011 Georganne Spruce                   

Similar topics are discussed in Oneness  and The Vortex.  See the side bar.

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BEING THE RIGHT ONE, Part 3, Meditation

Posted on April 27, 2011 | 2 comments

Using Meditation to Find Your Inner Self

In order to be “the right one”, rather than looking for completion outside ourselves, we must be in touch with our inner selves.  However, during most of the day, our focus is on the outer, the daily routine of our lives, and our minds are concerned with working, solving problems, shopping and running errands.  The chaos and noise of the outer world and our active minds distract us from being in touch with our inner selves. 

Over the years, I have learned to integrate my spiritual and material lives so that, for the most part, I am at least marginally in touch with my center most of the time.  As problems arise, I stop and turn inward for a moment, observe and evaluate my options.  It has taken many years to reach this point and the practice that has made this possible is meditation.  Years ago when most of my friends practiced Transcendental Meditation, I was drawn to Buddhism and began the sitting practice of zazen.  Now I’ve created my own version of a meditative practice.  It doesn’t matter what form of meditation we use.  Any form will put us more in touch with our spiritual selves.

Meditation Takes Us Beyond Ego

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of meditation is that it takes us beyond our egos.  When we are caught up in the turmoil or pressure of everyday life, our egos are often fully engaged.  We are concerned with how we do our jobs or who will get the promotion or be laid off.  Parents worry about their skills as parents.  Are they doing the right thing about their children’s problems?  Why is this friend or partner being distant?  Don’t they like us anymore?  Did we do something wrong?

As Eckhart Tolle points out in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, “…almost everyone carries in his or her energy field an accumulation of old emotional pain, which I call ‘the pain-body.” (p. 140) He goes on to explain how negative emotions feed the pain-body and make the ego more powerful.  The only way to combat this is to be present so our egos don’t control us.  With regular meditative practice, we can be present, an observer in our own lives, operating from our peaceful center and unobstructed by the needs of the ego.

 Meditation Supports Spiritual Awakening

Meditation takes us to a place deeper than ego where we are able to release our attachments to the concerns of the day and our emotional pain.  This place is sweetly quiet, a place empty of conflict where we learn to observe our thoughts and emotions and release them without judging or attaching to them.  In this holy place within, we become an empty vessel and create a space where Spirit can visit and provide us with deeper insights.  In this peaceful place, all is well and joy flourishes.

Once we are able to find this peaceful center and commit to experiencing it on a regular basis, the inner balance this creates spills over into our daily lives.  We learn to identify those moments when we are about to turn an incident into a major drama and are able to choose not to.  We notice that we are being caught up in the fear that something negative might happen, and we choose instead to envision the event turning out positively.  Instead of panicking because we don’t know how to solve a problem, we are able to sit quietly and wait for the mind to clear.   

Knowing we can choose to experience our challenges with a positive or neutral attitude gives us more power over our lives.  Knowing we have a center that is peaceful and connects us with the Infinite Mind gives us a beautiful security.  In this place of inner joy, we are healthy, whole, and complete.  Having access to our inner selves, we know we will always have the capacity to be “the right one” in our own lives.         © 2011 Georganne Spruce

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BEING THE RIGHT ONE, PART 2 JOY

Posted on April 20, 2011 | 2 comments

 Living A Joyful Life Through Gratitude

Creating inner joy is the key to a deep sense of inner confidence.  If we know how to find joy within ourselves, that is a powerful tool for spiritual growth.  If we can do that, what else might we be able to do? 

This is the second part of a series on “Being the Right One.”  Last week, I quoted Ken Keyes, Jr., who said, “As we grow in consciousness, we discover it is more important to be the right person than to find the right person.” For the next two weeks, we will explore this concept, identifying tools we can use to create this inner joy that helps us feel healthy, whole and complete. 

We Can Choose How We Want to Feel

How we think determines what we experience.  How we think determines how we feel.  How we think is a choice to some extent and that is often determined by how much responsibility we are willing to take in moderating our own thoughts.  It’s easy to say that one person has an easier life; so of course, we think it’s easy for her to be happy.  That’s true to a certain extent, but how do we account for the fact that there are people paralyzed from the neck down who still find pleasure and joy in life?  And how do we account for the people who have everything money can buy, but are unhappy?

 I will admit a few bites of dark chocolate can go a long way toward making me feel better when I don’t feel harmonious, but what do I do when that luscious, lingering taste deserts me?  Nothing external lasts.  It’s always about the interior, our feelings and thoughts determine what we experience and if we can think joyfully, we will experience joy. 

One Way to Create Inner Joy Is to Think Positive Thoughts of Gratitude

One of the most meaningful practices to create joy is gratitude.  There are many ways to experience gratitude.  Every morning when I first awake or am at breakfast, I thank Spirit for all the good things I have experienced recently.  I used to do this sometimes on the way to work.  I’ve even taken a moment while I was stopped in traffic, to thank Spirit for a couple of things.  Many people keep a gratitude journal where they write down the things they are thankful for each day. Expressing thankfulness can be done anytime, but allowing time for gratitude at the beginning of the day is very beneficial. 

I especially love my friend Debra’s practice.  “Each day when I am going for my walk / run, I am always grateful……..first that I can get out and use my body to run up and down the hills. Second, that I live in such a beautiful place in which to enjoy the wonderful outdoors. When I am grateful, my morning exercise becomes joyous and not something I am complaining about having to do. It makes my whole day more positive.”

Finding Joy When Life is Difficult

On those days when I feel everything is going wrong, I force myself to hunt for those tiny morsels of gratitude,  remembering how much I really have – shelter and food and the necessities of life.  Sometimes, I simply thank Spirit for helping me through another day.  It’s interesting how focusing on one tiny object of gratitude always leads me to the next one, and before long, I feel that glimmer of joy lighting up the negativity. 

That glimmer of joy reminds me of all the times I felt confused, bereft, or abandoned and how it passed.  This joy reminds me that I am stronger than I think I am.  It refuels my confidence and I remember that I am never alone.  Spirit is always there and with Spirit, I can do anything.  And I am grateful for that.  © 2011 Georganne Spruce

Do you want to know more about thinking positively?  A wonderful source is The Vortex by Esther and Jerry Hicks.

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