Are you having one of those days when you feel like you are spinning your wheels? Maybe you have a lot of ideas floating through your head but somehow they don't manifest into actual substance. Here is an interesting exercise in strengthening your intention to create your purpose that is summarized from an article by Robert Gass in Utne magazine, Jan-Feb 2006.
1. Write a short statement that is presented in the positive nature of what describes your personal vision, what is important to you, what you truly want for yourself. Practice makes it better when working with refining the statement. The words need to drop from your head into your heart so that you can feel the resonance. Of the few choices Gass suggested, I chose "In everthing I do, I am guided by love." That is the vision I want to live.
2. This second statement required patience and practice as I tend to rush into things and forget to center. After taking several deep, relaxing breaths, say your phrase quietly or out-loud at least three times. Take a few moments and really feel this relaxing energy moving through your body. Slow your roll and just allow the energy to vibrate through all your cells. Gass says to "remember what is most important to you, why you do what you do." Just stay with that reflection as the words settle into you.
3. Now you are ready to translate the feeling of your vision and deeper purpose into a specific action you want to take. Perhaps you are considering a significant communication with a face-to-face meeting with another or others, an important phone call, a writing that you considerable valuable to your process. Taking the action step consciously. Your relaxed body and focused heart and mind are accompanying you in moving forward.
4. Gass suggests journaling daily about how this practice is affecting how you experience your day. Thoughts and feelings which might lurk beneath the surface of consciousness, may appear on your page of writing and assist you in growing from the daily practice.
5. As with any practice, we tend to fall asleep at times. Gass reiterates the importance of not criticizing yourself or allowing analysis of your lack of focus to become a distraction. Acknowledge and release. Surround yourself with compassion and return to your practice with a relaxed breath and a re-envisioning of what is most important to your purpose.
This process can be a simple loving practice and gift to ourselves in the present moment that empowers us to live our creative purpose at a deeper level.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Can There Be More to Being Present?
These days the focus in many spiritual teachings is to be present in the now, bringing yourself into the present, living in the present. In this way we are encouraged to realize the consciousness of Oneness, consciousness becoming aware of itself.
We are asked to remember who we really are when we have a feeling of separateness or as some have called it, an out of body experience. We are told that many of us spend most of our day out of our bodies living in the past, living in the future rarely grounded in our bodies and fully conscious of what we are doing and where we are.
Awareness of our surroundings would include using all of our senses, our thoughts quiet, allowing us to be what we are doing rather than feeling separated from it as an act of behavior. If we pay attention by observing our daily process, we can see the numerous opportunities available to us to travel in time, living in places other than the Now.
But what if that is only part of the picture? What if there is a cart before that “present moment” horse? What if the mind has to fall into the heart into order to be present? And what if that heart is constricted by the limitations of living in the past or the future? If one looks to the concept of dimensions of consciousness, we are now healing the fourth layer of vibration, that of heart integration, before we move into the 5th dimension of soul consciousness.
What if the energy of fear covers our heart like heavy overcoats in winter? We keep trying to “be present” in our layers of long underwear of past and future fears. We try our best to do what we have been told……calling ourselves back out of the past and remembering the essence of who we really are. But we can only be partially present unless we are working at the same time to heal and integrate the fears of our heart that fell from our minds. No one can heal them but ourselves. It is our choice.
The sense of realized consciousness has to be felt not with our thinking minds but with our loving heart. Simply working to be alert to the present moment is not enough. When an isolated part of the wounded heart gets our attention (and it definitely will as we live in relationship with one another), then we know we have work to do. We can feel it throughout our body……an upset stomach, a stiff neck, etc.
The heart wants to be whole and resonate with the healing energy that is the glue of the universe. It will continually tap on our consciousness, asking to be let in, nurtured and to come Home. All it asks is for our embrace rather than ignoring it or trying to cover it up with some distraction or another.
It takes a lot of energy to walk around bundled up in piles of constricted clothing that we don’t need anymore. In this state of consciousness we are less likely to give voice to that which needs to be spoken. We tend to give our power away (remembering that no one can take it; our power is ours to give if we choose). It is hard on the heart.
What if our present moment work is simply to be the process of acknowledging that fear that triggers an emotional and bodily reaction of anxiety and pain? What happens if we practice showering it with compassion and love, embracing it with acceptance?
With each gathering in of a fearful part of our heart, the ability to be more fully in the present moment increases because another heavy overcoat of the heart is dissolved into light. It doesn’t matter whether it is a feeling of being not good enough or a fear of abandonment, or any other fear. Love is the ultimate medicine that heals all.
We watch in amazement at how quickly the transformation occurs; how quickly love dissolves the fear into the whole. The heavy overcoats fly off into the ethers. The heart then takes a deep breath and expands with a renewed passion for living and loving. Our senses are revitalized. We can feel more where we are and what we are doing, whatever it may be. We know who we are because our heart is resonating with our own Being.
A healing integrated heart leads us into the present moment. Empowerment becomes us. Our voice is freed to speak our truth. Our power center is active and open and balanced. Our intuition flowers with guidance and connection. Attempting to be present in the Now without doing our heart work can keep us knocking at what we think is the door of self-realization. Our integrated heart is the doorway.
Copyright 2008. Andrea is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” She is currently busy writing her next book on creating soulful relationships which will be published early 2009. Her website is andreaavari.com.
We are asked to remember who we really are when we have a feeling of separateness or as some have called it, an out of body experience. We are told that many of us spend most of our day out of our bodies living in the past, living in the future rarely grounded in our bodies and fully conscious of what we are doing and where we are.
Awareness of our surroundings would include using all of our senses, our thoughts quiet, allowing us to be what we are doing rather than feeling separated from it as an act of behavior. If we pay attention by observing our daily process, we can see the numerous opportunities available to us to travel in time, living in places other than the Now.
But what if that is only part of the picture? What if there is a cart before that “present moment” horse? What if the mind has to fall into the heart into order to be present? And what if that heart is constricted by the limitations of living in the past or the future? If one looks to the concept of dimensions of consciousness, we are now healing the fourth layer of vibration, that of heart integration, before we move into the 5th dimension of soul consciousness.
What if the energy of fear covers our heart like heavy overcoats in winter? We keep trying to “be present” in our layers of long underwear of past and future fears. We try our best to do what we have been told……calling ourselves back out of the past and remembering the essence of who we really are. But we can only be partially present unless we are working at the same time to heal and integrate the fears of our heart that fell from our minds. No one can heal them but ourselves. It is our choice.
The sense of realized consciousness has to be felt not with our thinking minds but with our loving heart. Simply working to be alert to the present moment is not enough. When an isolated part of the wounded heart gets our attention (and it definitely will as we live in relationship with one another), then we know we have work to do. We can feel it throughout our body……an upset stomach, a stiff neck, etc.
The heart wants to be whole and resonate with the healing energy that is the glue of the universe. It will continually tap on our consciousness, asking to be let in, nurtured and to come Home. All it asks is for our embrace rather than ignoring it or trying to cover it up with some distraction or another.
It takes a lot of energy to walk around bundled up in piles of constricted clothing that we don’t need anymore. In this state of consciousness we are less likely to give voice to that which needs to be spoken. We tend to give our power away (remembering that no one can take it; our power is ours to give if we choose). It is hard on the heart.
What if our present moment work is simply to be the process of acknowledging that fear that triggers an emotional and bodily reaction of anxiety and pain? What happens if we practice showering it with compassion and love, embracing it with acceptance?
With each gathering in of a fearful part of our heart, the ability to be more fully in the present moment increases because another heavy overcoat of the heart is dissolved into light. It doesn’t matter whether it is a feeling of being not good enough or a fear of abandonment, or any other fear. Love is the ultimate medicine that heals all.
We watch in amazement at how quickly the transformation occurs; how quickly love dissolves the fear into the whole. The heavy overcoats fly off into the ethers. The heart then takes a deep breath and expands with a renewed passion for living and loving. Our senses are revitalized. We can feel more where we are and what we are doing, whatever it may be. We know who we are because our heart is resonating with our own Being.
A healing integrated heart leads us into the present moment. Empowerment becomes us. Our voice is freed to speak our truth. Our power center is active and open and balanced. Our intuition flowers with guidance and connection. Attempting to be present in the Now without doing our heart work can keep us knocking at what we think is the door of self-realization. Our integrated heart is the doorway.
Copyright 2008. Andrea is the author of “A Hit of Heaven: a soul’s journey through illusion.” She is currently busy writing her next book on creating soulful relationships which will be published early 2009. Her website is andreaavari.com.
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