Inner Purpose

I am nearing the end of "A New Earth" a non-book book. A book that transcends the written pages, form.

At this point I am at peace with the knowledge that my inner purpose is to be where I am, doing what I am doing. At first it was quite difficult, something in my head kept telling me that what I was doing was not important. Something else, at a different location, either in the future or the past was better and more worthy of my time.

Obviously this is an illusion. Even during the happy moments of the past, or when we were the person we believe we were, even then, we were somewhere else. It is just now that the past has developed itself like a Polaroid that the image gels in our minds as perfect. We might want to go back to that stage, but it cannot happen as we are always changing with time, in a progression of events that alter us forever.

Thinking too much about the future is the same. In fact, there is no image of the future without memory. All there is, existing beyond the present is an illusion of our brains. A mere collection of thoughts strengthened by...thinking.

I personally enjoy "dreaming" about the future. Imagining my children as grown-ups, being happy and well adjusted makes my heart melt. I understand that there are no guarantees. However, most importantly, I have come to understand that the quality of the future depends on the quality of the present. Learning and growing makes us better, as long as we keep ourselves true to who we are inside, keep our ego in check and allow it to step off centre stage.

My inner purpose now is to finish typing, to end this bubble of expression.
Good night, thanks for being here tonight.

E.

Following the string

It comes a time after all the learning, when it is time to put in practice what one has come to understand. To demonstrate understanding is not measurable, but when it comes to matters of the soul, it should be felt. The point is not to demonstrate outwardly, but to be at peace with one's decisions.

Today I grieve, for the loss of a relationship. In a way, I understand that this is grief for all the loses passed and the current. For the loss of the dream had, and the ones that never actually took shape. For the loss of giving all and being mislead in exchange.

If it sounds like pain body and ego having a big party drinking themselves silly, well, I'd have to agree. In the background, there is the quiet presence, watching, trying not to fight what it is.

Is it possible to feel pain now and not to relate it straight back to what happened last Monday, last month, last year, or 25 years ago? yes, it is. Is it easy? no, it isn't, at least not yet for me.

This morning I did a survey to evaluate my levels of anxiety, I scored only marginally better than a year ago. This result makes me feel a bit puzzled because I believe I had made a lot of progress managing it. But maybe I am just trapped in my hamster wheel in a never ending attempt at something that is not even in sight.


In my defense, I must say that last week was difficult given that I'm about to take yet another big step in my life. I am moving house. Reason tells me that it will be good for me. The well informed tell me so as well. Pain body and ego want nothing to do with it. The thought of having my children come and go guts me, and I don't seem to have a way to reconcile that with all the learning I have gone through in the last year and a half.

When do we get to dream and move forward in this process? Or is the aim of life to just sit and accept all? accept discomfort? accept being used?

"There is no certainties in anyone's life", I keep repeating to myself. "Just hang in there, something good will come out of all this", others tell me.

I just watch what happens, and follow the string attached to my belly, like Sue Monk Kidd describes in The Dance of The Dissident Daughter. Walking, one step at a time.

Episode 1

"So when you are alert and contemplate a flower, crystal or bird without naming it mentally, it becomes a window for you into the formless. There is an inner opening, however slight, into the realm of spirit." Eckhart Tolle - A New Earth.

As a child, I was fascinated by the flower of the lantana plant. A single flower is composed of about 20 mini flowers. They are colour graded on their perfectly spaced position onto a semi-spherical base of long radius. Also, a hibiscus flower has its reproduction organs exposed, you can transfer the pollen from the yellow-tipped buds to the center, which is bright red, or you could just watch an insect carry it on its back. Even if not officially mentioned on science books, flower contemplation by children is one of the most effective pollination mechanisms that exists.

It is common to hear how children live in the present, if only we could be more like them. How long has it been since I studied a lantana flower?. I have to tell you that the last lantana plant was eradicated from our garden about 2 years ago, because lantana is nothing but a weed, an introduced species that will take over your garden if you let it.

I have a good friend who tells me that "weeds are plants we are prejudiced against". If you think about it, a weed is a tenacious, opportunistic, life embracing being. But in the garden, we want them out, favouring the fragile, the beautiful, the rare, maybe with the purpose of controlling a small parcel of our lives that is likely to give us a predictable result if we work hard enough at it.

I wish a could keep a garden. As I drive around my "garden proud" suburb, I admire the effort people put in, and the beautifully neat, tidy results they obtain. My garden is wild, once in a while I rake the leaves to make room for the children to play on the grass. Initially, I had planted flowers near the front gate but in time they died, as the soil is not so much soil, but sandstone, where only weeds seem to thrive.

The last time I contemplated a flower, it didn't take long before I realised that I had to do something else, be somewhere else. As adults, do we have the time to contemplate anything? With all the responsibilities we have, the people in our care, our work and our finance worries, I'm not sure we have the time, or simply what is required to gain insight into the formless: the feeling of untainted awe for simple things.

We are most likely to be blown away by complex, man made contraptions that would in most cases only reinforce our sense of self. I, in particular, feel the need to know how exactly I should be doing things. I like to know I do a good job. If I decide to give sometime to contemplation, is a little bit of contemplation enough? does it have to be quiet contemplation? or can I contemplate while I walk, while I talk, while I eat? could some one please give me instructions, so I know I have done it right and I can relax and enjoy the fruit of a job well done?

I had unexpected the fortune to study the perfection of nature in a Biomaterials course at university. Basically, we try to imitate the intrinsic characteristics of natural materials with our sooper dooper scientific advancements, and still fall short by miles. That's before we stop to mention the environmental damage we do to achieve results worth mentioning.

I get it. There is perfection in nature, whether there are weeds or not, it is sublime. It challenge us, it nurtures us, and it overwhelms us, as it is unstoppable. We can fight it, but by doing so, we only fight ourselves, as we are nature, with our own personal weeds against which we feel prejudiced.

"Show me a day when the world wasn't new"

Sister Barbara Hance (1928-1993)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69384201@N00/4661878942/

The Key

nataliedee.com

I was going through an anxious few weeks recently when I found Anxiety Girl, I laughed out loud, so funny, so keenly true, so me.

I must admit that something so simple gave me two things to think about:

- I was translating any discomfort into impending doom.

- Obviously, I was not the only one.

Thanks to my still infant Mindfulness skills, I know that anxiety is an intense reaction to my own thoughts. This is helpful for me every single day. However, there is a point where not reacting to an avalanche of thoughts is easier said than done, especially when I am tired and facing life changing decisions.

Drawing from my professional experience, I can tell you that it is better, from a design point of view, to build a system with features to prevent a fault, rather than to contain a fault once it has already ocurred. Hence, it makes sense to find a way to prevent thoughts from snowballing into avalanches.

The way we react is part habit, part the way we are wired and part what you can get away with in your culture. Disclaimer: I might not be professionally qualified to make such statement, but have had enough therapy in my life to know that I am entitled to my opinion.

But what are all those thoughts I keep talking about? positive thoughts? negative thoughts? future thoughts? well, all of them. This continuous thinking is preventing me from the very thing I am trying to achieve: being in the present.

There are times when it is easy to be present: when you savour that delicious tapioca and mango mousse; or when you explain to your child the dangers of playing with scissors, while trying to keep a straight face at the marvelous haircut he's just given himself; or when you're lulled into a sleep by the breathing of your lover next to you.

There are times when you wish you were somewhere else, or that you could hang your life on the nearest coat rack, hoping that someone else would want to wear it for a while.

Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth tell us to not fight the now, to embrace it and make friends with it, no matter what it is, there is no good or bad, all it happens is part of the same fabric. Pain, frustration and anxiety are caused by our own resistance to the now.

Slowness, waiting, physical inactivity are sources of stress for me. In fact, I once refused to read a book club choice because of its title "Slowness". Interestingly, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" seemed a lot more appealing and it was also written by the same author, and one of my favourites, Milan Kundera.

A humbling moment for me came when I figured out that I can only move as fast as my body. Therefore 1000 KPH thoughts are not going to get me out of the rough patches any quicker. I need to learn to bring my whole presence here, where my body is.

This is the key. Not to approach being in the moment from the thought realm, but to be present from no thought

à la prochaine, mes amis,

Evelia

Mindfulness and presence

Throughout the past year I have been dipping my toes into the vast ocean of Mindfulness. When people ask me what it is, I answer "being here, now". It might sound easy, but it is not a simple concept to grasp, even more difficult to realise, as I have come to discover.

The events that lead me into this particular path started with the feeling of sinking, in front of my kitchen sink, yeah, well, it is corny, but that's where I was when it happened. I felt as if I had been asleep for years. As I drew a huge overdue breath, my world started to shake. My beliefs were all of the sudden questioned, by no other than myself. Something inside was urging me to see things for what they were, not what I thought there should be. Anxiety set in.

Left enters Mindfulness. I learned to focus on my breath, to meditate, to observe. On the external side, I separated, started a new diet, ran more and finally learned to swim properly. I did all of this because I had no choice. Would it be an exaggeration if I said it was a matter of life or death?...maybe...OK, I am dramatic, but I have the perfect excuse: I am a Latin Woman, what did you expect? I grew up watching telenovelas.

The act/art/fact of "being here, now". I can scan my body, I can see my thoughts and not judge them, it helped a lot. I was moderately sane again, even happy some days and even more importantly, I recovered the ability to enjoy my children.

However, when the time came to make tough decisions, I got overcome with fears: fear of doing the wrong thing, of being alone, of being broke, of physical and/or mental illness, of not being a good parent...the worst one: fear of never being able to be happy, "what if it is me? non-conformist, enternally unhappy little sort that throws everything away because she doesn't get enough cuddles."

Right enters A New Earth. I started reading this book from the middle, from the part where it didn't feel like everything I had always done was wrong, where there was some hope for screwed up me.

Tying up with Mindfulness there is Presence. Reading a few pages of A New Earth has revealed a deeply known but dormant truth ...presence is not the same as thoughts about being present...

I'll leave you with that, for now, be here, don't think about it, just be...