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Namaste …

Namaste is unfamiliar perhaps to many of you and certainly not a standard “holiday” greeting. Yet, when I read this paragraph recently:

In India when we meet and part we often say, “Namaste,” which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where, if you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us. ~ Ram Dass in Grist for the Mill

I was moved to share it. A similar expression of Namaste comes from singer/songwriter, Trish Bruxvoort-Colligan:

Namaste

Namaste, Namaste, I greet you with my heart wide open.
I bow to the place in you where God dwells.
In Light and Love we are one. We are one!

I wish I could share with you a recording of her angelic voice singing that sentiment!

Namaste is based on an understanding that God – or Universal Love – is within each and every one of us. At any point in time, we may not feel it within ourselves or see it in another’s actions. But, what if we did? What if we lived from and into Namaste each time we connected with a family member or stood in a check-out line or passed a neighbor on our daily walk?

How can we bring the essence of Namaste alive this holiday season?
How do we greet one another with “heart wide open”?

 

I believe that Namaste is asking us first to go deep inside and find within ourselves the root, the core, the indwelling love, the inner perfection, perhaps the personal “God within.” This means that we must see, accept and move beyond elements of our human expression which may not resemble love – qualities such as hate, anger, fear, doubt, confusion. Yes, they are in you – and in me – just as each of us is and expresses compassion, empathy, joy, connection, love.So, first we connect within and honor the place “where the entire universe resides — the place of love, of light, of truth, of peace.”  We go there each dawn and again before each and every interaction of the day. We go within and become one with our innermost loving source. We open our heart.From there, from this loving, accepting, honoring energy, we greet others with “heart wide open”. Looking past the more negative elements of their human expression and looking for the indwelling “place of love, of light, of truth, of peace” we find it! It is there.

This is how we greet one another with the essence and intention of Namaste, with heart wide open.

Throughout the holiday season and beyond, I greet you with heart wide open. I wish for you an ever expanding understanding and experience of Namaste, of Love greeting Love.

Namaste, my friends.

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2020’s Perfect Vision

Recently I found myself journaling scraps of ideas about the year that is coming to a close:

  • a year of intensity
  • opening minds and hearts to previously unseen or ignored people and situations
  • opening to compassion for pain previously unseen, unimaginable
  • looking into the mirror to see where I’ve been complicit in the injustices around me

And then it hit me: 2020 is truly the year of perfect vision! The year has, in fact, sharpened my vision. The cataracts which blocked large segments of society’s dysfunction and injustice were stripped away. A light shown unto the whole and into the cracks and crevices to reveal both creativity, love, compassion, generosity and injustice, fear, anger.

So, are we – you and me – ready for perfect vision? Would we rather close ourselves off, shut our eyes, restore those cataracts, remove our glasses and choose to see only what fits our preferred paradigm? Will we choose to approach the happenings around us with This too! or, with No, not this!

2020 ripped off the band-aids and revealed so much on so many levels.

As this year draws to a close with so many unresolved situations in our midst, I invite each of us to ask:

What changed in my family, my “pod” during COVID restrictions?
What did racial injustice, shootings, protests and riots waken me to?
Waken within me?
What does wearing a mask, social distancing and quarantining
reveal to me about human connection?
In what ways am I called to heal the division that 2020 has revealed?

These are huge questions! Yet they are ones each of us is called to explore if our families, communities, our country and our world – if the human family – is to survive. Thank you for all the ways that you will focus on healing in the time ahead. You are a gift!
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(un)Certainty …

Have you ever had the experience of being 100% certain about something only to discover later that you were wrong?

I have!

And while I was holding tightly to what I “knew was right” I was blocked: closed to any ideas to the contrary, closed also to information from my body, emotions, intuition and the world around me.

Certainty, it seems, creates blockage, prevents learning, expansion, change in perspective and growth.

It also creates fear. Why? When I am SO certain that “it” is true, when I am holding so tightly to my world view that nothing else could possibly be valid, right or good, I live in fear of losing “it”.

Certainty breeds fear.

I have heard that there really are only two emotions, Love and Fear, and that love cannot co-exist with fear. Expressed another way, all emotions reside on a spectrum between fear and love:

FEAR … hate … anger … discomfort … contentment … passion … LOVE

Shawn Galloway expresses some choices we have between love and fear in his powerful song, I Choose Love:

If certainty breeds fear, what about uncertainty?

It would seem that uncertainty is a state of not knowing which, if accepted and explored, leans toward expansion and growth.

What helps uncertainty move healthfully toward expansion?

We get curious. And curiosity is an open state – open to new ideas and fresh perspectives. A few days ago, I penned this short poem:

Uncertainty

Uncertainty breeds curiosity.
Curiosity fosters connection.
Connection builds community.
Community nurtures love.
Love heals.

Uncertainty leads through connection to love, which heals. What would unfold in our families if we came together with less certainty and more genuine curiosity this holiday season? What would unfold if we all released some of our certainty about the political and social unrest in our country and allowed for a bit of curiosity, connection, community and love? Will you join me in practicing uncertainty today?

Where are you 100% certain?
How might you shift to 90% certainty?
75%?
50%?

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How do you see?

We are only capable of seeing from our own state of consciousness.
~ Adyashanti

Have you ever tried to explain something deeply important to you and       found the listener totally unable to grasp the essence?

On the other hand, have you experienced the gift of someone who is right there with you, and can even help you see your next steps? For instance:

  • A teacher who has great impact is able to meet you where you are, see from your current perspective, then draw you forth to take in and learn from a wider view.
  • An empathic individual feels what you feel, meets you where you are emotionally, and only then, if you desire, guides you forward.
  • A good physical trainer does the same – evaluates where you are and offers the exercise plan which will step you forward.

Have you ever put yourself physically at the level of a child
and seen the world from their perspective?

Today, each time you witness something wildly different from your “sensibilities”, remember:

I see from my experiential viewpoint.

Then ask yourself:

  • What is it that has this person doing, saying or thinking “that”?
  • What would have this thing created in this “strange” way?

Rather than, “different – wrong” consider:

Different – Of course!

We all see, create and choose from our personal, unique perspective. Some of us are able to “put ourselves in another’s shoes” and see as they see. Some of us, not so much.

A friend or family member, teacher or mentor, who can “see as you see” is a precious gift. The gift is even more precious if they are wise enough not to judge or try to change or convince, force you to be/think/believe what you are not ready to embrace.

My greatest expansion has come from an invitation to the “new” from a trusted source – one who has met me first where I am.

Who in your life “meets you where you are”?

What would free you to meet others “where they are”?

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Listening Power … continued!

Recently, I wrote about the power of listening and suggested four steps to help you improve your own deep listening. There are two other perspectives on listening that I’d like to address here:

  1. being a good listener to oneself
  2. moving beyond the impasse of broken connection in an intimate relationship

Sometimes, in relationship with someone we care deeply about, listening stops. Continue reading “Listening Power … continued!”