Entries Tagged 'Following the Path' ↓

clappstar. Creative Commons license.

Stay curious and open to life. No matter what happens keep learning and growing. Find what you love to do and find a way to share it with others.
—Cheerful Monk

He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning.
—Danish quote

Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science
—Albert Einstein

This picture represents what I’m aiming for in life…the joy of learning new skills with no ego attached. The baby has no qualms about asking for help, and it doesn’t bother her that other people can walk “better” than she can. She’s not comparing herself to others or worrying if she’s learning fast enough. Learning to walk isn’t a goal with a deadline, it’s simply something she’s committed to doing. That’s me… I’m committed to lifelong learning, and to doing it with joy. There’s no external reward at the end, it’s the process that counts.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, at the moment I’m learning HTLM, CSS and some WordPress. My stack of resources…mostly in the form of books, but also information from the web…has grown. I don’t feel obligated to read every page of every book…they’re not on a TO DO List. They’re more like a group of friends willing to lend a helping hand when I need one.

So like the little girl in the picture, I’m enjoying my first baby steps. I’m well-supported and savoring the moment…and ready to take the next small step.

What about you? What are you learning at the moment? Are you enjoying it? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Pathfindar. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.

When this boy saw the dog obstacle course he couldn’t resist trying it himself. He’s a great reminder that obstacles in our paths aren’t necessarily bad … they’re a great way to test and develop our skills. It reminds me of the Zen master Dogen. When asked how he reached enlightenment he answered, “It was just one mistake after another.” And one of my favorite fortunes was, “You have a great capacity for learning from your mistakes. You will learn a great deal today.”

That’s a good summary of what this past week has been like for me … just one mistake after another. Most of those “mistakes” have been mine, but I did spend several hours last weekend trying to figure out why I was having so much trouble accessing my web site. After a lot of detective work and many phone calls it turned out to be an incompatibility between my hosting service and DSL provider. It was a great exercise in staying patient and centered while I narrowed down the problem, then worked on something else while in the fullness of time they resolved it. As Shilpan said in a comment last week, letting go of expectations and having faith and patience is a great source of happiness.

That doesn’t mean we can’t savor the rewards, too. For me those rewards are increased understanding and skill development…for the squirrel in this video it’s peanuts and candy bars. The important thing is to enjoy the obstacle course as well as the reward at the end. To me that’s what real success is.

What about you? How do you feel about the obstacles in your life? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to bikehikebabe, David, Darren, Shamelle, Robert, and Shilpan for comments on last week’s post.

Mr. Sardonicus. Used with permission. Owner reserves all rights.

 
“Don’t fall into the activity trap!”

That was the favorite exhortation of the best boss I ever had. We were a gung-ho group…working long hours, having a great time and getting a lot done. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate all we were doing…he was just warning us it wasn’t enough to be productive. If we didn’t keep our knowledge of our field up-to-date, we would be obsolete in a few years…no matter how much we accomplished.

I’ve been thinking of him a lot the past few weeks. Setting and achieving (more or less) my goal of revising my theme has been heady stuff..I can get addicted to goal achievement. But now it’s time to do the slow plodding of building a solid understanding WordPress and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). That’s not a project that lends itself well to setting goals and deadlines. The subject is complicated enough that one learns by trying things, making mistakes and patiently figuring out what went wrong.

As I contemplate the information I want to assimilate, I’ve decided I could use a role model…and the sloth would be a great one. Sloths are patient creatures. A large part of their diet consists of hard-to-digest leaves, so they spend a lot of time chewing and digesting, chewing and digesting. That’s just what I need to do right now as I tackle my pile of hard-to-digest reading material. If sloths can do it, so can I.

What about you? What are you learning? Is it fun or is some of it hard to digest? Please share your thoughts in the comments section.

Thanks to Adebola, bikehikebabe, David, Darren and Shilpan for comments on last week’s post.

 
 
rmansoorian. Creative Commons license.

Self-talk is not that different from a thermostat. It’s one of the ways we monitor ourselves, control impulses and guide actions.
—Tom Brinthaupt, Psychology Professor

When we’re babies we talk to ourselves. We start with sounds, then move onto inflections and rhythms of speech. And while we’re doing it, we’re entranced by the sound of our own voice…it’s one of our first toys. But as we grow up…go to school… learn to interact appropriately with other people, we’re taught to keep quiet…most of the time, at least.

So I don’t know about you, but most of my adult self-talk has been internal. I often have a lively dialog going on, but the mute button is definitely pressed. That made sense when I was working with other people, but I work alone a lot of the time now, and I’ve been thinking of talking out loud more. From what I’ve read, it can be as effective as journaling for keeping in touch with yourself. And it has the advantage that you can move around and do routine chores while you’re talking. But after the millions of words I’ve written in my free-association journal, it’s been hard to make the switch.

Until now, that is.

Why the sudden change?
I recently read Jared Sandburg’s From Crib to Cubicle, A Familiar Voice –Our Own– Reassures. In it Sandburg says as many as 96% of people working in a cubicle environment talk to themselves out loud. That talking may be a nuisance to others, but it also helps keep the talkers on track. It helps them tune out distractions and keeps them focused on their goals. He also says they’re more apt to talk aloud when things go wrong…it’s like having their own friendly guide helping them. One airline pilot even envisioned an imaginary guide sitting in the jump seat behind him, ready to give advice when problems came up. And in a comment to last week’s post at Transforming Stress, bikehikebabe said when she’s tired she finishes her exercises by talking herself through them.

That made a lot of sense. My way of handling a problem is more to gather information or to go off and think and write about it, depending on the type of problem. But when I thought about it, I realized I do miss not talking more. Some of the happiest moments in my life were when my daughter was a baby and I talked to her a lot. She loved it, and it lifted my spirits. And, strange as it sounds, I love talking to the dogs over at the local shelter. Again, they love the attention and the talking is fun for me. Those two situations are similar in that the words don’t matter. Babies and dogs tune into the nonverbal, the tone of voice and the facial expression. And for me it was hearing the cheerful, reassuring voice and the physical act of smiling that lifted my spirits. Hey, I can do that without an audience. So yesterday I experimented with smiling, bouncing on my jogging trampoline, and singing. That definitely worked for me!

A new technique for the toolbox
The interesting thing is I’ve been a bit nervous lately because we’re about to go on a trip and have also just bought our first Mac. Those are both fun things, but a lot to think about. And last night when I was trying to concentrate, my husband kept interrupting because he needed help with something. So I thought of those cubicle workers who face this all of the time, and I started cheerfully talking to myself. “Let’s help him get what he needs so that will be finished, then you can get back to what you were doing. You have plenty of time.” It really worked, and I now have a new mood-lifting/stress-management tool that I can use any time I choose. I will let you know next week if I’ve remembered to do that!

What about you? Do you ever talk to yourself? If so, when do you do it and how does it work for you? Do you ever sing for the sheer joy of it? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to Brian, Shilpan, David, bikehikebabe, Robert, Evelyn, and Daz for commenting on last week’s post.

The joy of loving unconditionally is my favorite emotion, so this week’s lines from Bob Clubb’s St. Francis Project resonate with me:

The question is, “How can we learn to love more unconditionally?”
In a comment to The Power of Forgiveness Ellen put it well:

I truly believe I am (trying to be) a loving and compassionate person towards others. But somehow, more and more it seems that that is an impossible thing to do, if I can’t be that forgiving and loving towards myself.. And yes.. the secret is in ‘not having to be perfect’.

Two of the great truths in life are: We don’t have to be perfect to be lovable. And if we can’t give ourselves unconditional love, we won’t have any to give to others.

Notice the picture of Tiffany above. She has just graduated from her training as an assistance dog and will go on to be a companion and helper to a disabled person. She’s clearly a happy and wonderful dog who will make a big difference in someone’s life. Just as clearly, she has been loved and well cared for by other humans. That works great for children and for dogs, but as adult humans we’re responsible for giving ourselves the care we need. And we have to do that well if we want to help other people or animals.

It’s as we’re always told on airplanes, if the cabin pressure falls and the oxygen masks come down, put yours on first. Only then will you be able to help someone else with theirs. It’s also like Lake Lanier in Georgia. Millions of people in the Southeast depend upon its water. But because of the drought it is starting to run dry. It needs to be replenished if it’s going to continue being a good source.

 
So how do we keep our supply of love replenished? My primary methods are free-association journal writing, getting support from my own inner guide/supporter and doing volunteer work that feeds my soul. When events become more overwhelming I turn to friends and professionals for help. What do you do? This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts and experience in the comments section.

Thanks to Shamelle, bikhikebabe, Larissa, Ellen, and Sterling for commenting on last week’s post.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
– Mahatma Gandhi

If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive.
– Mother Theresa

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we practice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole world will be blind and toothless.
– Mahatma Gandhi

As I mentioned last week, I’ve joined Bob’s St. Francis Project, which means each week in February the participants will write a post on part of the Prayer of St. Francis. This week’s lines are

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;

I’m grateful to Bob for suggesting this project, because this prayer has been one of my favorites since I discovered it years ago.

At the time I tried to share it with a friend of mine, but she would have none of it. She was an ardent feminist and believed the poem perpetuated the idea that women and minorities should passively agree that they were inferior and born to be servile. They shouldn’t rock the boat by trying to assert their rights. To her the poem advocated weakness. I don’t agree.

Nelson Mandela
I can’t think of anyone stronger than Nelson Mandela refusing to be crushed by his 27 years in prison. (This picture shows one of the cells he lived in during that time.)
Instead of giving in to hatred and the desire for revenge, he understood what he wanted for South Africa and what he needed to do:

 
As a result, he helped end apartheid, became the first President of South Africa to be elected in fully representative elections, won the Nobel Peace Price and became an inspiration to millions of people around the world. No, I don’t regard his belief in forgiveness as weakness.

Other Examples
Mahatma Gandhi is another famous example of the power of love and forgiveness. His philosophy and practice of non-violent resistance liberated India from British rule.
He also inspired countless others, including Martin Luther King, Jr. of the United States.

In that conversation we had years ago, my friend said she and her friends needed to be angry to take action. Apparently they were afraid that forgiveness meant accepting the status quo and that love wasn’t a powerful enough motivator for action. Clearly Mandela, Gandhi and King demonstrated that this doesn’t have to be true. But as Gandhi pointed out in the first quote in this post, it does take a strong person to let go of hatred and bitterness and be motivated by love. “The weak can never forgive.” Forgiving means letting go of wanting to change the past and instead focusing on building something better. It isn’t easy, and sometimes it can take years to deal with our pain before we can free ourselves by forgiving.

One of the most touching stories I came across this past week was by Rachel Jones, a correspondent for National Public Radio. In Lessons From Cairo, Illinois, she writes of her first experience with prejudice as a six-year-old and of her emotional reaction to that experience and to the later disintegration of Cairo because of racism. As a teenager she wanted to leave and put Cairo behind her, but her attitude is different now:

I’m proud of the fact that my own family rejected the hatred Cairo could have instilled…I’m proud of the fact that I’m from Cairo, despite all the wasted potential, broken dreams and dashed hopes that town embodies. I’m a survivor. Cairo taught me, and still teaches me, how pointless and soul-destroying hatred is.

Amen to that. Forgiveness is simply the decision to be an instrument of peace and to choose love instead of hatred. We don’t have to be great leaders to do that. We have plenty of chances in our every day life to make that choice.

What about you? What is your experience with forgiveness? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Balloon photo by against the tide via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Photo of Mandela’s prision cell by tom_collins via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Photos of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. courtesy of Wikipedia.

Thanks to Ellen, Al at 7P and bikehikebabe for commenting on last week’s post.

This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine….

I’m not going to make it shine…
I’m going to let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.
— Negro Spiritual

One of our favorite Christmas traditions is to drive around the town on Christmas Eve, looking at the lights and listening to Christmas carols, then drive partway up the mountain to look down on the town and up at the stars. I still remember when my daughter was little enough to sit on my lap when we made the trip. I also remember snuggling in bed with her every night, talking for a while before she went to sleep. For about a month or so around Christmas we had a little artificial tree with lights in her room, and we would lie there in the dark together, looking at the lights as we talked. So a big part of Christmas to me is an image of lights radiating in the darkness.

I’m not analyzing it too closely, but in my mind the quiet and darkness are also connected to writing…they’re both ways of connecting to the deepest parts of myself and to something greater than myself. Some people would call that “something greater” God…others would call it the Divine, but for me the words don’t matter, it’s the experience that I care about. And it’s not something outside of us, we’re all a part of it…and it’s a part of us. To me that’s what the lyrics of the spiritual are saying…we all have an inner light that we can let shine. I personally can find mine more easily and see it much better when there’s some darkness for contrast.

What about you? Is darkness any part of your images of Christmas? Am I alone in this? Please share your thoughts and experience in the comment section.

Candle photo by SkyD via Flickr. Creative Commons license.
Picture of girl writing by arkworld. Used by permission. Owner reserves all rights.

 
Thanks to Al, Ellen, Adebola, bikehikebabe, and Albert
for commenting on last week’s post.

Every clod feels a stir of might,
And instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.
—James Russell Lowell

Sometimes you need to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince.
—Anonymous

When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.
—Carl Jung

I’ve been invited by Danny to join in a conversation about how we find “God’s voice” in our experiences. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think in terms of a theist god or a universe that intervenes in human affairs. But that doesn’t matter. The question is still the same: how do we know when we’re on the right path? During my adult life I’ve been mostly able to tell. When I’m on the right track something resonates deep in my being. It feels right. When I’m on the wrong track it doesn’t feel right and I have to try something different. And even when I’m out of tune, on some deep level it’s still all right. By now I have the tools I need and with patience I’ll see what I need to do, do it, and learn something in the process.

It all started when I was young, with a traumatic experience I had with a dentist when I was 8 years old. He didn’t believe in Novocain and a cavity was deeper than he thought. He didn’t know what to do so he continued drilling…right down to the nerve. And I developed an instant terror of dentists. Eight years later the tooth abscessed, I faced a root canal, and the terror kicked in at the thought of it. But I came across a book on self-hypnosis and taught myself to relax in the dental chair. It worked so well that later dentists were annoyed when I would start to fall asleep while they were trying to work. That was, without a doubt, one of the most empowering experiences of my life.

From then on I was never stuck. I was like Daniel Boone when he said, “I’ve never been lost, but I was mighty turned around for three days once.” I’ve sometimes been in situations where I didn’t know quite what to do, but I knew sooner or later the answer would come. It was just a matter of patience and persistence. That certainty started my lifelong fascination with behavior modification and personal growth, which in turn has made my life an adventure.

I realize this story can just as easily be interpreted as the work of some Divine force. It doesn’t matter. The process works either way. And for me it’s the process that counts.

What about you? How do you know when you’re on the right path? Do you believe there are signs from God showing you the way? This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments section.

Photo by BURNBLUE via Flickr. Creative Commons license.

Thanks to everyone who commented last week: Adebola, Danny, Bob, Stephen, and Tejvan.

And thanks, Danny, for the topic. I had to think a long time about this one, and it no doubt has generated future posts.

To think is to be undermined.
—Albert Camus

I’ve been tagged by Adebola to write about how my dreams have moved my life forward and enriched my life. I’m not sure how useful this post will be to others, because my goals have always been long range. I mean ridiculously so.

I mentioned in At Home In the Universe that I had a shift of consciousness in the fifth grade that blew my little world apart and replaced it with a world/universe view that was infinitely larger. It was scary but exhilarating, and I never wanted to go back. The only way I could explore this new world was through books, so I read a lot. By the time I got to high school one of my main goals was to develop a philosophy of life that would give me a strong foundation. So I read Western and Eastern philosophy, some of the Great Books of the Western World and the Harvard Classics, and books on science. I had friends my own age, too, but I did hang out a lot with my role models…wise old men.

I had also decided when I was in grammar school that I wanted to go to college. I was the first person in my family to do that, and I wasn’t sure my folks would support the idea, so I saved all the money I could. That wasn’t a dream, it was a non-negotiable decision. I didn’t know how it would happen, but somehow I would go. I wanted a good, solid education.

As you might guess, I was a serious kid for a while. But as time went on I lightened up a lot. I was developing a better foundation for myself, and I had friends and teachers who loved learning, too. One of the teachers was Miss Myers, a young, vivacious woman who taught sophomore English. She was a new role model. She loved ideas, but she was also fun. She had even traveled around Europe with a friend one summer, including hitch hiking for a while. I never expected to do anything that adventuresome, but I decided I wanted to be more like her…the inner her..the confident, intelligent, fun-loving her. I knew it would be a long project, so I gave myself 20 years. Yep, that’s what I wanted to be like when I was 35.

As it turned out, I got a scholarship to Stanford and majored in physics, and I spent two quarters my junior year at Stanford in Germany. I also spent another month or so traveling around Europe that summer…including hitch hiking with a friend. After graduation I decided not to get my Ph. D. but to work and save money for more traveling. My husband and I married right after he got his Ph. D., and we spent 13 months in France and traveled around Europe during holidays and weekends. Then we came back the long way…including the Middle East, East Africa, India, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. We got back to the states just before my 26th birthday, which we celebrated with my folks.

Nine years later, when I was 35, I thought about my high school dream. On the whole I had achieved it by then. My main feeling then was gratitude, for my folks, especially my mom, my biggest supporter… for Miss Myers and the other great teachers I had in high school, both in real life and from the printed page…and for Stanford, for giving me a chance to go to Europe for the first time, a chance to explore the world outside of books.

So, some of my dreams and supporters have made a big difference in my life. What about you? Have you had dreams that moved you forward and changed your life? Who has helped you achieve them? Who are you grateful to? This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comments section. .

Photo by PhilP_England via Flickr. Used with permission by owner, who reserves all rights.

 
Thanks to everyone who commented on the last post: Adebola, Bob, Dean, Ellen, Carol, Tracey, Abu, Secret Simon, Armannd, and Shirley.

In a recent post at Monk at Work, Adam Kayce presents some interesting food for thought. He says that connecting with your own purpose and passion isn’t the same as connecting with the Divine.

He doesn’t say how you can tell the difference, but it doesn’t matter. My own view of spirituality is more simple and more direct. I agree with the Dalai Lama that we can’t know about the Divine, and that the purpose of human life is happiness, which comes from having love and compassion for one another. He also says the greatest teachers aren’t the gurus, but people who teach others the experience of unconditional love.

Since I believe that, I’m forced to admit that I fall far short of some of my greatest role models…dogs. And I’m not alone in thinking of animals as teachers. A recent Beliefnet article is about how horses, cats and dogs have inspired people. One woman refers to her dog “…as my furry Buddha. Before he came into our lives, there was a hole within me that I couldn’t quite fill up. I looked into different spiritualities, donated my time to different organizations, and tried different hobbies. All were learning experiences and often enjoyable, but they never quite filled me. Days after Donnelly arrived, I realized the searching and the ache were subsiding. I now have direction and focus, and I have an understanding of what unconditional love really is. Thanks to Donnelly, I have discovered a passion for helping animals, and I have found fulfillment working to make their lives better.”

Amen to that.

About compassion…I’ll never be able to think of that word again without this picture filling my mind. (I can’t publish it here because of copyright restrictions.) The 9-year-old boy is bald because of chemotherapy, but he looks like a Buddhist monk. His head is resting on a very sick dog, and he’s holding the dog’s ear. His mother had been taking him to the local shelter on weekends to spend time with the animals there. The boy bonded with one frightened dog, so the mother brought the dog home “just for the weekend.” The first night the dog became so sick they had to rush him to the emergency room. That was the night the picture was taken. Needless to say, the dog never went back to the shelter. And five years later they’re both doing fine.

So…love, compassion and a lot of humility. That’s my spiritual practice. What about you? Do you have one? Or are you doing just fine without one? This site is about sharing, so please tell us your thoughts in the comment section below.

Picture of dog by Aaron Honey.