Virtual Pause

There are walls that have been put up in our lives that block our true self, our diamond light inside of us, from shining. These walls shape our way of being in the world, even if we don’t realize it.

In this episode we will identify a wall that has shaped our thoughts and actions, and either made us hide with shame or try to prove that these walls are wrong by striving. We will attempt to let their power over us go.

Our listening portion is from Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers

Prayer is standing in the presence of God with the mind in the heart; that is, at that pint of our being where there are no divisions or distinctions and where we are totally one. There God’s Spirit dwells and there the great encounter takes place. There heart speaks to heart because there we stand before the face of God.

Crossing the Lines of Our Lane

We can get caught up in the chaos of our own making when we think of what could be or could have been. We may find our emotions are strong and our desire for the outcome to be different than it really is. But if we allow ourselves this “egoic tantrum” for a moment, and we don’t shove it down, and then take a moment to be calm, we can see the inner motivations behind our desire to get out of our own lane, or the reality of what is, and let go. Once we let go of what could be or could have been, and we are in our lane or our boundary lines of the present, we can see the gifts that we would have never anticipated.

Our listening portion of the Pause today is from Rumi.

The Wheel of God

You are a wheel at which I stand.

Whose dark spokes sometimes catch me up,

Revolve me nearer to the center.

Then all the work I put my hand to

Widens from turn to turn.

Episode 31: Needing to be Everything

We can be so invested in relationships, our work, or a specific event that we try to be everything in it and even try to control the outcome. We are simply one data point in a much larger picture of someone’s life or a situation. In this episode we will identify a circumstance or relationship in our lives where we want to be all. We will determine if there is an underlying motivation underneath that desire, and let it go.

Our Listen portion is a poem from Billy Chapata of the book Chameleon Aura.

Impenetrable

the softest people i know,

are the strongest people i know.

they have stories that could’ve broken them,

but they manage to take all of those pieces and reinvent themselves.

We grow up in a trench – a place of high walls with particular beliefs, opinions, ways of seeing, and ways of thinking. These walls are crucial as we grow up to help us form a sense of identity, but as we grow older, we may begin to feel suffocated by these walls, questioning what they represent, wondering if there is a bigger, vaster world out there.

After we settle our bodies and quiet our minds through breath, we will identify a belief, perception, or opinion that has acted like a root in our lives, holding us down into the trench. We will look at how it has its grip on us, and why we are allowing it to hold onto us so tightly. Then, by letting it go, we will be able to rise up out of the trench and be firmly planted on soil, opening ourselves up to a vast and connected world where we can experience freedom.

For our listen portion of the Pause, we will hear a line by William Blake,

“If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would be seen as it is.”

To loft a ball high in the air, it has to be let go. We can’t rise up if we are tethered to something. In our lives we are bombarded by messages, indirectly or directly, verbally or not, that tell us who we are. We hear “You are” messages that are positive and negative. The problem is, both can be dangerous if we over-identify with them, absorbing them into our very being, shaping our interactions, our decisions, and our very way.

In this episode we will identify a message we have received of “you are…” a positive and “you are..” a negative, determine how tethered we are to these messages, and if we can and should let them go. Then we will listen to the poem I AM and receive a message for our true self that we can hold onto and rise up.

I AM…

Rooted like earth

Passionate like fire

Free like the wind

Vast like the water

Shining like the sun

Peaceful like the moon

Joyful like creation

Gentle like the grass

Patient like the oak

I AM LOVE. 

-poem by Angie Winn

Referenced: Prayer: A Case Study in Mimetic Anthropology by James Alison.

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