"The Art of Effortless Living"
Chapter 11 - Cultivating Passion
Wouldn't life be easy if we could guide ourselves completely by listening to inner guidance? We wouldn't have to make any decisions ourselves. We'd just abandon ourselves to letting our higher selves take the reins, knowing that we could rest in the certainty of going in the right direction. We'd be totally surrendered.
Wouldn't it be great to live with total abandon to God? To have that sensitivity and awareness of God directing our path so that we wouldn't waver or worry.
In real life, however, surrender is not so easy. Most of us would rather stay in the illusion of control even if that makes our lives harder. We'd rather pretend that if we can just keep on deciding how things are going to go, then life will turn out better. But control is an illusion. It's when we try to control the outcomes of our relationships that we find frustration and disappointment, when we try to control our bodies that we get sick, when we try to control other nations that we end up in wars that destroy us all.
Commitment depends on character, and character includes such qualities as poise, forbearance, kindness, patience, courage and more. we aren't born with these traits. If we have them, it's because we cultivate them...It's because it's so easy to get distracted by daily events and pressures that so many of us don't develop character to a point where it can bring deep rewards...One moment we're all for living with high ideals, and the next moment we're complaining to friends about how awful the world is.
...We have to develop consistency, commitment and sincerity...Strength of character is about having inspiring ideals, and pursuing those ideals is what makes life an act of passion.
...Passion is not something that happens to us. It is a way of living that we develop.
If we want passion, we have to focus our attention on what lifts us higher. Things that lift us higher are the only things that can hold our attention over the long term. They cultivate our capacity for commitment.
Perhaps this is what has been missing for me...focus on what is greater than myself. God is in my life, and I believe God is a great and awesome God. But then I put myself in the equation, and suddenly I believe that I have power to block God's greatness...just by being a mere, ordinary person. What?!
(quote from Vivekenanda) - If a man with an ideal makes a thousand mistakes, I am sure that the man without an ideal makes fifty thousand. Therefore, it is better to have an ideal. And this ideal we must hear about as much as we can, till it enters into our hearts, into our brains, into our very veins, until it tingles in every drop of our blood and permeates every pore in our body.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Mark 12:30
Chapter 13 - The Art of Personal Relationships
The more empowered we are within ourselves, the more readily we can give up the need for payback from other people. The more we give up the need for payack, the more able we are to support them in a productive manner, even when they cannot give back to us.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
"The Art of Effortless Living"
Quotes from "The Art of Effortless Living"
(Chapter 9 - Grieving Our Emotional Bodies)
Feeling the pain of our lives leads us not into celebrating our victimhood but rather out of needing to be victims. If we fully experience what we have been through, we let go of holding on to our pain.
(Chapter 10 - Developing Our Higher Selves)
...our unconscious mind holds our creative potential for the future. One reason we don't hear the unconscious is, quite literally, that we don't listen to it. If somebody came into your room and started talking to you and you didn't pay attention, eventually that person would leave. It's the same with our unconscious mind and with the inner guidance that comes from the unconscious. It stops talking and leaves us alone because we don't listen.
The higher self is like a voice in our ear or an angel on our shoulder.
When we practice non-resistance, we stop trying to make life turn out the way we want it to. Instead, we notice the way things are and ask ourselves how we can grow from that.
(Chapter 9 - Grieving Our Emotional Bodies)
Feeling the pain of our lives leads us not into celebrating our victimhood but rather out of needing to be victims. If we fully experience what we have been through, we let go of holding on to our pain.
(Chapter 10 - Developing Our Higher Selves)
...our unconscious mind holds our creative potential for the future. One reason we don't hear the unconscious is, quite literally, that we don't listen to it. If somebody came into your room and started talking to you and you didn't pay attention, eventually that person would leave. It's the same with our unconscious mind and with the inner guidance that comes from the unconscious. It stops talking and leaves us alone because we don't listen.
The higher self is like a voice in our ear or an angel on our shoulder.
When we practice non-resistance, we stop trying to make life turn out the way we want it to. Instead, we notice the way things are and ask ourselves how we can grow from that.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Feeling Our Emotional Bodies
The author of "The Art of Effortless Living" is a counselor and she recounts the story of Richard who had a problem w/blocking how he felt...
...he didn't particitpate fully in his relationships, and the women he lived with used him to their advantage, resented him w/o understanding why, got tired of him and dumped him. Richard had to practice getting in touch with his feelings, and at each session we did this in the same way. When I sensed that he was in his head too much and was just reporting, I would stop him and ask him to tune in to his body, take his time, and tell me how he felt in his body. He was learning that our emotions are in our bodies, not our heads, and if we want to get in touch with them, that's where we have to go.
Here are other quotes from that chapter:
Talking about our feelings is reporting on life, but being in our feelings is living life. In order to feel our feelings, we have to stop spinning on our endless merry-go-round of activities including the gabbing about feelings that can be a substitute for feeling them. We have to pause and wait, and take the time to let the feeling emerge, whether it is from our chest, our throat, our belly or some other part of ourselves. We have to stop performing and just be.
We're meant to experience our feelings so we can let them go. We're meant to experience them so that we learn that there is nothing inside of us that we have to fear.
When your body collapses, assume that there are emotions there that need to be acknowledged.
When we release feelings, we stop acting them out on other people...Instead of blowing up or withdrawing from the people who hurt us, we find it easier to tell them matter of factly where we stand, or even to walk away from the situation w/o residue of rancor or resentment.
Living well is about keeping the lines of communication open.
Appropriate release involves taking responsibility for letting your feelings out. Inappropriate release means venting your feelings on someone else.
I think I've learned to avoid emotional expression as much as possible. I've gotten better about it when I'm alone, but have a ways to go when it comes to being transparent and in the moment in front of others. I can report my feelings, but it takes conscious effort to be vulnerable. I think it takes more energy to try to control it rather than letting my feelings flow.
My 2 biggest reasons for keeping feelings to myself are lack of trust and believing it doesn't really matter to others. I guess it's been passed down from generation to generation. People are uncomfortable with feelings. We feel that as we grow up and so we learn to hide them away. Because those around us are unfamiliar w/handling emotions, they ignore them (as if they don't exist)...and maybe that's what has given me the idea that my emotions are unimportant, too much to handle, and make others uncomfortable.
I guess there's also this fear of becoming one of those people who spill their feelings all over the place...indiscriminately, to anyone who will listen. They drain us. But that's where the author distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate release of feelings. The people who seem to hijack us into listening to them are releasing their feelings inappropriately.
...he didn't particitpate fully in his relationships, and the women he lived with used him to their advantage, resented him w/o understanding why, got tired of him and dumped him. Richard had to practice getting in touch with his feelings, and at each session we did this in the same way. When I sensed that he was in his head too much and was just reporting, I would stop him and ask him to tune in to his body, take his time, and tell me how he felt in his body. He was learning that our emotions are in our bodies, not our heads, and if we want to get in touch with them, that's where we have to go.
Here are other quotes from that chapter:
Talking about our feelings is reporting on life, but being in our feelings is living life. In order to feel our feelings, we have to stop spinning on our endless merry-go-round of activities including the gabbing about feelings that can be a substitute for feeling them. We have to pause and wait, and take the time to let the feeling emerge, whether it is from our chest, our throat, our belly or some other part of ourselves. We have to stop performing and just be.
We're meant to experience our feelings so we can let them go. We're meant to experience them so that we learn that there is nothing inside of us that we have to fear.
When your body collapses, assume that there are emotions there that need to be acknowledged.
When we release feelings, we stop acting them out on other people...Instead of blowing up or withdrawing from the people who hurt us, we find it easier to tell them matter of factly where we stand, or even to walk away from the situation w/o residue of rancor or resentment.
Living well is about keeping the lines of communication open.
Appropriate release involves taking responsibility for letting your feelings out. Inappropriate release means venting your feelings on someone else.
I think I've learned to avoid emotional expression as much as possible. I've gotten better about it when I'm alone, but have a ways to go when it comes to being transparent and in the moment in front of others. I can report my feelings, but it takes conscious effort to be vulnerable. I think it takes more energy to try to control it rather than letting my feelings flow.
My 2 biggest reasons for keeping feelings to myself are lack of trust and believing it doesn't really matter to others. I guess it's been passed down from generation to generation. People are uncomfortable with feelings. We feel that as we grow up and so we learn to hide them away. Because those around us are unfamiliar w/handling emotions, they ignore them (as if they don't exist)...and maybe that's what has given me the idea that my emotions are unimportant, too much to handle, and make others uncomfortable.
I guess there's also this fear of becoming one of those people who spill their feelings all over the place...indiscriminately, to anyone who will listen. They drain us. But that's where the author distinguishes between appropriate and inappropriate release of feelings. The people who seem to hijack us into listening to them are releasing their feelings inappropriately.
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