Seeing Life as it IS.

”It's very hard to grow because it's difficult to let go of the models of ourselves in which we've invested so heavily.” ~Ram Dass

Namaste,

What you are is enduring and infinite - vulnerable and loving, fundamentally OK and unchanging. And, get this … there’s nothing you need to “do” to earn that or be this — the way space allows us to see letters, read words, and communicate needs, values, and ideas.

We are tasked to see with our eyes, our soma, our memories, and our intuition.

Recognizing this integral (a.k. LOVING) relationship means we have the capacity to ACCESS the dimensions of the narrative occupying our attention - to notice the patterns of thoughts that lead to predictable behaviors as they “are”, without judgment IN ORDER to be relieved of the tension without “doing” anything — the way Bill and I engage in battle every time we get near the Cranford exit on the Garden State Parkway - I tense up.

It goes something like this:

We’re quickly approaching our exit, he’s driving about 10 miles over the speed limit and will have to cut over four lanes to exit.😱

Thoughts erupt inside my head that anticipate that he’s going to do exactly what he’s done in the past, and, before I can even say anything he says, “And, don’t be a backseat driver and criticize me again,” to which I reply, “Are you kidding me? Why do you have to continue to drive like this whenever you know it bothers me?” to which he replies, “Because you criticize my driving no matter what.” To which I reply, “Really?! You’re from Brooklyn and you don’t know how to drive.” By which point we are now turning into our driveway and, upon seeing that we’ve arrived home safely, our entire conversation falls away.

There is much that preceded this pattern - a memory of merging into a static exit lane and being rear-ended by oncoming traffic on Route 80, totaling our car. And how each time I approach an exit, I am confronted by the memory of what I could have done differently and how I impose my guilt and fault upon Bill: his behavior reminds me of the impetuousness that almost killed us, and I’m unable to express to him this trauma.

It’s such a setup.

If I tell him to stop out of anger or irritability, he will resist because who wouldn’t resist having someone try to change their behavior? It’s like saying that who he is is fundamentally wrong, at least that’s how most of us hear life when we are unaware of the pattern of our dynamic - the codes of behaviors and beliefs that continually f**k around with our sense of belonging and the reality of all things.

We are not separate and what I do affects you and what you believe affects me and it doesn’t matter if you are on the opposite side of the world.  Only

Love can heal this conflict, because only through Love can we see clearly.

How perfect to know that every time I am in a car with Bill I can “work” on this challenge to comfort the trauma and forgive my error:

• to share with him what I need rather than react from a place that assumes he knows,

• or continue to ensnare him in the assumption for the purpose of certainty, proving a right or righting a wrong.

However, what if I approached Bill from the perspective that there is something in him as he is that can help me find ease from the tension of fear? Well, that’s a whole other enchilada. If I approached him from love, I could show him, instead that he is and has more than he learned from his parents 🙏

Just like me, this person wants to be happy.

Just like me, this person wants to be healthy

Just like me, this person wants to be loved.

Just like me, this person wants to avoid suffering.

We must dare to imagine what might change if we approached difficult situations from the perspective of “Namaste”, I see the essence in you that is in me.

That means we have known these feelings before and have, therefore access to the reserve of this wisdom. Remember, solar flares can exist separate from the sun and the world would be shrouded in darkness (would not appear) if not for the sun (attention) and moon (emotion).

Make room to check it out.

Making room is as easy as turning attention toward the possibility of what might be different if you asked from a different place, from the posture of love. The hard part is putting down our beliefs and making room for another possibility. Eventually, you are no longer making room - there is no room, only a spacious moment (which is all each of us has regardless of circumstance.)

This fault is not about what we cannot control.

As Shakespeare said, it does not “lie in the stars” (the ideas of others “about” us called fate) but in the faith of what our intentions (not our wants) will return.

When we ignore, deny or denigrate any aspect of our experience, we find that we need to grip, worship, or elevate another beyond its nature. We can dream to strengthen and expand on behalf of all beings, but we cannot make our goals prescriptive, and impose them on others. When we are engaged in either habit, our neuropathy gets rewired in wonky ways, “enslaved.”

What we are all being asked is to put faith above any doubt - to put trust above uncertainty.

Nothing happens from nothing.

Being mindful is not something we physically “do” with our bodies, it’s just noticing the nature that is right here inside of us and then responding to what is happening this awareness - awakening and embodying the full array of human experience - the way we expanded and contracted attention through breath and (e)motion and space.

This is a form of prayer.

If we skip the emotions we don’t like or find uncomfortable or don’t understand, we still expend energy but miss an entire dimension of the experience (never orgasm). The orgasm, of course, is not the goal when it comes to Love, and often the stuff in between (like talking and trusting and tenderness) makes us feel so vulnerable that we would rather not even engage. We assume it will be terrifying - cows, trucks, and refrigerators sucked in by a tornado of uncertainty kind of terror - and, instead, shun the experience and “trust” assumptions that deliver a world that proves x, y, and z.

Though we may feel safe at first, staying in the room out of fear (of the tornado) keeps us from the experience of surviving the tornado and trapped in fear.

In non-dual practice, this is called Fearing Fear.

When trauma keeps us from this potential of survivorship, we are unable to find comfort - we continue to make the world smaller or lump things together so that we can control it (which makes happiness appear out of our reach) and become closed to the opportunities that can offer us expansion, those that elevate our lives.

In a similar way, when we don’t speak about what we need, we often feel minimized by the ways others are unable to meet our needs.

How do we cultivate thoughts that inspire emotions that fulfill what we need?

We create agreements, like subject and object. The object of thought is a “want” - an impulse of desire seeking to land or expand; and the subject of all emotion is what we “need” to fulfill that thought or desire in ways that are responsive to the whole.

A Habit is born!

When we are unaware of this dynamic (co-creative) relationship, we continue to support beliefs that call upon emotions that feedback into situations that regenerate the cycle.

At this stage, efficiency is the name of the game. Attention becomes fixed on noticing the situations - words, reasons, numbers, topics, etc - that remind us of this “minimizing” which causes us to “contract into confirmation” - see, I am not respected - which stops us from asking for what we need next time and closes off any possibility that the people in our world can support our needs.  

They may very well be assholes, (aren’t we all!) but if you don’t give them a real chance (with a shared benefit) then how will you know?

Under the most truthful and honest conditions, it can be said that we have created our world by what we think about ourselves and how we respond to those thoughts - the way fearful thoughts without compassion inspire fearful emotions without mercy.

By the very nature of this discovery, we can shift our world by preparing attention to be in response to anger, disappointment, guilt, and shame- by understanding what these emotions need. Anger needs justice, disappointment needs agreement, shame needs compassion, and guilt needs gratitude. In this way, we see that we are not “doing” anything to change anything or anyone - we are merely attending to the goal or destination - peace, harmony, freedom - while aligning our needs in service of the destination.

How can we align these forces to compel a happy life?

That’s the challenge, your charge, and your courageous action that will define how life will feel.