Did you know the muscles in the face are the strongest muscles in the entire body? I just made that up. But it sounds good doesn’t it? You may not be able to pick up a heavy object with your cheeks, but you sure can pick up a heavy spirit that way (which is often times much heavier). It’s pretty amazing really. The muscles in your face responsible for lifting the corners of your mouth to form a smile :-) actually have a psychological affect on you and the people around you.
There is a direct correlation between our body and our minds, and it works both ways. For example, look what happens when you think about an embarrassing event in your past, or something coming up that you are really dreading. If you sit with that scenario in mind for a moment, then check in with your body, you will probably find tension in certain muscles. You may have to pay close attention in order to pick up on that, but our bodies can’t tell the difference between what’s real and our thoughts about what’s real. It’s much more noticeable when you check in with your body while watching a suspenseful movie, but I digress.
I invite you to see what it’s like to manipulate the mind-body connection going in reverse (so to speak). Close your eyes and check in with your body. Just notice if there is any tension anywhere, and just allow it to be there. Tension is okay. Now, with your eyes still closed, smile gently to yourself :-) Notice your breathing as you smile. See how your body feels when you smile. Does it feel lighter? More relaxed? Take another deep breath while you smile and just feel what it’s like to have a smile on your face. It may make you smile more when you realize you are smiling for no reason. The sense of silliness of this exercise may feed on itself and make your smile even broader.
When ever it occurs to me, which is often times when I’m driving or feeling a bit tense, I smile to myself. I also find it helpful to smile at the little voice in the head when I notice it going round and round like a top that won’t stop spinning. We take our thoughts so seriously, which is the root of all tension. As Byron Katie likes to say, “Reality is always kinder than our story about it.” For example, can you be stressed out about something without thinking about it? Is there ever a problem before we think one into existence? Our life situation is only as serious as we think it is, and it’s always less serious than we think. The simple act of smiling takes the seriousness out of our story and replaces it with a sense of ease.
Eckhart Tolle suggests in his book, The Power of Now, that we not take our thoughts too seriously as part of learning to disidentify with the voice in the head. When we smile at the voice in the head, we take away its power over how we feel, which leaves room for us to relax. Relaxation makes us smile, and smiling helps us to relax. In the words of the famous Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Say cheese :-)
Trey
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© 2012 Howard McQueen
We are always full,
however, not always full of life-sustaining beliefs.
What we are filled with
determines whether life bounces off us
or penetrates deeply,
infusing us,
radically altering us.
It may be a mid-life crisis,
or a broken partnership,
or a loss of income,
or the ending of a career,
or the untimely death of someone snatched away from you.
These are times when can open ourselves,
empty out what no longer serves us
and create room within
for another verdant springtime.
~~~~
Yesterday Heart and I celebrated 748 days of knowing and loving on each other.
HI All, I am hoping this reaches Leah Song, either directly, or if someone can send me her email address or forward my email to her howard@mcq.com.
Thank you very much.
Howard
As you may already know, my wife Shelby is pregnant again. Needless to say, there is a new air of excitement going around as this new addition grows in her mother’s warm and loving belly Yes, that’s right, it’s a girl :-). So far, the baby seems to be doing well with no noticeable health issues. She’s very active in there, too. Every time Shelby feels kicks and flips I can’t help but think about how crazy that must be. There’s a little human being in there flailing about, learning how to operate their tiny little limbs. It’s just miraculous. I’m getting to feel and see the movements too :-)
It’s been a little over a year since we lost our first little girl, Stella Grace, and we’ve found ourselves on almost the exact same schedule. Sprout (our nickname for new baby-to-be) is estimated to arrive on April 20, 2012, while Stella was estimated to arrive on April 17, 2011. Pregnancies after a loss tend to be experienced a bit differently anyway, but having the same schedule makes it seem even more special. After a loss, the innocence of what can go wrong is gone, and is replaced with the burden of knowing the myriad of things that do go wrong.
The loss of innocence can be painful, and may leave behind a permanent scar. It also leaves behind a changed perspective on life. In complete innocence there is no fear, and in a state of no fear there is peace. After innocence is damaged, fear is born. Fear wants to protect us from harm so that we may enjoy peace once again, but fear and peace can not coexist. A return to innocense will bring about peace, but past experience has told us that it is dangerous to allow ourselves to be that vulnerable again. We remember being hurt when we were innocent, and the mind can point to the painful experiences we’ve had when we lost innocence, thereby justifying the need for fear.
The mistake here is that fear would not have protected us from the pain incurred by a loss of innocense. Fear can’t really protect us from anything, except maybe peace. Though that makes perfect sense, believing it doesn’t make fear go away. Experience tells us that there is no end to the things that could potentially go “wrong” in any given life, before or after birth, which is why many of us live in fear of life, or, put another way, we fear living a life without fear. We “know” too much to be fully at ease all the time. So let’s look at what we “know” at the root of this fear.
Life is Scary.
You never know what’s going to happen from one minute to the next. Something bad always happens when I let my guard down. If I don’t worry I won’t be ready when the worst case scenario happens. If I allow myself to fully relax I’m putting too much trust in a life that can’t be trusted. Life has let me down so many times I can’t even count. I’m scared of not knowing what’s going to happen next. I’m angry that I can’t ensure things turn out the way I want. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to have to worry, or keep my guard up, but trusting life might jinx the outcome.
Is That True?
Pain is unavoidable in this life, but what if it’s completely necessary? What if our suffering is part of a master plan? What if this master plan has our best interest at heart? Is it possible to put trust in life’s plan? How does it feel to let down your guard and trust life? Sit with that last question and really experience letting your guard down about a particularly stressful situation. What does it feel like to surrender? Do you experience fear? Loss? Relief? Joy? Resistance? Do you want to cry? Laugh? Both? Just sit with that experience of allowing yourself to be completely vulnerable, without judging yourself or the situation. [I highly recommend Gina Lake’s book, “Trusting Life.”]
Looking Inside
An interesting thing about fear is that it typically has a bodily sensation that goes with it. When you are experiencing some sort of stress or fear, check in with your body to see if there is any tension. Once you locate it, direct your attention to that area of the body. Feel that tension and allow it to be there, fully. Give yourself permission to be tense. There is absolutely nothing wrong with any physical or emotional response that you have. Welcome it all and see how that feels.
At a recent satsang with Benjamin Smythe (http://www.benjamintsmythe.com), we were talking about the fear of life. Benjamin is known for traveling around with a large sign that says, “You’re Perfect!” He finds a public place to sit or stand and just holds the sign up to people walking by. He gets a wide range of responses, ranging from gratitude to indifference to anger. The thing is, he no longer cares what kind of response he gets. As he will tell you, his fear is gone (enlightenment has a tendency to do that to a person ;-).
During the satsang I told him that I had some fear of life in me, and asked if I should go stand somewhere holding a sign like him. We all had a good chuckle, but then he asked if I had any fear at that moment. I admitted that I did have a little (sort of like a mild stage fright you might get if you were admitting a perceived weakness in front of a large group of people). He told me to check in with my body to see if I could feel any tension. I located some tightness in my thighs and my upper arms, and relayed that information. He congratulated me and invited me to completely allow that tension to be there. As soon as I did I started laughing. I was able to see through the fear. It was just an illusion. Benjamin explained that dealing with fear may be more easily dealt with on the physical level because the mind is what created it in the first place, and it’s hard to get the creator of fear to alleviate it.
So What?
How does all of this serve me in my current life situation, dealing with a potentially stressful pregnancy? One key is to take things one day at a time (remain present). During a recent event that caused us some concern about the baby, my mind became a fear monger of “What if,” scenarios. I could not shake the thoughts, but I could feel the tension being created in my body. The tension was not localized, and could be felt all over. This time noticing it and allowing it did not give me the same relief. What I did instead is recognized the thoughts as just thoughts, not reality. This enabled me to relax for brief periods, but I was unable to be fully at ease until we had our visit with the Nurse and learned everything was fine.
There will always be life situations like this that have the ability to engender fear. Accepting fear when it occurs (instead of resisting it) is very important. However, realizing that the root of the fear is believing our thoughts is even more important. Once that’s realized, the thoughts can be looked at impartially as part of the human condition, not as if they were true.
(C) 2012 Howard McQueen
As it is being revealed to me ...
I tend to grow and evolve when I lean into
my insecurities and my fears.'
How about you?
There is something extraordinary that comes out of extending ourselves and our identity into the unknown
then letting go
and feeling completely ungrounded and adrift
for a seeming unknowable amount of time ...
This has happened after my divorces
after radically letting go of and trying to create a new career(s)
after going through bankruptcy.
It is exhausting and it is excruciating.
Holding our inner discomfort and anxiety while manifesting this space has a way of preparing us
for the radical shift,
opening us to new connections
new relationships
and new opportunities for how we might ply our passions
and uncover our gifts
and enable the emergence of our contributions.
And for many of us, it opens us to our legacy, i.e. what we most want to leave behind in this
world.
As I look back, I can trace how this emergence has manifested in my life.
When I risked placing my identity out into an unknown frontier space,
one that I had no familiarity with,
I was eventually and always noticed by others.
There has always been one of these others that I have formed a deep bond,
a camaraderie of integrity
of mentoring
that tosses me a temporary lifeline,
offers me an inoculating shot-in-the-arm,
infuses me with a quiet and confident gusto and vision ...
What emerges is new ground and the inner confidence to stand firmly and claim newly uncovered aspects of myself.
It has always been well worth the price of admission
AND
I'm glad that it also bring with it a long summer and the fall of harvesting
before I have to step into the unknown, yet again.
Today, I am encouraged to remember that it is time to step into embodying and administering
this leadership,
to bring my quiver of wisdom (listening and selectively sharing experiences) designed to enrich
the lives of those
also willing to step into the unknown and
call to them that which is named Emergence.
Every time I hear the end of the Unitarian Universalist invocation "
"... for we are now the Keepers of the Dream",
I feel the stirring of courage to face my own unknown.
Many blessings!
I knew I wanted to compile a book out of my past writings a year or two ago, but felt like I really wasn’t quite qualified enough. I’m not some enlightened spiritual teacher, so I had to wonder if my words were really worthy enough to be contained in a book to be read by people who might be looking for the secret to inner peace, etc. Isn’t that like the blind leading the blind?
These limiting thoughts were delaying my decision to complete the book, in the hopes that one day I would be “enlightened” and be able to bring the book to a better climax, such as, “Then, it happened. My perspective shifted ever so slightly, and all became known. I realized that there are no individuals, and that we are all one. Part of a cosmic consciousness pretending to be human beings, etc.” What a great ending that would have made, right?
It finally dawned on me that I was holding back out of fear of what projected “others” might think about some guy writing a book about enlightenment without being enlightened. Who would read that? Not me. My “time” is too valuable for that ;-) When I finally recognized and acknowledged that old program of insufficiency running interference, I decided to push forward. There will be plenty of critics, but I think there will be a larger number of people who get something from reading it (at least I hope so). I know I sure did when I went back to read all of my old posts again.
Anyway, once I decided to finalize the book, assembly and proofreading turned out to be fairly time consuming. But the challenge I’m facing at this moment is how to end this thing. I’m going to continue writing, and have already written a few other things to be posted later. Since there is no end in sight, how can I just abruptly say, “Okay, that’s it for now. Stay tuned for the next one.” No, I have to come up with a concluding chapter that does this book some justice. Or do I? Maybe I could just say, “Well, this seems like as good a stopping point as any. The End.” That’s sounding pretty good about now.
Maybe I could find a way that leaves people hanging on the edge of their seat in some way, like those season finales on TV that leave you going, “Those bastards! They can’t just leave it like that!” That would be fun if it were that kind of book. Maybe my next book will be fiction and I can do just that. But where does fiction end and non-fiction begin?
Your life is like a work of fiction starring you, and it has all of the different plot twists, comedy, drama, and boringness that any movie that lasts for 80 plus years would have. We’re all pretending to be stars in our own movie, which features all sorts of guest stars. If you’re reading these words right now, then I’ve stopped in to be a guest star in your movie (Hi there!). When I go to the store, all of the other shoppers and check out clerk have become guest stars in my movie. But how much more fun would it be if you actually realized it was all just a movie? Then you could step out of it and enjoy it more fully. When you’re trapped in it, the suffering of the main character seems so personal and yucky. I invite you to examine what if feels like to be the watcher of your life as it unfolds, instead of being identified with your character. It’s just like any dream where you are actually all of the characters in the dream, instead of the lead actor.
Could it be true? Look around. Could this all be a dream? Could I actually be all of the characters in the dream and not know it? Has it all been scripted out since the day I was born, or is it being written and directed on the fly? Do I have any control over what’s going to happen next, or is the only power I have to step out of the dream and wake up? Most, if not all, movies have a happy ending. What if this one does too? Can I finally relax and not sweat the small stuff? What if recognizing that there is a happy ending creates a happy ending that never ends? Wouldn’t it be nice to live that happily ever after Now? Now is all there is, and that happy ending that never ends is concealed in that Now that never ends.
The End ;-)
PS
You are perfect! You are loved! You are here! What a glorious gift it is to be alive. Don’t squander it pretending to be something smaller than you are. Wake Up!
PPS
My book is now complete. "A Seeker's Guide to Inner Peace: Notes to Self" is available from a number of bookstores. See - http://www.quedox.com/books/InnerPeace.html - for more information.
I have included a list of some of the most helpful and influential spiritual teachers I’ve encountered below. They aren’t really in any particular order, and it is by all means not inclusive. There are many more teachers that I have encountered only briefly, but whose words have been helpful.
Byron Katie - What can you say about Katie? All I can say is read one of her books and see for yourself. Some may call her a self help guru, but she is just a beacon in the night inviting people to question their beliefs. “A Thousand Names for Joy” is hands down one of my favorite books, but her other books are great too.
Eckhart Tolle - Eckhart is probably one of the most well known spiritual teachers in the Western world. His teachings have touched tens of thousands of people, and that circle of influence continues to spread. I think the reason for his popularity is that his pointers are simple and resonate with people on a very basic level. Just a glimpse of what life in the present moment is like is enough for people to want more presence in their life.
Adyashanti - I’ve enjoyed several of Adya’s books (i.e. “Emptiness Dancing,” “The Impact of Awakening,” etc.), but his website has a great deal of free audio and essays as well. I highly recommend checking him out.
Gangaji - For me, Gangaji rounds out the top four of the most well renowned Western spiritual teachers. I enjoyed her books, “A Diamond in Your Pocket” and “You Are That,” as well as many of the writings and videos I found on her website and You Tube.
John Sherman - John was one of Gangaji’s students when he was serving time in prison (her prison outreach program has helped a number of people). All of his teachings are free through his website in the form of eBooks and webcasts. His message is as simple as the nose on your face – just look a yourself (figuratively). He has several websites that I recommend you check out. I also invite you to join the Just One Look email list to become a part of the inward looking movement.
Katie Davis - One of my other favorite books is, “Awake Joy: The Essence of Enlightenment,” by Katie Davis. Her teaching approach is from the heart and points us back to who we are in our essence. She makes herself very available to people interested in awakening. I highly recommend you check out her website and blog, as well as the free videos she has to offer. Her husband, Sundance Burke, is also a spiritual teacher you might enjoy.
http://www.awakebykatie.blogspot.com
Gina Lake - Gina has written numerous wonderful books, and has a great deal of audio, video, and excerpts on her website. Her teaching is like a combination of Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie, which is probably why I resonate with it. She is also very approachable for people with questions.
http://www.radicalhappiness.com
Nirmala - Gina Lake’s husband, Nirmala, is also a spiritual teacher. His teachings point us back to the direct experience of Being in a direct, no nonsense way. I recommend you check out his website as well.
http://www.endless-satsang.com
Jeannie Zandi - I had my first real heart opening experience during my first satsang with Jeannie. Her message is one of Love, Beauty and Surrender. Truly a lovely human being.
Norio Xoximei Kushi - Norio is a truck driver by trade, who experienced an awakening while driving cross country. He points out beautifully how language is the root of our confusion, and how tangled up in words we’ve become.
http://www.demystifyenlightenment.org
Scott Kiloby - Scott has a simple approach as well. He writes about overcoming suffering and addiction, as well as stepping out of the story we have mistaken ourselves to be.
Karen Richards - Karen is a wonderful young woman with a very large heart. Her invitation to investigate the nature of reality resonates with a vast number of people, and I recommend you check her out on her website and on Facebook.
Karen McPhee - I highly recommend you check out the free guided meditations on Karen’s website. She was one of Eckhart’s students turned teacher, and has a very nice way of pointing people toward the present moment.
Pamela Wilson - In listening to some audio of Pamela, I realized that loving the ego was actually more important than trying to get rid of it. She teaches us to embrace all of our so-called negative sides, and get curious about it all.
Catherine Ingram - The thing I remember most about reading Catherine’s book “Passionate Presence” is the quote, “Just this.” It gave me a new felt understanding of what presences is all about.
http://www.dharmadialogues.org
Bentinho Massaro - Bentinho is a very young man with a great deal of joy that he exudes in the rapidly growing number of videos he’s putting out there. Check out his website as well as You Tube.
Benjamin Smythe - His message is simple, “You’re Perfect.” He has a great sense of humor about everything and is very reassuring about the fact that you can’t do this life thing wrong. Check out his quotes and videos.
http://www.benjamintsmythe.com
Rupert Spira - Rupert uses the direct approach of experiencing what’s here, now. He has a lot of questions answered on his website, as well as video inteviews.
http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/page.aspx
Though there are a whole host of teachers out of India, my studies have been with mostly Western teachers and I am only familiar with a few from the East. I can safely say that the words of the following teachers have been of great use to me. They are also some of the most well-known sages of the 20th century. They have all passed away now, but all of them have left behind a legacy that will continue to influence many generations to come. I’ve included some web sites to use as starting points, which have links to countless other sites out there for each. I’m sure you will find some powerful quotes that will resonate with you.
Sri Ramana Maharshi - The Father of Self Inquiry himself. All paths lead here. “Who am I?”
http://www.nonduality.com/ramana.htm
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj - The original stand as Awareness man. “I Am That.”
http://www.nonduality.com/nisarga.htm
HWL Poonja (Papaji) - Known for saying, “Call off the search. Stop. Be still.”
David Hawkins - I owe David a big thank you for the guidance I needed when I first started looking for answers to life’s big questions. His book, “Power vs. Force” was the first book I read on enlightenment, and it really cracked open my mind. I was hooked, and read all seven of his books (he has written more since then). I also joined a Hawkins discussion group, met lots of great people, and eventually found all of these other great teachers. I drifted away from his teachings after discovering Tolle, and never really looked back. One of the faults I found in David’s teaching was that he made it seem as if obtaining enlightenment was damn near impossible (and very painful). It also seemed to me like David’s writing was becoming more unnecessarily political, which is when I knew I had gotten all I could get out of his teachings.
There are several other websites that serve as reliable resources for people wanting to find out more about different teachers. Though this isn’t an all inclusive list, I am familiar enough with these sites to recommend them. Just like any other search, one page leads to another, and another, and you always find just what you need at just the right time.
Satsang Teachers - I have to recommend this website because it led me to discover several lesser known teachers that I probably never would have found otherwise. There are a rapidly growing number of teachers out there, and this site is designed to be a calendar listing for all of the ones that are currently active. I can’t vouch for all of the ones listed, but I know at least a dozen of them from personal experience and am reassured that they are doing some sort of screening before listing them.
http://www.satsangteachers.com
Here are a few other sites of interest. If you have more teachers to recommend or resources you would like to share with others, feel free to write a reply comment to this blog post.
© 2011 Howard McQueen
REPEATING PATTERNS
© 2011 Howard McQueen
My behavior is disrespectful to myself when I:
- contribute to and sustain a relationship where mutual respect
is out-of-balance, and is not recognized consciously by all parties, as the
most important thing to strive for.
- believe that I can nuture a loving relationship with anything less than
honesty.
- attempt to control someone else's behavior believing they or their behavior will make
me whole.
- believe I can actually grow by sedating and manipulating myself
Repeating Patterns
Until we recognize them,
we will remain under-the-spell
of patterns that we perpetuate.
Perceive these patterns.
Invite into your awareness as expanding through your perception,
Put forth an willingness to not become micro-focused with any specific character (such as a key perpetrator, or yourself or another as a primary victim)
or any recurring symptom (such as an ever-declining amount of money, I’m being evicted again, I’ve crashed and burned again)
Open your awareness to gain a bit of distance from the epicenter of your anxiety.
Allow yourself to consider the possibility for a shift in your relationship with your circumstances.
Imagine how this would contribute to a lightening-up of your burden, a lightness returning to your being.
Believe it or not, you are the ONLY Experiencer, the ONLY Witness to your own personal and unique experiences with the external world.
It is YOU, what you perceive, the judgments you make, the choices you make, that make you the Gatekeeper to everything you experience with the outside world,
The ever-changing, constantly in flux,
sometimes beautiful, sometimes calm,
sometimes frightening,
never stable-for-long external world.
Everything you experience in this outside world
lands inside your inner world.
You are the Steward of this inner world.
It is in this inner world that you, and me, and everyone else is invited to
ultimately face up to - the challenge to forge our intentions and responses to the external world.
We’ve tried withdrawing
We’ve tried hiding.
We’ve tried becoming angry and mad.
We’ve enjoyed brief islands of peace, calm and the deep affection of others.
Our pattern we are each familiar with is that
We are disturbed that our experience is always interrupted,
those we love fall into confusion
and are distracted and fade away from us
or yanked away
some (and way too many these days)
never returning
:-(
This is the external world experience we all, in unique and common ways, share.
We all live among the great suffering in the external world.
We need not suffocate in this suffering or embrace the patterns leading to victimhood and our disempowerment.
This inner world is our deepest dreaming.
You and I, we are the Keepers of our Dream.
It is this inner dream that you have complete stewardship of.
Put your energy, your nourishing, your love on the steward of your inner dream,
and allow the external world to be however it is going to be.
Draft Version 1.1 | December 22, 2011
© 2011 Howard McQueen
I’ve struggled with three bouts of anxiety this past week, after having a relatively anxiety free three months.
When I speak of bouts-of-anxiety, I mean that I feel dramatically depressed.
I withdraw.
I want to go hide.
I don’t want to be bothered.
I don’t feel like I have any confidence to face the world.
I am learning that the prelude to anxiety, feeling anxious, is a recognizable early warning sign. When I recognize it, I become alert to how easy it is for me to loose my ability to remain anchored in the present moment and centered in my body.
Anxiety, for me, is a numbing-down of my body and my mind. My rational mind is distracted out of the present moment and drawn into an old, well played out pattern.
This pattern has physical, emotional and mental components, making it a “believable” substitute for what is really going on. Here is the enticement each component offers to seduce me away from what is real:
Physical: The gut of my stomach feels tense and my stomach churns and becomes painfully sore.
Emotional: I becomes confused and stop feeling my real emotions and just seem to become stuck in numbing uneasiness. There is a sense of dread, a sort of paranoia that everything has become and will continue to become very unsafe.
Mental: I inwardly focus on the pain in my stomach (which is real) and the numbness damps down my senses and my perspectives on the outside world. I begin to think (and believe) that I am incapable of responding to whatever challenges will be presented, especially if (and when) they become increasingly risky and threatening.
As a result of buying into this alternative reality of anxiousness, I will withdraw into myself and not want anyone to bother me. I will begin acting brittle and if my wife asks any questions which disturb me, I will eventually snap at her like a petulant, rebellious and disrespectful fourteen year old.
My behavior makes others feel unsafe and not want to be around me. I hold as important goals in my life’s work to become increasingly intimate with myself and others and to bring into the world an expanding and deepening sense of community and sharing and a sense of gusto and celebration.
With some hard love and compassion from my wife and my men’s group, I’ve learned more about what goes on inside me to allow this anxiety to bloom and create separation within me and with those I love.
Anxiousness (pre-anxiety) is an early warning sign. More in this shortly.
Anxiety (the numbness) is a result of some inner tapes running within me, reminding me of prior experiences when I was overwhelmed. When I translate the messages into words these are powerful blame and shame statements, which repeat, over and over
You are Overwhelmed!
You won’t be able to measure up!
You can’t finish anything!
You’re stupid!
You’ll fuck it up!
My numbness stems from being confused and therefore unaware that these messages have been actively running (perhaps for a few minutes, or less) and are being seriously believed by my lower-level awareness. My rational mind had yet to arrive on the scene and begin to dispel these beliefs.
My return to health (and my current secure reality) is to first confront these messages and recover my presence. I as I do this, I can quickly challenge these lower-level beliefs and dispel them as untrue in my current external reality. I do this by making conscious acknowledgements inwardly, sometimes outwardly to my wife and friends.
I am not dumb or stupid
I am capable
I do finish things
I’ve created a wonderful existence, where nothing in my life is threatening
I then am freed of the numbness and can feel my real emotions, which are shame, fear and a sense of being powerless (to the point of feeling paralyzed). By reconnecting to my real emotions, it is like they come out of an anesthetic fog and back into the warmth of sunshine. My emotions fill up with confidence and my anxiety dissolves.
By the way, while I am in the state of anxiety, I have used the words “my anxiety” in a way that feels like I am on a first name kind-of-friendship with Mr. Anxiety. Hmmmm.
I am remembering the movie “A Beautiful Mind”, in which the main character’s mind invents then invests in several fictional characters that keep him company in college. He then believes them to be completely real and follows them into a fictional world, leaving his wife and real world without any of his presence. He becomes obsessed to the point of being hospitalized. His path back toward’s health and relationship is to confront his mind-made characters with compassion and conviction and advise them that he will henceforth no longer be conversing with them and will be ignoring them.
Like the main character in the movie, I need only bring my awareness to my anxiousness (before it blooms into anxiety), so that when the tapes first begin to play, I can say “Hello old acquaintance, I won’t be buying into your fiction any longer. I’ll be ignoring you now and every time you start playing your tapes. You no longer hold any fascination or power over me.”
Acknowledging our past pain and trauma
Once upon a time
and on several other times
In my childhood and youth
I was caught in the web of surprise
and overwhelmed
and felt so very vulnerable and scared.
Not knowing what to do,
I stored my pain and fear into my stomach
then escaped into my mind.
As I grew past puberty
I learned new strategies to try to cover over my fear:
I could be invisible and hide
I could be proactively angry and try to intimidate
I could just be any combination of passive-aggressive
reactivity to externalize my anxiety.
Until I begin to realize that the wounds of my past, are like the experiences we’ve all had. These wounds I’ve been incubating and harboring will keep returning,
Not to haunt me in a malicious way,
but to give me the opportunity
to call upon my awareness
and shine the spotlight
on the inner machinery manufacturing all the judgments and lies.
It is the healing, not haunting
that keeps calling for my loving attention.
Ahhh.
To be kind and compassionate under stress
is to see our stress for what it is:
- Sometimes an opportunity to grow-up
- Sometimes an opportunity to man-up
- And sometimes an opportunity to just stand up and
dispel the inner lying machinery
we’ve spent so many years powering up.
In preparing for the holidays, we’ve been putting up decorations, lights, a tree, etc. We didn’t do much of this last year because of my wife’s health and the pregnancy related complications leading up to Christmas, so it was important for us to get some of this done early this year. Shelby decided she wanted some outdoor ornaments (some lighted balls), which proved to be hard to find. We went to half a dozen stores looking for just the right thing, but we never found what she wanted and ended up buying the materials at a craft store that would come close to replicating it.
During this shopping excursion, which seemed to last many hours stretched over two days, I found myself being negative and feeling a bit put out by having to drive around town and browse stores during a busy holiday weekend. I was trying not to complain, but I felt like I had been taken over by this entity of unhappiness and couldn’t snap out of it (often referred to by Eckhart Tolle as the pain body). I would periodically become aware of my unconsciousness, but it didn’t do any good. In fact, noticing my unconscious behavior seemed to frustrate me even more. I was negatively judging myself for being negative, and the vicious cycle of judgment had begun.
There I was, the guy who likes to write about how perfect things are, and how all suffering is self-induced, etc., and yet I seemed stuck in a stereotypical male role of following my wife around a store with my hands in my pockets, feigning interest in things she pointed out, hoping that it would be over soon. The underlying dis-ease came from a desire to be somewhere else, and the desire not to spend too much money on this project (a good example of how desire is at the root of all evil ;-). I could periodically see myself in that disgruntled role, implying that there was at least a glimmer of consciousness shining through, but not enough to break free of the spell.
When I checked in with my body, I noticed I was feeling fatigued and wondered if my physical state was contributing to my psychological state. Which came first? The physical dis-ease or the psychological manifestation of negativity? While I was looking for something to blame for my bad mood, I remembered a quote from A Course in Miracles, “I could be seeing Peace instead of this.” I knew from past experience that this was true, but I couldn’t see it in this particular circumstance.
I finally had a moment of clarity and remembered that acceptance of one’s own resistance is necessary when you find yourself in a situation that seems unacceptable. I would usually associate this measure (of accepting one’s inability to accept something) with a much more serous life situation, such as great suffering, illness, etc., rather than a trip to a busy shopping center, but to each his or her own.
Upon this re-realization, I reassured myself that it was completely okay for me to feel stressed, bitchy, etc. In effect, I forgave myself for my own non-acceptance (and for being a bit of a jerk). After that it felt like a weight had been lifted. I was able to relax a bit simply by being okay with my own resistance, and, interestingly enough, when you’re okay with not being okay, everything feels okay :-)
This re-discovery of the power of acceptance didn’t occur until near the end of our shopping excursion, and a nice scenic drive home helped round out what was an enlightening day of doing things that I didn’t want to do, but had to be done. I share this with you, knowing that it may damage your opinion of me, in hopes that it may help you get through the holiday season in One Peace.
(c) 2011 Howard McQueen
May you be blessed with the ability to breathe it all in:
- the bitterness of disconnection and disappointment
- the fiery resentment of betrayal and injustice
- the fear and anxiety of bouts with uncertainty
- ...
And, may you also breathe it all out:
- the fellowship of fondness felt with others and yourself
- the gentleness and patience with others and yourself
- a deep love for nature and the wilderness that you uncover within
And, through the years,
as you allow all this breathing in and out to mix within,
may you find your way
through the darkness and light of each and every day
and process all that you experience
till it deepens and the roots of peace spread and grow within.
(c) 2011 Howard McQueen
Version 2.0
(c) 2011 Howard McQueen
We carry the burdens of experiences
where we had expectations for unconditional love.
Instead, and to our surprise,
what we received and internalized
were infectious conditions,
the self-inflictions of others mixed in with their attempts to love.
As beings conceived to thrive on unconditional love,
these infections, conveyed to another open to love,
expose those we love to a broad spectrum of
cultural and personal MENTAL ILLNESS [1].
Such is the nature of some of our experiences
with the external world.
We endeavor to love and to expect love from others.
We too have fallen short of giving unconditional love,
and we have infected others.
And, suffering is reflected outwardly into the world.
The next opportunity,
and every opportunity to love,
exercise your capacity to love without conditions.
Then, when this unconditional love arrives at your threshold,
fully receive and appreciate the quality,
frequency and texture of love.
Usher this love into your kingdom within.
Let this love thoroughly mingle and mix
with the memorized infections of the past.
Now, rest within your kingdom
till you are ready to throw open all the gates
and celebrate the eternal grace of Love's healing
all your space
and
all your time.
Love does not request that we forget.
Love invites us to connect, understand and accept.
Then our courage is informed
and we stand firmly in love,
serving love and demonstrating love.
And we stand ready to assist others ready to also become unburdened.
[1] Receiving the infections of others
and spreading our own infections,
i.e. loving imperfectly, conditionally
creates suffering.
It would seem that the existence of suffering also create the space to
learn to love more and more deeply,
to voluntarily release our conditions to loving ourselves and others?
We are challenged time and again to risk loving others.
When we choose not to risk loving,
we often find ourselves in an increasingly disconnected state,
numbed to the world.
Many of us know friends or have ex-lovers and spouses
And/or have children with a more extreme clinically labeled mental illness.
Many blessings to all of you.
Dear Friend,
You are often in my thoughts.
You should know that I believe you to be more than resilient and capable
in forging and uncovering your way through your current, stressful circumstances.
.
As I feel into and sense future outcomes,
I believe you will be utterly surprised as to how
heart-connected you will be living your life.
.
.
Now, what that means (you will be) giving up /
surrendering to ... (is up to you ...)
Love,
Howard
© 2011 Howard McQueen
These are clarifying times.
These are times to "step up" or "step out".
These are times for many of us to step off the fence
of confusion and uncertainty and respond to our deeper callings.
This is especially true for those of us stepping up to a leadership
calling within our communities.
Let this time of contraction not become hijacked
by the overwhelming fears of self-interest.
Let this become a time for focusing concentration,
for bringing forward a clarified essence.
What legacy do you and your communities most desire to nourish,
to encourage to survive and thrive?
What some people see as a harsh,
destructive winter’s ice-storm,
the nighttime silence interrupted from the splinter and crack of majestic limbs;
others see as a natural pruning.
The destructive nature of fire,
now welcomed amidst the sequoia forests,
only recently recognized as essential to that ecosystem’s health and preservation.
In the spirit of collective accomplishment,
may your community and its precious heart-space
be guided by the courage of its members
to navigate a pathway of unity through this time of clarification and purification.
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands
e.e.cummings
© 2011 Howard McQueen
Idle conversation,
Just speaking to throw in your own ideas,
and not really listening to content and following a thread,
can lead to confusion,
can lead to others not feeling heard.
And folks either need to risk repeating themselves,
or they decide to risk asking you “are you not listening?”.
When we really listen,
when something of real value is needing to be conveyed,
let us empty ourselves of needing to be so focused on crafting a response
and just listen.
Then, being better informed, we can join in and then decide what, if anything, needs to be said.
This listening creates an inner pause for the ego
and respects the fact that in order to be in partnership and relationship with others,
the best way to accomplish this is to be present and listen with your entire being.
(C) 2011 Howard McQueen
Every thought deemed disagreeable,
every thought deemed desirable
emanates from the inner, mental judge.
Installed very early in life,
the judge is conditioned to expect drama,
expects to have the courtroom schedule fully booked.
To sustain this virtual courtroom,
a host of other internal mental characters are empowered: detectives, witnesses - and an extensive lexicon of injustices is empowered.
And this is just the beginning of this virtual reality.
As we interact with others, we swap our judgment-based,
injustice-laden experiences.
Powerful archetypel pairs come alive: victim-perpetrator, heroine/villan, ...
Society at large has ways of dealing with what officials would label "deep unrest".
Laws are crafted.
Sentences created.
Therapies made available.
Prisons constructed.
An entire penal system is funded and grows, year-by-year, by leaps and bounds.
Many injustices catch the wind of the media and are spread wide and far.
Political campaigns promise to make americans safe.
What began as a inner virtual courtroom "infection" in the mind has become so wide-spread and pervasive that it becomes an accepted norm, a mass hallucination.
And it all begins by installing the inner judge.
The judge exists and thrives on conflict.
The judge exists to mete out justice.
And we call this Justice?
~ ~ ~
The work of this inner judge virus is done when one of us begins to construe life and their experiences with life as the perpetrator and cast themselves in the role of victim.
This is the ultimate self-sabotage of our identity, when we turn the fire hose of
of blame, shame inwardly.
You are a loving human being. Suffering has the very real appearance of being everywhere (external). That this appears as a reality or the predominate reality does not mean that you need to continue empowering your own version of the inner judge.
Dismiss your own inner courtroom,
just for a minute,
an hour,
a day,
and then pause to witness your suffering begin to melt away.
