“Remember the emphasis on the heart. The mind lives in doubt and the heart lives in trust. When you trust, suddenly you become centered.” ~ Osho

With the “holidays” here everyone is excited for all the easy going pleasure that comes with it. You know; shopping, overeating, overspending, mistreatment of self, mistreatment of others, family fueled triggers, emotional crash once the day is over, longing for something or someone, feeling physically sick, exhausted, negative judgment of self for all of the above ……woo hoo!

If you are you still going through the same motions of existing and still avoiding the emotions of living then perhaps it’s time for a change. Buddha said start where you are which in other words means you can begin at any moment in time to shift the patterns that no longer serve you by recognizing them, not judging them or yourself, and feeling for the roots of them.

 
Perhaps you only felt loved if you received something new or if you did something for someone else. Perhaps it’s about filling up with food or drink to continue to numb from your pains. Whatever it is it’s rooted in childhood patterns of sadness ingrained in you since birth. It doesn’t mean that you have to be ruled by these patterns for the rest of your life.

 
Begin with noticing your patterns and feel which ones haven’t and still don’t serve your heart, spirit, mind, and body. Then begin to make a small shift towards feeling the root of it. As I’ve said it’s from childhood. With patience and practice you can begin to notice and breathe through the discomfort of not continuing your same old patterns. This is how you can begin to create new patterns that are conscious and healthy and kind to yourself. Pay attention to your mind because it will do everything it can to convince you to continue on your same old same old but your heart and spirit are your true guides so trust in it and understand that it will be against your grain of existing to do so but also be clear that the your old ways of operating haven’t been very fortuitous for you. Wishing you peace, love, friendship, and joy.

Namaste
Ian 

Pema Chodron’s book The Places That Scare You, A Guide To Fearlessness In Difficult Times was a good tool of many to help me heal my heart.

Life’s yoga is a practice.With each breath and awareness you can practice. She has wonderful YouTube videos and albums to download on Spotify…..

She is funny and puts things in a way that makes sense. Perhaps it’s time for you to read.  Namaste

HEAVEN AND HELL
“There’s another story that you may have read that has to do with what we call heaven and hell, life and death, good and bad. It’s a story about how those things don’t really exist except as a creation of our own minds. It goes like this: A big burly samurai comes to the wise man and says, “Tell me the nature of heaven and hell.” And the roshi looks him in the face and says: “Why should I tell a scruffy, disgusting, miserable slob like you?” The samurai starts to get purple in the face, his hair starts to stand up, but the roshi won’t stop, he keeps saying, “A miserable worm like you, do you think I should tell you anything?” Consumed by rage, the samurai draws his sword, and he’s just about to cut off the head of the roshi. Then the roshi says, “That’s hell.” The samurai, who is in fact a sensitive person, instantly gets it, that he just created his own hell; he was deep in hell. It was black and hot, filled with hatred, self-protection, anger, and resentment, so much so that he was going to kill this man. Tears fill his eyes and he starts to cry and he puts his palms together and the roshi says, “That’s heaven.”
 

Knowing what you know is just knowledge.
Learning from what you know is wisdom.

~Ian J Sveilich

 

It’s scary to let go of what you know but the consequences are always the same, cloaked in different experiences which are meant to be lessons. Each time you hold onto the same fears you are feeding your mind’s negative influence on your spirit. The minute you let go and jump into unknowing is the moment when life can unfold for you as it’s supposed to and not the way you think it should. Life is flow and you may not always understand or like it but by learning to trust the flow will open you to a way of being you have only dreamed of. It is only by breaking new ground that you can sow seeds of love to grow and transform your way of being.

I grasped to life fearing change and it was only when I became heartbroken to bits did my shattered pieces have an opportunity to become a mosaic of beauty, peace, love, no fear, and no worry.Take a slow breath and feel into your heart; is it peaceful and content or  is it fearful and worried? You always have a choice. Close your eyes, slow inhale. …pause…..slow exhale;  three times
namaste

The difference between a reaction and a response is a breath. When you recognize that your buttons are being pushed, you’re getting fired up, or feeling attacked you have an opportunity to stop, take a breath, and choose whether or not you want to respond and if it’s your stuff or just the other person throwing theirs at you. Don’t judge yourself if you bite on the hook but instead learn to recognize the patterns and in time you will become less reactive. Slow inhale, pause, slow exhale;  three times.

I have learned to welcome all feelings with a willing and vulnerable heart. This process of allowing permits my heart/spiritual “muscle” to become more supple and strong through micro-tearing of my spiritual fibers and re-growing with more ability to flex with the discomfort and life’s waves that come at me. Just as the ocean depths are always calm when the tops are turbulent waves in a  hurricane I have learned to become comfortable with change and know peace. By recognizing that life is what it is and not what I think it should be and accepting that there is a flow to it that I might not necessarily like or understand and still trust it I am able to not become attached to the noise that my mind can create. To be okay with impermanence is to know peace. You can do the same with practice.

Slow inhale, pause, slow exhale; three times.  namaste

How we perceive is based on our filters. You are who you are but that isn’t really who you are. The patterns that keep you stuck in your existence have been with you since childhood and that doesn’t mean that you have to be imprisoned in them for the rest of your days. Fear is the great unmotivator as it keeps hold of your mind and body and rules your actions and reactions. Fear of abandonment, being loved or not loved, being good enough, fear of being alone, fear of feeling sadness or pain, fear of…… We all relate to fear but few of us relate to peace through love. It is something we think we know (in our minds) but don’t truly feel in our hearts because if we know peace through love then we don’t know fear anymore. Every time you try to suppress the “bad, sad” feelings they manifest in some other self defeating way. My friend Charlie once said that no feeling is good or bad or right or wrong but if you find it doesn’t serve you anymore maybe you will make a shift, or maybe you won’t. Whenever you do something that is rushed or panic driven then it is from fear and doesn’t usually work out in your best interest. Right? So the next time you feel driven to do such a thing, try to take three slow breaths (slow inhale, pause, slow exhale) and feel what you should do instead of what your mind thinks you should do. This is a practice in developing heart guided living instead of fear motivated existing. namaste