Posts made in June, 2011

Frolicking In Regret!

Posted by admin on Jun 18, 2011 in Mindfulness, Play | 0 comments

I was getting ready to leave my kids for a week to attend a workshop/retreat of sorts and my mind was on a million other things that needed to get done.  That being said, I was everywhere but where I most needed to be in those precious few moments I had with my children before our 7 day break.  They wanted my attention. I grudgingly pretended to give it to them while trying to be in 10 different places physically and about a million different places in my “head” as I tried to get things “done”.   Kids are smart and they soon figured out that mommy was no fun to be around tonight and slowly they drifted off to sleep sprawled across my bed in positions that resembled a lopsided Lego creation.

A Bit About Me

Posted by admin on Jun 15, 2011 in ABOUT, About Me, Myself, I..., Intro | 0 comments

SO…

Writing about me is a bit tough.  There are huge parts of me (some not yet even discovered) that rebel at the idea of being defined…even if it is me who is doing the defining.  I have commitment issues! I know!

A formal description of me would go something like this…

A Self realized survivor of childhood, currently breaking through old and outdated beliefs, false and made up  delusions about true happiness, joy and all the other mushy stuff fed to me by well meaning caregivers and  OTHER  not-so-well meaning “others” who will remain anonymous to protect those who still believe in delusions.  A one-time reveller in the artificial joys, petty politics and self-lobbying to position yourself as a particular type of brand propaganda…

Actually I am not so formal. I can sometimes take myself a bit too seriously and I love to write with bullets every chance I get…like below:

• You might have guessed I am no longer in the corporate world.  I enjoyed a healthy and enjoyable career being part of “that” world for the first 15 or so years of my professional life. I learnt many things about myself and others and the world during this time.  The irony is that much of my understanding and growth and processing of this experience came after I left this world…more on this below!
• A teacher came knocking. I ignored her for a while but she persisted. Wouldn’t stop hollering until one day I had to pay attention.  Oh yeah…her name was Ms. Malady. I won’t spare you with all the details of the particulars of the ailments that she brought as gifts right now. More on that later…

• I quickly found out that there are professions out there with good people who make it their business to put you in boxes and give you labels and pills with fancy names that I know is making a lot of other people rich. I refused to take them but more importantly I refused the labels…even some pretty interesting ones that promised me that I could take the next number of years “turned off”, lying on a couch in my living room pretending to get better.

• I have fantasies of running away from home and going to some Zen monastery somewhere that also has a secret passageway to a tropical island with a fiver star resort just in case I change my mind about the Zen thing! Did I mention that I have trouble committing …er…making up my mind …sometimes…

• I have two kids I adore who are my own little Zen masters who won’t have me going anywhere, anytime soon. You may come to hear of them as my own version of Disney’s Mulan and Mushu most of the time… unless I forget and just reveal their names.  They can live in their bubble for a little bit longer and not be pulled into their mother’s rantings.

• I have a husband who I also adore…most of the time. Sometimes a few of my not so awakened characters take over and I am convinced he is oh SO NOT enlightened as me!

• In my healing journey shall we say…I discovered this thing called Mindfulness.  So now I sit and attempt to meditate and my kids sit in a lotus position and tease me while they chant, “hmmmmmmmm.”  Really, this thing I call my, “Practice” with a capital P has changed my life.  Basically I am a lot nicer to be around, I smile more and I am learning to see more clearly although I still wear glasses…you know…the other kind of seeing. If you don’t get it, never mind and skip to the next bullet except I will often write about Mindfulness here because it changed my life etc. etc.

• I have this insane desire to be heard and known for all that is inside of me that wants to come out in words and thoughts and other crazy written things that sometimes I rush out of the shower to write down cause I know I will forget after I get out of the shower!
• BUT, since I am not quite as comfortable with this being seen and heard thing and recognize other parts of me who can imagine some friends sitting at Starbucks, reading my posts and laughing out loud that I would ever write such things while at the same time texting and tweeting the links to their million other friends…I will keep myself tucked behind this sassy looking logo. This is a temporary measure for I know one day the parts of me who DO want to be seen and heard will be stronger and louder than the parts that care about what other people think.
• I now believe that every encounter and experience we might label significant or insignificant makes us who we are and hold the potential for who we are becoming.  My own life experiences, some of which were extremely painful have have left their own imprint on my soul. My work over the past number of years has been healing the hurt , and facing the inner demons with strength and courage.  While this work of journeying inwards is anything but glamorous,  my own experience continues to teach me that it is the ONLY way to freedom!

• Oh yeah!  Some of the dark stuff you might see in my writing at times… is neither good nor bad. It’s just stuff that’s been buried for too long that needs to come out. Better out than in!  I’ve just taken off the lid to create a bit of space…breathing room for everything dark, light and in-between to be there as long as it need to for I know…this too shall pass.

That’s it for now! I might add more later…

August 11, 2011 Update – See Post called Being Seen and Coming Clean – About Me Part II for this next part of my journey!

Searching 4 What?

Posted by admin on Jun 6, 2011 in Intro, Searching, Searching 4 Something | 0 comments

It only makes sense that one of my first few blogs should be about searching.

Sure, but what does it all mean?  Searching 4 Something? Who is searching and for what?  To be honest, I don’t have a universal answer. I don’t by any means profess to be any kind of expert on the topic of searching. There are many “experts” past and present who have written extensively on the topic of humanity’s search for meaning in life, for love, happiness, for answers to life’s important and not so important questions.  In this very moment, I foresee this blog being about my own stories.  Ones documenting my adventures in the internal and external worlds I play in.  Having learned some lessons recently on impermanence, I recognize that this too may change. My intentions for this blog, what I may want to write about, the lenses that I use to view and make sense of my world are all changing as I even write this.  I don’t have a fancy GPS guiding my journey.  Just an old fashioned internal compass that I am still learning how to fine tune!

It is my humble opinion based on my own experience as well as the stories I have heard and observed of fellow travelers… that many of us do indeed at times go on a quest of sorts.  Some life event happens to us and takes us by surprise. Maybe it affects our health, affects our family, our community; that sparks a question or a subtle change in us.  Perhaps an inner nagging that something or everything in our life does not fit quite as nicely as we were used to anymore. A new car, house, re-decorating the living room again just doesn’t seem to give any real lasting pleasure. Artificial and superficial conversations about the weather, the plans for the weekend or any other topic seem to have lost its allure.  So either at a conscious or unconscious level, we start looking for answers, explanations or even just a temporary stopgap. Sometimes stopgaps, which the dictionary defines as an improvised substitute for something lacking, are necessary as a means to survival.  Watching hours of television re-runs, staring at the inside of an open refrigerator for the 10^th time in an hour,  re-organizing the insides of all my closets and sleeping have all been familiar friends for me on this journey.

Meeting discontent and emptiness at the crucial intersections of life can be tough.  We can and do struggle, grasping at anything to find firm grounding, even a häagen daz ice cream bar at times!

This is my very real journey. I am learning to live it moment by moment. The somewhat anal retentive parts of me want to quickly organize my life into neat little stories in chronological order. But life is messy and it does not quite work that way. At least my life does not.  I have discovered that “linear paths” do not exist all too often.  Time and life have been great teachers in showing me the beauty in my very own “non-linear” path towards searching for meaning and wholeness.

In my own journey I am still learning  to listen and stop fighting the emptiness I feel inside and outside. I am stumbling, falling in holes for long and sometimes…more recently… shorter periods of times and learning to embrace it all. The emptiness, the sadness, the loneliness that remained even after I spent the afternoon at Starbucks with friends,  are all clues, vying for my attention.  When I remember to just “be” with the pauses in between the constant thinking and analyzing, then… the questions themselves  sometimes start to become markers and ignite and light within me a path that reveals this inner quest I find myself on.

These are my searching stories, my postcards on this quest. Happy travelling!

A Child’s Pain

Posted by admin on Jun 4, 2011 in Poetry | 0 comments

I hear you

You hate me
Your voice haunts me
Taunts me
Incessant

I cannot escape
Drowning in sounds of insults
Permeate
To depths unknown

My body, my limbs, my cells
My soul
Shrivels
Shrinking in despair

Hearing the only language ever known
Despised, Disgraced
Scared to the core

Spewing anger to disguise the pain
Staying distant
Safe

Knees drawn tight
Rocking
In pain
Terrified of monsters
Known and unknown

No escaping
Little legs cannot run fast enough
Nowhere to run
No one to run to
No hope for the young and innocent

Precious little one
I love you
But you do not believe me

A Cloud Passed By

Posted by admin on Jun 4, 2011 in Poetry | 0 comments

A cloud passed through as I sat today
I was just doing nothing when she came my way
She brought some tears as a gift to me
A gentle shower to set something free
Caught off guard, I wanted to think,
Analyze and configurize what it all meant
An then a wisdom set in and told me to stay
Not to hold on or try to figure it all away
So I stayed and let them flow
Freely they fell against my skin
And before I knew it, the visit was done
She didn’t stay long and that’s just fine
Perhaps she will visit again
Each visit makes me a better host!

Living Dread

Posted by admin on Jun 3, 2011 in Poetry | 0 comments

This morning I awoke,

To a thousand voices wailing songs of despair
Filled with dread and doom
I am gasping for air
Familiar this feeling I have felt
All these years my company they have kept

Life  equals darkness
I am alone and scared
The void has sucked me in
I am the living dead
Not noticed that I have been missing

Body here and soul lost
Walking in lands where joy does not dance
Where sweet birds do not sing
And the sun’s brightest rays cannot be seen

Eyes so blind
Choosing darkness over seeing pain
Beauty and happiness cannot enter in
Doors closed tight long ago

To find the way back
I don’t know that I am lost
Until the lost knows it’s lost
Lost cannot be found

A thousand voices wail and cry
Wait
The winds are changing
Barely a whisper
A promise of love
Only I can give myself
Not before but now willing

I stop. I listen. I cry
Feeling treacherous pain
It hurts, It hurts
To be here

Emptiness dries my tears
Dread and despair blanket me with warmth
I rest in their embrace
Sleeping for the first time

Renewed
I surface
Still scared but with sparking glimmers of hope
Now within my reach
To see the beauty that has always been
Here
Now
My eyes willing to see

My Take On Mindfulness

Posted by admin on Jun 1, 2011 in Intro, Mindfulness, Searching | 0 comments

Victor E. Frankl said it briefly. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response”.  This is the power of practising Mindfulness.  It’s a practice that allows one to harness the potency of the present moment and the growth that sprouts in cultivating that space. My take on this practice uses a few more words!