Categories Menu

What Question Are You Living Into?

The Buddhists have a meditative practice where they sit and ask the question, “who am I?” Once an individual has gone through their list of labels — mom, daughter, teacher, friend, woman, etc. what remains is that which is beyond definition; The ISNESS that IS. It is a great question to live into. Once beyond the form of life, we can access a Life Force and realize it is THAT which is alive. The Buddhists also have an inquiry process when it comes to emotions. It is called Taking the Seat. It is a practice I did for ten years anytime an emotional arose from within me. I would become an interviewer and question the emotion until I knew it so well that I had befriended it. The questions I asked included: “what is your color?” “what is your texture?” “where are you located in my body?” “what is my first memory of you?” “what is your temperature?” and after a series of questions I always ended with, “and...

Read More

Self Soothing Practices

    When your emotional body is overstimulated or out-of-whack what actions do you take to soothe yourself? If you aren’t conscious of your behavior, now may be the time to give yourself a look-see. I have my standard practices: Ground, breathe and become present. Meditate. Sit in affirmative prayer. Chant. Take a walk. Call a friend who loves me and reminds me of who I am. And, today I added a new one. Adult coloring. I know, I am late on the coloring train; yet I want to say that there is brain technology that supports my new-found self-soothing practice. Check this out…according to an article by Dr. Nikki Martinez in the Huffington Post there are seven benefits to adult coloring: It works with the subconscious to access information and become more self-aware. By concentrated focus it helps with many mental and emotional disorders. Returns us to a simpler time in our life. It utilizes advanced brain functions like organization and problem solving. Calm down parts of our brain that...

Read More

Looking at Self Esteem from a Different Angle

  Sunday’s sermon I gave was less a talk about the idea of God and more an experience of connecting directly with The Presence. The congregation’s response was lively and hugs were generously flowing as I left the building. In the direct heat of a 100 degree plus morning I was met by an older, stunningly beautiful woman standing next to my car in tears. “I have prayed for thirty years”, she said, “to meet you.” She continued saying she had actively prayed for three decades to see the vitality of God in someone’s eyes and today was the day and my eyes were the eyes. Flattered and humbled simultaneously, I listened to her story. Partway through it she said, “like everyone else, I have problems with self esteem.” I have taken to seeing the world and listening to people talk much like reading a good college textbook. I begin to see and hear some things as though nuggets of wisdom and insight are flying off the page requiring a...

Read More

If All is God…Then Why Beat Ourselves Up for How We Feel?

After my morning meditation, I turned on my computer to go through my emails. I found a blog I subscribe to where the writer felt much relief by admitting her relationship with her husband wasn’t going that well. She said the more friends she told, the more relief she felt and the more relief her friends experienced by admitting that marriage isn’t always perfect. I was struck by my perception that our culture does everything and anything, overall, to make certain emotions of ours unacceptable and wrong. Spiritual teachings tend to also do this. Many spiritual teachers suggest reaching for a higher emotion, as though the one we’re in is not holy. Others suggest certain emotions are not real, or are not of God. The small ‘t’ truth is the transitory nature of our being. As spiritual beings we are mind, emotions, body, and Spirit. Every intuitive teacher I have spoken with says they embraced all of their emotional registry as a way to access their intuition. Recovering addicts...

Read More

Sophy Burnham on Connecting with Our Intuitive Selves

The October 3rd post “Where has the Divine shown Itself to You Today?” was inspired by my phone conversation with author and mystic Sophy Burnham.  The two of us engaged in an hour-long conversation about the spiritual journey and intuition.  I wanted to know how intuition hooked up with emotions and how an I could cultivate a stronger intuitive knowing. “Intuition” Sophy says, “is really developed through empathy.”  “Empathy, however, is developed through knowing your own emotional self so you can see the emotional expressions in others.”  The right side of the brain, which hosts creativity, does not utilize language like the left side of the brain does.  Information comes through the right side through feelings and pictures.  Our left brain isn’t developed until we are five years old when reason and rationalization become developed.  In our culture, we tend to, then, value the left side of the brain and close down the access to our right side.  Both sides are necessary, and equally valuable.  When an individual is...

Read More