I am so inspired by Julia of PaintedPath.org, and when she posted this incredible poem, I couldn’t wait to share it with you.
How beautiful, how perfect, how true. How many external places do we look before we find the treasure within? Please, let’s stop wasting our lives looking elsewhere.
Do what you love.
It’s within you.
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I am so grateful to have the honor of being a mother. My daughter has taught me so much in these 3 months, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to thank her, just for being her.
To all mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day! You are amazing and wonderful and strong beyond measure. I honor you.
Love you dearly,
Belle
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“When Hoitsu Suzuki-roshi went out for a smoke one day, Sojun Weitsman’s little boy asked him, “Roshi, what are you doing?” This is the ultimate Zen question you have to ask yourselves, “What are you doing? What’s going on?” If you do this, you will begin to not accept habit or impulse as your way of life.”
-Jakusho Kwong Roshi
What are you doing? How about now?
This is a profound question.
I find it goes perfectly with, “What do I really want to do right now?”
When I ask these two questions, my life changes. I move into a place of power. I’m no longer floating through life mindlessly, I’m actively creating my day. My moment. My entire life.
I’ve put them both in a printable PDF for you. Put these somewhere you’ll see them often (I have them on my desktop) and enjoy your new, fun life!
Click here to download the PDF.
Love,
Belle
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Mindfulness seems easy when everyone is getting along. We surround ourselves with amazing people, we love and are loved, and things momentarily feel great. Then “real life” swoops in, and people come into our lives that aren’t as easy to love. They say things that hurt our feelings, or worse, incite our anger and disturb our inner peace.
We live in a society that tells us the only thing we can do is defend ourselves. We believe we are being attacked! And the other person is mean! (Or wrong, or…)
We look at the other person as “out there” and “not us”, forgetting that they’re simply a mirror of ourselves.
When someone is attacking you, they’re not. We only perceive it that way. They’re attacking the part of themselves they don’t like (and have probably disowned) and call it “you”.
If you feel the need to defend yourself, something’s wrong.
Not with the person attacking you, but with your thinking. Your feeling. Your thoughts are out of alignment. You’re in ego.
When you defend yourself, you’re disowning that part of your humanness.
We all have every quality, good and bad, in our humanness, in our soul’s “human layer.” but our human layer is not WHO we are. It’s just a part of our experience.
We’re walking mirrors. We show each other our own truths, our own humanness. When we defend ourselves, we’re denying our authenticity. We’re being fake- but more importantly, when we’re busy defending ourselves, we can’t see that the other person is hurting. We take ourselves out of the present and into the past or the metaphorical future. “That wasn’t my intention!” and “you don’t know the whole story!” are defenses that deny the fact that the accuser is hurting. Even, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” is a defense that can be dispensed with. Instead, we can hold space NOW, have compassion NOW, and say, “I’m so sorry you’re hurting.”
So how do we deal with perceived attacks? How do we navigate this sometimes scary world without being hurt?
How to Be Defenseless:
1. Recognize your defenses. Who do you often feel defensive around? For me, I have a close family member who loves to “push my buttons.” I find myself justifying my actions, explaining myself, feeling on edge and defensive. Just noticing that I felt that way was a huge step for me. Make a list of the people you feel defensive around. You’re about to create an amazing new way of relating to them so you don’t feel attacked anymore.
2. Associate feeling defensive with the Ego. The ego doesn’t want us to die- its purpose is to help us stay alive. Sometimes, in our very luxurious, safe world, the ego goes into overdrive and tries to protect us when it actually hinders us. Seeing a bear in the woods is a good time to feel defensive. Talking to a coworker is not. Know that there is no REAL threat to you, only to your ego, and when we’re truly present and aware, we recognize that the ego is not us, just a part of our humanness that we have the power to bypass.
3. Stay present. We want to defend the past and predict the future. We want to paint ourselves as rosy and good and charming. We want, we want, we want. None of this matters, and being defensive only puts you firmly into “what if” and builds a high wall around you to keep you there. This moment is all that matters. Someone is speaking to you, and you’re responding with compassion. That is all there is right now. Don’t slip off into the past or future, STAY HERE.
4. Admit your humanness. We all have every characteristic known to man. All of us. When we own those things we don’t like, they lose their power over us. A defensive person has no power. Only someone not engaged in the fight at all has power, and that is the creative power of the universe. When you’re defensive, you’re not creating the life you want; you’re defending the past! When you’re defensive you’re not creating beauty, you’re imagining pain. Admitting our humanness takes us out of the “war” and into peace.
5. Turn your focus back to the person speaking to you. What we perceive as an attack on us is actually unhappiness within the speaker. This is a profound truth that will change your life if you let it. Ask yourself, “where is the unhappiness here? How are they projecting outward what they feel inside?” this will open your heart to brave, world-changing compassion. World-changing.
When you can look at those around you with this compassion, you’ll be free.
How would you rather feel? Defensive, or peaceful?
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“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” -Buddha
“A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.” -Mahatma Gandhi
“Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.” -Napoleon Hill
Everything you have thought created who you are now.
Everything you’re thinking now is unfolding who you are, moment by moment.
Your thoughts are who you are.
Your thoughts are creating you. [Read more…]
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Belle’s note: This post is a very important building block to increasing your self-worth, which I’ll be talking about a lot more in the coming weeks. (Hint: your self-worth is inextricably linked to your self-wealth.) Do the exercises and you’ll begin to see how worthy you really are.
Are you getting the appreciation you deserve? We often want others to appreciate us. We want to be noticed for our efforts, rewarded for our hard work, and simply appreciated for who we are.
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You’ll never become the person you want to be if you don’t get clear on what that person looks like. As you know, holding a mental image of what we want with the intention of making it true in our lives produces powerful results.
“[I]ntention increases the probability of affecting physical matter.” -Scott Jeffrey, Creativity Revealed
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What do you think is the most valuable thing in your life? Is it your family, friends? Your memories? Your values? Your kindness? Your health?
While all of these are valuable to us, they’re not the most important. We could live without all of them, though it might be painful.
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We’ve all been there. Someone near and dear to us says something that cuts us to the quick. Our hearts ache, our stomach falls, and we blink back tears. How could they possibly have said that to me?
Often, it’s those closest to us that have the ability to hurt us the worst. So often I’ve heard, “but s/he knows how I feel about that!” or “I’ve told him/her a hundred times that hurts my feelings!”
Because we perceive those injustices as so much worse, we allow them to make us feel awful.
Fortunately, we all have the ability to stop mean people in their tracks- instantly.
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We are, by our very nature, creative. Creativity flows through us constantly. Yet when we strain and struggle to be creative, we’re only creating strain and struggle.
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