Things I'm thinking about just now:
Endurance - the strength and determination to withstand whatever life brings.
Perseverance - to keep trying despite reversals, disappointments and difficulties.
Resilience - the ability to recover from the above: reversals, disappointments and difficulties.
The desire for hope - a willingness to search for a connection to a higher power, to a source of energy that can move me forward.
Memory - a conscious cultivation of what has helped me in the past, to call up the times in the past when doors have opened for me.
Courage - the willingness, the determination to move beyond old habits and ways of thinking, onto a road I can barely see, heading for a destination hidden in the unknown.
Gratitude - the elegant cousin of acceptance, the way to open up to the universe.
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Friday, March 18, 2016
A SUBTLE SENSE OF HOPE
Yesterday, an opportunity to send my work out into the world came up. I felt a familiar flicker of excitement, but it was short lived - immediately an even more familiar voice said, no, that will never work, no point in even trying.
It was only in talking to a friend a few hours later that I realized what I had done. I had deflected a good possibility before I even explored it by allowing the voice of self-censorship to be the loudest voice I heard. I saw the pattern I've repeated so many times - an idea or opportunity arises and I deflect, squash, allow it to pass. It's as if there are templates inside me and when things present themselves I automatically sort them - in this case, opportunity went into the I-always-deflect template.
Telling my friend put the possibility out into the world, instead of leaving it in my head where it could have drifted for days until it disappeared. We quickly made a step by step plan of what I could do to follow through and in the time since I've done what I said I would.
All day today, I've felt a subtle energy, something light and clear. I've realized what it is: the energy of hope. Not the hope that I will put something out into the world which will be recognized and rewarded, but the hope that I can change the old patterns which have so often in the past kept me from doing so. I can't control what happens after I've done my part. All I can do, and it's crucial, is to act in spite of binding old habits. I can accept the challenge of change.
It was only in talking to a friend a few hours later that I realized what I had done. I had deflected a good possibility before I even explored it by allowing the voice of self-censorship to be the loudest voice I heard. I saw the pattern I've repeated so many times - an idea or opportunity arises and I deflect, squash, allow it to pass. It's as if there are templates inside me and when things present themselves I automatically sort them - in this case, opportunity went into the I-always-deflect template.
Telling my friend put the possibility out into the world, instead of leaving it in my head where it could have drifted for days until it disappeared. We quickly made a step by step plan of what I could do to follow through and in the time since I've done what I said I would.
All day today, I've felt a subtle energy, something light and clear. I've realized what it is: the energy of hope. Not the hope that I will put something out into the world which will be recognized and rewarded, but the hope that I can change the old patterns which have so often in the past kept me from doing so. I can't control what happens after I've done my part. All I can do, and it's crucial, is to act in spite of binding old habits. I can accept the challenge of change.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
RESISTANCE IS MY MIDDLE NAME
There are many risks that I have a hard time taking. They're mostly internal and involve making myself visible in some way - doing my work and sending it out in the world, going to a big party alone. There are others but they all raise up in me a resistance because I don't want to be evaluated - because I automatically assume I will be found wanting.
I've waged many battles with my resistance and the default certainty of rejection. I've learned all about them, their psychogenesis, their repercussions. I know what resistance feels like in my body and I know to shake hands with the negative voices in my head and then act despite them.
But it's one of the mysteries of my life that I can know the symptoms and what I should do to overcome them, and still not be able to do it. You don't want to go out? Well, that's the resistance - just work past it. Those voices in your head? You know they're ephemeral, thoughts just passing through, with no importance other than what you give them. Act despite them! Other people have the same fears and negativity but they act anyway. Why not you? Get a grip!
My resistance to change and taking a risk by walking fully into the world isn't a solid wall stopping me. It's amorphous, viscous, a thick swamp to slog my way though. Many times I make it, but sometimes I don't and, when I don't, I can feel the depression that is more powerful than my desire to act. And I can feel the depression deepening because one more time I have failed myself.
There is hope. I can't think my way past my resistance but I can acknowledge that I'm powerless over it. I can stop fighting to figure things out. I can let myself see the truth, that resistance and negativity have no solid reality. They are only products of my insecure ego. I can focus on the moment and reach for that field beyond my ego where stillness silences my mind. Above all, I can let compassion come flooding in, hold myself gently, and feel love for all my struggles, for my very human desire to be better, to do better, to free myself from all the obstacles I put in my own way. And I can fully embrace the fact that I will have to make this struggle again and again. Each time I do, I will be a little stronger, more able to push past the things that block me.
I choose to believe that is the truth for me. I choose to believe my faith in that truth will make it so.
I've waged many battles with my resistance and the default certainty of rejection. I've learned all about them, their psychogenesis, their repercussions. I know what resistance feels like in my body and I know to shake hands with the negative voices in my head and then act despite them.
But it's one of the mysteries of my life that I can know the symptoms and what I should do to overcome them, and still not be able to do it. You don't want to go out? Well, that's the resistance - just work past it. Those voices in your head? You know they're ephemeral, thoughts just passing through, with no importance other than what you give them. Act despite them! Other people have the same fears and negativity but they act anyway. Why not you? Get a grip!
My resistance to change and taking a risk by walking fully into the world isn't a solid wall stopping me. It's amorphous, viscous, a thick swamp to slog my way though. Many times I make it, but sometimes I don't and, when I don't, I can feel the depression that is more powerful than my desire to act. And I can feel the depression deepening because one more time I have failed myself.
There is hope. I can't think my way past my resistance but I can acknowledge that I'm powerless over it. I can stop fighting to figure things out. I can let myself see the truth, that resistance and negativity have no solid reality. They are only products of my insecure ego. I can focus on the moment and reach for that field beyond my ego where stillness silences my mind. Above all, I can let compassion come flooding in, hold myself gently, and feel love for all my struggles, for my very human desire to be better, to do better, to free myself from all the obstacles I put in my own way. And I can fully embrace the fact that I will have to make this struggle again and again. Each time I do, I will be a little stronger, more able to push past the things that block me.
I choose to believe that is the truth for me. I choose to believe my faith in that truth will make it so.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
WHAT WOULD IT FEEL LIKE?
One day, in the middle of a deep depression, I was lying on my bed staring at the ceiling when seemingly out of nowhere I found myself saying the words of the 23rd Psalm. This was strange; I'm not at all religious but I suppose that psalm is in the zeitgeist and I'd absorbed it without my knowing.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
As I thought about the words, I suddenly heard the voice of the poet, of the man, probably King David, who had written those lines. I heard his longing, his need for comfort. I felt the immediacy of his need across the centuries.
I'd been in a very harsh place but those words made me wonder what it would be like if I was starving and came upon green pastures, or was thirsty and found cool waters. Like an actor in a sense memory excercise, I imagined what it would feel like to be restored to some kind of equilibrium, not by something out there beyond my consciousness but by coming in touch with the part of me that could reach for well-being, the part of me that could come out from under and move into action.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of death,
I will fear no evil for Thou art with me...
And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I felt the poet's emotion and I heard the words as metaphor. What would it be like to feel I wasn't alone and helpless, that there was at least the possibility of a refuge inside me, a place that was safe, a place I could count on? I had made a deep connection with that human voice across the centuries, those words of longing and the search for solace, and the intensity of that connection released energy, a spark of hope. It would take a long time for that hope to grow and transform into the certainty that comes from direct experience. But just a glimmer of hope was all that was needed to take the first step out of despair and doubt.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul.
As I thought about the words, I suddenly heard the voice of the poet, of the man, probably King David, who had written those lines. I heard his longing, his need for comfort. I felt the immediacy of his need across the centuries.
I'd been in a very harsh place but those words made me wonder what it would be like if I was starving and came upon green pastures, or was thirsty and found cool waters. Like an actor in a sense memory excercise, I imagined what it would feel like to be restored to some kind of equilibrium, not by something out there beyond my consciousness but by coming in touch with the part of me that could reach for well-being, the part of me that could come out from under and move into action.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of death,
I will fear no evil for Thou art with me...
And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
All the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
I felt the poet's emotion and I heard the words as metaphor. What would it be like to feel I wasn't alone and helpless, that there was at least the possibility of a refuge inside me, a place that was safe, a place I could count on? I had made a deep connection with that human voice across the centuries, those words of longing and the search for solace, and the intensity of that connection released energy, a spark of hope. It would take a long time for that hope to grow and transform into the certainty that comes from direct experience. But just a glimmer of hope was all that was needed to take the first step out of despair and doubt.
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