Tag: authentic self

Will the Real Writer Please Stand Up?

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, The Word Wizard's Blog1 Comment

Just like the concept of working from home, creative writing gets a bad rap. I can’t count the number of times I have told people what I do for a living and watch as they fight to keep from smiling.  Some don’t even try to fight it but just flat out laugh. It’s a joke to them; a poor excuse for someone who just can’t find or keep a ‘real’ job. 

I still remember one lovely person who, when I told her that I was a writer said “are you serious?” and then laughed as if she had never heard anything so funny. When I asked her what it was that she thought Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts did for a living and she wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes as she said “but sweetie, those are real writers.”

Well, she’s wrong. I may not yet be a popular writer (note the use of the qualifying word “yet” as the key part of that last phrase). I may not have my books on the best seller list. But they are published and they do sell. I may currently make the bulk of my writing income by writing blogs, giving creative writing seminars, creating newsletters and informational eBooks or by providing creative writing coaching to those who find the written word challenging, but that does not make me any less of a writer than those who are raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars per book contract or who are getting assignments that pay thousands of dollars a pop. 

Unfortunately, this is a concept that many aspiring writers find distinctly difficult to grasp, and, when confronted with those who would belittle or criticize their claim to be a writer they become depressed over their seeming lack of recognition and sometimes even give up writing altogether.

Perhaps they give up because, in the back of their heads they have the expectation that their talent will immediately be recognized and that they will go from being a total unknown and unpublished writer to an overnight success at the top of the New York Times best seller list. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is quite a bit different.

Yes, there are a few rare individuals who have extraordinary talent and who are in just the right place at the right time and get recognized immediately, but most writers have to work at their craft. Like any other talent or skill, writing has to be honed, practiced and refined and this means writing on a daily basis. 

Most writers start out by honing their writing skills while maintaining a day job. Those who are truly addicted will make a point of trying to find a way to work on improving their writing skills in whatever way they possibly can, writing on lunch breaks, weekends or late into the night.

Personally, I got started in writing for a living by helping fellow college students refine their papers. At first I would sit down with them for free and go over their reports and papers, helping them to tighten up their prose or making suggestions as to new ways to approach the subject. Then someone made the suggestion that I could actually make money by offering my services for a small fee. As your standard starving student, that sounded good to me! And sure enough, there were enough fellow students who were desperate to make suggestions for improvements to their papers that they were more than willing to pay a small fee to have me go over their work, especially when most times it resulted in a jump in letter grade.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been a writer since I learned out to write. As a kid I scribbled stories in my spare time. I was on the newspaper staff in both high school and college. As a young adult, I submitted bits and pieces to local newspapers and local writing contests, but I didn’t realize that I could actually do this as a regular job until I actually was.

For years writing was just a second job; a secondary source of income that helped to ‘fill in the gaps’ so to speak; gaps left by my “bread and butter” day job. Now writing and helping others improve their writing is my bread and butter, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Do I still have my eye on the New York Times best seller list? Of course, I do! I have great hopes for my current in-process novel. Doesn’t every writer? But in the meantime, I write. I write because I can’t not write. And that need to write, to tell a story, that is what defines a real writer. By that definition, no matter what that long ago lady once said, I am very much a real writer, and if you love to write, you so are you!

Isn’t it Just Ducky

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

duck“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

This, my friends, is called “the duck test” and it is one of the biggest pieces of crap advice in existence.

The duck test implies that anyone – you, me, that guy on the bench over there, that any of us can identify a heretofore unknown subject by observing that subject’s habitual characteristics; that by perceiving its form we can make an educated guess as to what it is; what it is for or (and this is the part that really ticks me off) its motives and thought process.

Now mind you, I won’t argue that a quacking, paddling, feather wrapped avian with a bill and webbed feet is probably a member of the Anatidae family, but I have just enough common sense to realize that it might be something else entirely, perhaps a species of bird I have never seen before, or even something totally non-duck, like a decoy, an animatronic creation or even a holographic image.  And I am certainly not going to assume that just because it registers with my brain as a “duck” that I know the first thing about WHY it is doing what it is doing, or what it plans on doing next.

It all comes down to the fact that when it comes to perception and understanding, most of us are lazy.  We would rather glance at the object, register it as a duck, then quickly tuck it into the pigeon hole in our brain labeled “ducks and duck-like behavior” and simply forget about it.  Not important.  We are now free to move along to more important things.  Like what we’re going to have for supper and the most recent celebrity drama.

While the duck test may be useful when it comes to sorting through not so important things, thus freeing up the brain for more important matters, it is far too often used by those of little understanding to explain why it is that an individual has chosen a particular course of action.

Instead of stopping to consider all of the possible reasons and giving the individual the benefit of the doubt, the duck test allows the one sitting in judgement of the person’s actions to make broad, sweeping assumptions based on that person’s past behavior or even assumptions of their past behaviors.  They use these assumptions to give their world definition; to make certain that everything inside of it is neat and tidy and precisely categorized.  The end result being that the person whose actions are being judged gets labeled a duck when really they are a wolf, or a dolphin, or even a lion.

Of course when the individual passing judgement is presented with the truth of the person or thing their preconceived ideas tend to get in the way and prevent them from seeing it (or them) as anything other than what they have convinced themselves it is.

Far far better to take the time initially to see a thing – an idea – a belief or even a person for exactly who and what they really are than to be rudely awakened latter on.  It will of course when you’ve convinced yourself that the lion penned up in your barnyard is really a duck it comes as a great shock when it suddenly shakes out its mane, lets out a roar and eats your ducks for lunch.

 

HALFWAY TO DEAD

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, UncategorizedLeave a comment

“Most peoveilple die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.”  -Benjamin Franklin

It was the damndest thing.  I was at the mall, eeling my way through a school of teenagers when I heard a snatch of conversation between two boys that stopped me dead in the water:

“Dude, she’s like 40 years old!  That’s like halfway to dead!”

Mind you, they were talking about a pop singer, but for some reason his words resonated in my brain like John Donne’s proverbial bell.

To be perfectly honest, at first I couldn’t believe what I’d heard and my initial reaction was simply to brush aside the comment.  After all, what did it matter that a fifteen year old punk thought that a singer over forty wasn’t worth listening to because she was “halfway to dead?”

But the more I thought about it, the more I began to realize that this one random piece of overheard conservation is indicative of everything that is wrong with our culture; of the prevailing attitude regarding anyone or anything that doesn’t provide instant satisfaction and gratification; of the tendency to view anyone over the age of forty (or anything that hasn’t been written, produced, published, aired, designed or conceptualized in the last 24 months) to be irrelevant; of the “me first!” mentality that has turned our society into a self-centered, ego-centric parody of itself.

We live in a take-out world of fast food, quick fixes, one minute makeovers; a world where if you either learn to adapt to the rapidly changing social structure or you get left in the dust; a world where old age is seen as a curse, education is seen as a joke and the answer to all of life’s problems lies in drinking from the fountain of youth and being able to fit into our skinny jeans even after we’ve had two children. And it is this youth-obsessed, egocentric culture that has generated the idea of the mid-life crises as joke; as a desperate bid by those past their prime to hold on to the glory of youth and try one last time to make their mark on the world.

Everyone has seen the characterization of the aging middle-aged man combing his hair over his bald spot, buying a sports car, and trading in his wife for a younger, perkier model.  For women this same time frame is portrayed as the 40-something year old woman or “cougar” getting plastic surgery and headed out on the prowl for a younger, virile man, because don’t you know, it’s all about the sex and, in a youth-obsessed culture – it is understandable (if laughable) that older men and women would be so scared of getting old that they would do whatever it takes to make themselves desirable once again.

The Mid-Life Re-Evaluation

You see, what it really comes down to is the mis-use of the term “crisis” for what happens to so many people at the mid-point of their lives is not so much about fearing death – about trying to regain their youth or proving their virility by taking on younger lovers as it is about the realization that they are at the half-point of their lives and have not yet begun to live.

Most people in western society settle down in their mid-twenties.  They acquire a full-time job, a spouse, and, over the years, children, a mortgage, credit card bills, social standing in the community and even positions of responsibility and respect in their churches.  But while for all intents and purposes they appear to have a “good life” too many are just going through the motions.  Far too many people are dying inside.

For their whole lives they have been living for the weekends, for vacations, intent on getting the next promotion, the bigger house, getting the kids out of school and into the right colleges, for retirement, convinced that eventually they will reach a plateau of happiness where they can finally draw a deep breath and where their lives will finally have meaning, where they can finally relax and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

The only problem is, it never arrives.  There is always another bill, another event, another concern, another upcoming event; a web of responsibilities and obligations that keep them tethered to the soul-less job and the loveless marriage.  And so, many people “break out” of the mold in an act of almost teenage rebellion.  Having been immersed in a consumer society where the acquisition of things is equated with elevated happiness, most of those who hit this crises point do something stereotypical, like quitting their job, taking a younger lover, buying a flashy car thinking that these things will somehow give their lives meaning.

energy2And then there are those who instinctively understand that there is more going on than meets the eye; that this isn’t about things.  This isn’t even about reclaiming their youth.  This is about stripping away all of the layers of veneer and varnish that society insists that they wear in order to be considered acceptable.  This is learning how to reconnect with the authentic self.  This is about moving past what religions and governments and even friends or family expect from them.  This is about remembering who and what they really are while there is still enough time to experience life; while there is still enough time to appreciate the wonder and mystery that surround them.  This is nature’s wake up call.  This isn’t about being “halfway to dead.”  This is a clarion call to those who hear it and who have the wisdom to understand that it is time to stop going through the motions and truly start to live.

Toothpaste and Mud Puddles

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series1 Comment

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Have you ever had a moment of such incredible happiness that you found yourself wondering “what did I do to deserve this?”  I have.  And that one question my friends, is a clear cut example of what a twisted culture we live in. You see, happiness is not something that you deserve.  It is not something that you can earn or that you acquire either by earning enough brownie points with a qualified deity or by collecting the appropriate number of box tops.  Happiness is something we are.  In fact, it is our default state.

Don’t believe me?  Spend some time around small children some time.  I’m not talking about school aged kids who are already knee deep in learning how to envy those around them for the things that they don’t have or for getting the ‘good’ seat on the bus.  I mean small children; babies and toddlers.

The average toddler has a better grasp on happiness than most adults on this planet.  Of course they haven’t yet developed reasoning or social skills and have more energy than the average power plant on a high production day and sometimes still have to wear diapers, but if you spend any length of time around them you will notice that when it comes to happiness, they’ve got it nailed down.  Their whole being radiates with happiness because they are entirely focused on whatever it is that they are doing; watching a caterpillar balance on a twig, jumping into mud puddles, watching a kitten play, squeezing all of the toothpaste out of the tube.

We have forgotten how to do this.  We have forgotten how to be happy.  We have forgotten how to radiate happiness with every particle of our being.  We have forgotten the joy of watching all that toothpaste curl out onto the counter.

We go along, day after day, year after year focused on our education, on our work, on providing for our families and on juggling bills.  And while that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, when we begin putting aside our own happiness in order to better focus on these “more important” things we lose the knowledge of what it means to be completely and blissfully happy.

Humans are social animals.  They want to fit in.  They want to belong.  For millennia like-minded individuals have created villages and towns and cities and religions. They have created clubs and teams and organizations so that they could come together and socialize; interact; share their experiences as humans.

In a world that is marked by suburban sprawl and almost wholly bereft of any sort of social or cultural opportunities that you used to find regularly wherever there were large groups of people. This is why the concept of social media is so very addictive; it allows individuals all over the world to “belong” and to interact with other individuals.

While the concepts of “belonging” and “fitting in” are natural and part of the nature of things, it comes at a price.  The price can be steep, for many times a group or religion or organization has strict rules and regulations, things that you have to or cannot do in order to belong.  And so, in order to be accepted we give up pieces of ourselves; our individuality; pieces of who and what we truly are in order to conform to the acceptable standards of the group or organization.  Many times we give up the things that made us happy in order to be accepted by others.  We then have to spend years – sometimes entire lifetimes attempting to understand why it is that we are so unhappy and attempting to find happiness again, albeit within the structures of our adopted social group, which of course means that many people have and will continue to die unhappy and unfulfilled.

So how can we be happy again?  How can we possibly regain that selfless joy, that innate wonder of the world around us; the supreme happiness of jumping in the mud puddles; the sheer bliss of watching that toothpaste curl out onto the bathroom counter?

The first order of business is to accept that happiness is not an “earned” condition.  You are happiness.1

The second order is to remember what it is that makes you happy and do it.  Have you always loved the color and texture of paintings?  Pick up some small canvases and paints at a craft shop and try your hand at putting images on paper.  Playing in the dirt?  Try digging up a small square of yard for a garden, or plant flowers or vegetables in a pot if you live in an apartment.  Playing in tidal pools?  Try setting up a small aquarium.  Rainbows?  Hang prisms in any window that gets direct sunlight.

Thirdly; don’t apologize for being yourself.  Don’t beat yourself up if others laugh at you for going out in the rain without an umbrella, for blowing bubbles on the bridge during rush hour, for dancing madly to your favorite song when it comes on the radio, or laying out on the hillside to see the shapes in the clouds.

And finally, if you find someone with whom you can be completely and totally yourself, who not only enjoys your myriad facets but is aware of their own and who is not afraid to be themselves, cherish them, they are a rare gift, and believe me, the happiness that you will take in seeing each other’s total authenticity will be so incandescent that whenever you are tempted to think “what did I do to deserve this” you will instead find yourself thinking “what on earth took me so long to realize the truth?”

Waiting for Home

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, My OdysseyLeave a comment

images13N17I32Barefoot, she stands, waiting. A restless breeze tugs at her hair before moving on, leaving behind the faint scent of the ocean; a scent that fills her simultaneously with a soothing calm and an unquenchable restless.

Head thrown back, she stands, waiting. Her eyes search the evening sky, watching as the stars wink into existence, as the golds and plumbs of sunset fade into a black velvet background worthy of a sky full of glittering jewels.

As the light fades in the west a silence falls across the yard; a pregnant pause as if a cosmic conductor has raised his baton and all of his musicians have paused, instruments raised in anticipation of the downbeat. A moment later, with a single croak from a large frog of advanced years, the evening chorus begins; frogs from the riverbank, crickets from the meadow, a low throaty hoot from the owl that lives in the forest behind her house.

And still she waits.

As if on cue a crescent moon rises over the tree tops, casting faint shadows across the darkling yard and glimmering silver off of the tears that flow freely down her face, dribbling onto the ghostly white of her shirt dampening the grass at her toes.

She does not cry for the gloriousness of the vast array of glittering stars or the spectacular evening chorus or for the lingering scent of the restless sea. She cries for many reasons, few of which she can put into words and most of which she knows she will never understand. But mostly she cries because she waits.

She is not even sure what it is that she is waiting for. Perhaps it is love. Perhaps it is hope. Perhaps it is a sense of peace, of belonging. She does not know what she waits for, only that when it appears she will know that her waiting is over. She will know that finally, she is home.

She waits, barefoot, gazing at the stars, kissed by the moonlight, caressed by the whisper of an ocean breeze and serenaded by a chorus written expressly to touch her heart. And as she waits, slowly the tears dry and the competing peace and restlessness combine into an expansive duet whose rhythm counterpoints the beating of her heart. Slowly the stars expand until they fill not just her eyes, but her very soul. Slowly the sound of the nighttime creatures fill her head to bursting and it is then, only then, that she ceases to wait.

At last she has become.

Finally, inside of her own skin, she is home.

All Beginnings Are Hard

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, My OdysseyLeave a comment

butterfly“All Beginnings are hard. . . . Especially a beginning that you make for yourself. That’s the hardest beginning of all.” ~Chiam Potok

 

It is not unusual at this time of the year to see dozens of posts touting an individual’s New Year’s Resolutions; posts about losing weight, finding love, getting their dream job.  The list is endless. And while I know plenty of people who scoff at the idea; people who say that making New Year’s Resolutions is pointless and meaningless, the concept behind it is really quite lovely; you are promising yourself a new beginning; choosing the turning of the New Year as a convenient marking point for tracking their progress.

The sad part of course is that most people renege on their promise to themselves fairly quickly.  In fact, the same people who will move heaven and earth to keep a promise to a spouse or a child; a parent, an employer or a friend will dismiss their promise to themselves with no more than a shrug and an amused chuckle.

Do we really have so little respect for ourselves that we can shrug away our chance to finally create the life we have always imagined?  Because when we fail to keep our promises to ourselves that is exactly what we are doing.  We are trading in those things we desire most in the whole world in exchange for convenience, or security or acceptance by those who don’t understand what achieving our goals would mean for our authentic selves.

I have no room to judge the person who gives in to those around them; who gives in to the demands of convention or of society and gives up their dream, for I am guilty of the same thing.  In fact, I am more guilty than most.  I gave up my dream.  I gave up my dreams willingly in the hopes that by doing so I could forget who I was; that I could bury my true self in normality and create a life for myself where I would not only not be hurt any more, but one where I would no longer hurt anyone else.

For a few precious years it seemed to work.  I was happy, or at the very least I was content.  But it didn’t last.

It was inevitable that one day I would wake up to the fact that burying my authentic self was the biggest mistake that I ever made.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret the life I lived; it gave me two beautiful daughters and hundreds of lovely memories that I will cherish forever.  What I do regret is that I gave up my true self for the illusion of security and belonging.

It has taken me a quarter of a century to come around to acknowledging my mistake and in taking steps to rectify it; to unearth the true me that has been buried for so very long.  Unfortunately she has been kept under wraps for so long that no one recognizes her.  Well, no one except those who knew me before I buried her alive.  Her resurrection has resulted in any number of problems as I try to explain to those around me that this is who I am.  That the person they thought I was all this time was nothing more than a façade; a mask worn to prevent those around me from see who and what I truly am; a choice I made because I was afraid of hurting or being hurt ever again.

Some have supported me in this excavation.  Others have fought it at every turn, trying their hardest to convince me that going back to the self they always knew is in everyone’s best interest; especially their own since that person was the one they were comfortable with.  But going back to the person I was pretending to be is something I will not do.  And if becoming myself means turning their world upside down, well then, so be it.  I have kept myself buried for far too long.  It is time.

And so it is that I make my own New Year’s Resolution.  This year I make a new beginning for myself – for my true self.  I will take the steps necessary to free myself from those people and situations that would keep me from being who and what I truly am.

Of course this means that there will be some tough decisions to be made over the next 12 months; some very difficult choices and overall upheaval for myself and those closest to me.  But like childbirth, once the process has begun, there really is no turning back.  I have made myself the promise of a new beginning, and it is a promise that I intend to keep.

Authentic Living 201: Living Intentionally

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series1 Comment

There is a difference between living and living an intentional life.

No, seriously, everybody lives.  Unless you’ve been in a serious accident and are fighting for every breath you take, living is not something you actually have to think about.  It simply happens, usually when you aren’t paying attention.  In fact, one day you look up and realize that half your life has gone by and wonder where the devil it’s gone.  It was just here for pity’s sakes.

Suddenly you realize that you’ve slipped so far into routine that you’re drowning in it.  For whatever reason your life has become mundane – each day just like the one before, and it doesn’t matter how good your life actually is.  It doesn’t matter how nice your house is, or your car.  It doesn’t matter how much (or how little) money you have in the bank – your life is being lived – you’re not living an intentional life.  So, what is the difference? What does it mean to live intentionally?

What is Intentional Living?

Intentional living is not about turning your life upside down.  It is not even about manifesting change in your life.  Intentional living is about being here – now; it is about doing everything you do with complete and total awareness of what it is that you are doing and why it is that you are doing it.

From eating your breakfast to sitting through that aptly named board meeting; from playing Frisbee with your kids to walking the dog; you need to pay attention to what it is that you are doing.  You need to use your mastery of everyday mindfulness to pay attention to what is happening in your life and to be totally in the moment as you do it; paying attention to all the details and being open to all the nuances.  And yes, I’ll tell you right now, it’s harder than it seems.

You see, we have this sense of urgency that surrounds everything that we do.  I’m sure you’ve noticed it.  When you are doing something mundane or boring your mind tends to either shut off or to race ahead to what needs to be done next or sometimes berate us over past mistakes and things that we could have done better.  Very rarely are we actually fully in the moment.  Well, it’s time to change all of that.

Living the Intentional Life

Using your mastery of mindfulness to pay attention to what is happening here and now, you’re going to make some interesting discoveries.  You are going to find that there are things that are a part of your life that no longer serve you.  You may have gone years – or even decades without realizing what you were doing; the time you were wasting on something that you really have absolutely no interest in whatsoever; things in your life that are just taking up space.

So, why are you still doing them?  Why have you kept them all these years?  What is keeping you from letting go of those things that no longer serve you so that you can make room in your life for something that actually makes a difference?  Yes, I’m sure that if you think hard enough you can find a reason to keep them in your life.  But is it worth it?  Is the time, effort and energy that you spend on them worth what is given back to you in the satisfaction of possession or in the completion of the action itself? If you were fully present every time you did this – used this – would you still want it in your life?

And it won’t just be physical objects or routines that you find cluttering up your life.  You’re going to run into friendships, acquaintances, even romantic relationships that are called into question, especially if – once you start actually paying attention to them – you find that neither of you is getting anything out of it; or if the relationship is unbalanced.  Just like physical objects and everyday routines, sometimes there are relationships that have run their course; that we hold onto out of habit, but that would serve everyone better if we simply let them go.

But it isn’t just about getting rid of the excess; of the mundane; of those things that no longer serve you or that have run their course.  Living intentionally is also about coming to a realization of those things that you are missing; those things that you really want to be a part of your life but didn’t realize were missing until you started paying attention to what you actually had.   Only once you realize what it is that you really want can you go about taking the necessary steps to bring it into your life.

So go ahead – start today!  Start paying attention to the life that you are living.  Start living your life intentionally.  Stop living on autopilot; never fully engaged in what it is that you are doing, and start putting a part of yourself; a part of your energy; into everything that you do.  Start being fully present in every relationship you are a part of and not just because you have to; not just because you feel obligated; but because you want to; because at that particular moment in time there is nothing you would rather be doing, for in the end that is the only way to really be alive.

 

 

What Waits in the Silence

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical Mussings1 Comment

We live in a very noisy culture.  No matter where we go we’re bombarded with noise from every angle.  Cities, with their continual traffic and sirens and construction; the voices of people every which way you turn; those are the worst. There’s no getting away from it.  But even those who live in the suburbs get treated to a continual bombardment of noise; trash trucks and mail trucks; delivery trucks and school busses, planes flying overhead.

In our homes too, we keep our televisions and radios playing continually both at home and in the car, and if we get stuck somewhere there isn’t music or movies, we have our Smartphones and our iPods to lend a soundtrack to our days.

Even when we turn all of these gadgets and gizmos off; even when the traffic stops, there is still the sounds of our plugged in electronics; the gurgle of the water in the pipes; the growl of the furnace as it kicks in; the hum of the refrigerator; the ticking of the wristwatch on your wrist.

Noise everywhere.

Most people don’t even notice the noise anymore; not unless it involves something unexpectedly sudden and loud, or unless they find themselves someplace where there isn’t any noise, or in a situation where all the noise suddenly stops.

My husband used to be active duty military, and for three years we were stationed on the Island of Puerto Rico.  I still remember the silence that descended on the town in the wake of the first hurricane we experienced; a hurricane that had completely disabled the power to our entire side of the Island.  It was silence; complete and total silence such as I’d never heard before.

The silence had a depth to it; a weight.  I could almost feel it like a living thing; waiting just beyond the range of my hearing, and I was suddenly (and forcibly) reminded of what it must have been like for the Spanish soldiers who were stationed there in 1508; thousands of miles from home and surrounded by jungle and with nothing but candles to push back the weight of the darkness.  It was breathtaking.

When a modern person is subjected to that sort of silence; to the solitude that comes from a total lack of connection with the outside world, they tend to get fidgety; nervous even.  Some even get downright angry and start showing all the classic signs of withdrawal.  When the power comes back on, they welcome it with open arms.

One woman I know nearly had a nervous breakdown being without her music and television and telephone for almost two weeks.  When I asked her, she told me that the silence frightened her because she was afraid of what it would tell her; of what she would hear; of the decisions it might ask her to make.  And that, you see, is the real problem.

Western society – for all its emphasis on progress and technology – has failed to provide one very important thing for its people; it has failed to give them a way to integrate their root spirituality with their everyday life.  In spite of the emphasis on religions and family values that you get in many industrialized societies, the mysteries of the world are kept at arm’s length and anything that can’t be proven by science is regarded with skepticism.

Deep in their hearts, however; deep in their hearts humanity knows that there is something more.  They know that they are not living authentically; that they have become disassociated with their true feelings; with their true selves.   They know this; they feel it in their bones; but they don’t know what to do about it.  They have no idea of how to integrate their spiritual self into their everyday life.  In fact, many have come to believe that this – what they can see and taste and touch and feel – that this is all there is because that is what science tells them is true.  But when the electricity stops they can actually hear their own soul voice, and it is telling them a different story.

It is telling them that what waits in the silence is their authentic self; the person that they were meant to be but never got around to becoming, and they are scared of how badly they want to get to know that person.  But most of all, they are scared of what getting to know them would mean; of the decisions it would require them to make and the changes it would entail.

And so when the power comes back on, they welcome it gladdly; relieved once again to have the noise that masks the truth that lies just beneath the surface of reality, if only they would stop long enough to see it; if only they could stay quiet long enough to listen.

 

©Stephanie S. Henry 2012

The Hall of Mirrors

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

 

“There are some minds like either convex or concave mirrors, which represent objects such as they receive them, but never receive them as they are.” ~ Joseph Joubert

When I first started college I had a full-length mirror that I had hung on the back of my dorm room door. Having a mirror there made practical sense; I could check how I looked on my way to class; make sure that I had zipped up my jeans and had put on matching socks (both things that I tended to overlook, especially if I was on my way to a 6:30 a.m. class).

The problem was that every time I glanced in that mirror it made me feel fat – bloated almost. I don’t care how good I felt before that; how energetic. It didn’t matter how good I knew I looked or how thin I knew I was, as soon as I glanced in that mirror I felt like I’d gained ten pounds. I felt heavy, sluggish and tired. Suddenly all I wanted was to crawl back into bed. I could almost feel my jeans getting tighter and my face puffing.

And then one day about six weeks into my first semester, a friend of mine stopped into my room, took one look in my mirror and said “What’s wrong with this thing? It makes everything look bloated!” She then proceeded to take the mirror off the door and peel off the backing; exposing the back of the mirror itself, which had, at some point in its manufacturing (whether due to pressure or just some defect), developed a slight convex curve that just barely distorted everything it reflected.

Chagrined I threw the mirror into the trash. It had all been a lie. I’d been trusting in the reflection of a distorted and defective mirror to tell me how I looked; letting what it showed me dictate how I felt instead of trusting to how I felt about myself; instead of trusting to how I knew my clothes looked on me. And then it occurred to me, how often we do this to ourselves.

Think about it. Here I was accepting the ‘truth’ of a mirror that was defective; a mirror that had developed a warp that made everything it reflected appear bloated slightly. But how often do we accept the truth about ourselves as reflected by those around us, by our friends, family and co-workers? In fact, doing so is a lot like accepting the truth of a fun house mirror; the kind that shows you all distorted. What do you think would happen if we accepted as reality the image that these mirrors presented to us? What kind of twisted monster would we think that we are?

And yet, there are those who say that those around us are our mirrors; that they reflect back to us our true natures and the true nature of our reality. While this may be the case with mirrors that have been well made; or with mirrors that have been recalibrated; and that take time to reflect a little before throwing back the image, it is not necessarily true of all of those we come in contact with.

While our interactions with others do serve as a sort of hall of mirrors, just as when we are observing ourselves in the distorted reflection of a fun house mirror, it is up to us to determine what it is that the reflection they cast is showing; to discern whether the reflection that we see is a true representation of who and what we really are; of our authentic self; or if it has been distorted by the mirror itself; by the prejudices and perceptions as well as the societal, religious and familial conditioning of the one doing the reflecting.

It is up to us to make use of the only mirror that we can trust; the only one that reflects us back to ourselves exactly the way we are, and that is the mirror that the heart holds up for us to see ourselves in.

Five Tips for Mastering Mindfulness

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series6 Comments

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
~ William Blake

Learning to listen to that still small voice inside your head; that prompting that tells you whether or not the decision you are about to make is the right choice for you is at the very core of living authentically, but learning to listen takes time and patience and, most of all, it requires that you are not only aware that it is speaking to you, but mindfulness of what it is that is being said. But what exactly is mindfulness?

Defining Mindfulness

“Mindfulness” says Jon Kabat-Zinn, “means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, In the present moment and non judgmentally.”

While these are simple enough words, putting them into practice in one’s everyday life can be another story altogether. Think about it – how often to you pay attention to something that is happening around you – right here and now – purposefully –and without judging it?

In order to understand mindfulness, let’s take the simple concept of eating. Everyone eats. But how many of us eat mindfully? That is to say, how many people pay complete and total attention to the food that they are putting into their mouths as they are putting it in? Are you noticing the flavor and texture of each mouthful? Or are you scarfing down your sandwich while you sit at the computer scrolling through your emails and simultaneously making a grocery list of things you need to pick up on your way home from work? Better yet, if you DO pay attention to the food that you are eating, chances are that you are judging it (this is wonderful/horrible/disgusting/too salty/too sweet/delicious etc.). It is not until you can purposefully sit down to a meal and focus entirely on your eating; every aspect of your eating (the look, the scent, the flavor, the chewing etc.) and not make any judgments on it (too hot, too cold, too sweet or sour) that you can say that you have experienced mindful eating. So too it is with every other aspect of our life.

It is as if we are continually going through life with those red correcting pens that teacher’s use and giving every experience a grade: A+ for great sex, D- for vindictive co-worker B- for interesting (if long) sermon etc. We can’t seem to keep our own opinions out of the mix and simply enjoy the things around us; the experiences, the people even, for whom and what they really are. Not only that, it is as if we feel that we can’t really be living unless we pack as much “doing” into any one time frame as is humanly possible.

Perhaps this is some sort of residual fallout from the corporate obsession with the increasing of productivity through time management, or maybe it has something to do with the old Puritanistic adage that ‘idle hands are the devil’s playground.’ But in western societies it is rare to find those who appreciate the wisdom in holding our minds still enough – long enough – to observe those things that are happening around us and to us for exactly who and what they are without attaching expectations to them, but mindfulness (as well as its sister meditation and it’s cousin awareness) are looked down on and even ridiculed throughout much of western civilization as being practices that are unproductive and without any real purpose.

The Purpose of Mindfulness

But there IS a purpose to mindfulness, and that is to bring your mind to a level where it can actually hear the voice of intuition; the guidance of that higher self/higher power that will help you to make the decisions that will bring your life into alignment with your soul purpose.

Think of mindfulness as a sort of practical meditation. Instead of sitting still in one place and attempting to quiet our minds we focus our attention on experiencing what is happening to us – and around us – in this exact moment in time; seeing it all, feeling it all, experiencing it all without attaching any sort of expectations, and in spite of what you might think, practicing mindfulness really isn’t as difficult to master as you might think.

Five Tips for Mastering Mindfulness

Like any other skill that you acquire, mastering mindfulness takes time and patience. But most of all, it takes patience with yourself; with realizing that you are not going to shed the conditioning of a lifetime in just a few days or weeks. But there are some tips that might help you to learn to focus.

  1. The One Minute Rule. When you are just starting to learn to be mindful, there is a great technique that can help you learn to focus, and that is called The One Minute Rule. If you have a cell phone alarm, set your alarm to go off hourly. If you work at your computer, have an alert message set to draw your attention on an hourly basis. When the alarm rings turn it off and spend one minute (sixty entire seconds) focusing on what you are doing right here and now. If you are sitting at your desk, bring your attention to your body. Can you feel the chair you are sitting in? Can you feel the cloth against your legs? Are you aware of your body posture? Try closing your eyes and doing a slow scan of your body from top to bottom taking note of how your body feels, then focus on the scents you are smelling, the sounds you are hearing, the piece of paper you are holding in your hand. Note all of it. Don’t judge it; don’t get caught up in it. Just take note of all of the sensory input that is coming in right here and now. Doing this one minute out of every hour will help steer you towards being able to practice every day mindfulness.
  2. The Rubber Band Reminder. Another great technique in learning mindfulness is to wear a rubber band on the wrist of your dominate. This can either be a plain old rubber band or a hair band, as long as it is elastic. Make sure that it’s not too tight (you don’t want to cut off circulation. Now, every time you see the rubber band, give it a snap; and every time you snap the rubber band let the snap bring you to the here and now. Take a deep breath and note what is happening right here and now. How you are feeling, what you are hearing etc. You can use this technique in addition to the One Minute Rule, because the goal is eventually to be entirely aware of where you are and what is going on around you at every moment in time.
  3. Food Focus. One of the best times of the day to practice mindfulness is (big surprise) when you are eating. It is a fact that most people in western society do not take the time to eat their food mindfully, so why not devote one meal a day to mindful eating? No matter which meal you choose, sit down at a table or desk or bench where you will not be interrupted either by a phone, people, incoming emails or anything else. Do not use this time to read or write or chat. Instead, focus entirely on the food that you are eating. See the food. Feel the food. Taste the food. Chew it thoroughly. Learn what it means to savor your meal.
  4. Full Body Focus. Once a day find a quiet place where you can stretch out full length on the floor. Not your bed – the floor. Settle yourself onto your back, close your eyes, then start at your feet and work your way up, consciously relaxing each muscle group as you come to it. First relax your toes, then your ankles, your calves, your thighs, pelvis, stomach, solar plexus, hands, arms shoulders, neck and head, working your way all the way up. Once you are completely relaxed, let yourself ‘melt’ into the floor and feel the carpeting or flooring beneath you. Feel the slight breeze in your hair as the cat walks by; hear the creak in the floorboards, the gurgle of the water in the pipes. Doing this once a day can really put you in touch with your body and teach you things about yourself then you could possibly imagine.
  5. Object Focus. If possible, once a day focus on a single object for a full five minutes. This works best if you use an object from nature as there tends to be more depth than the manmade (though there are, of course, exceptions). So pick your object. Let’s use William Blake’s wildflower. Make yourself comfortable, and then narrow your entire focus to the flower in front of you. See it, feel it, let your gaze fall into it. Note how the petals fold back, how the edges turn under, how the pollen has formed on the stamen, how the leaves curl around the blossom. Note everything about it. Try not to judge it. Try not to form an opinion about it. Simply experience it exactly as it is. Let it be.

While there are other techniques, these five can get you started on your way to mastering mindfulness. And remember, by practicing everyday mindfulness we can slow our minds down long enough to not only be able to appreciate the world around us, but to actually be able to hear our intuition; that still small voice whose guidance will bring our lives into alignment with our soul purpose and will set our feet on the road to true authentic living.

In Pursuit of the Unobtainable

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

I am haunted by moths.

All summer and autumn long they find me.  Every time I enter my bedroom after sunset I am greeted by moths fluttering against the outside of my bedroom window; clinging to the screen; drawn by the promise of the warmth and light inside.  They fling themselves against my window pane casting lopsided shadows on my walls; their wings a perpetual thrumming against the glass.

Once my light gets turned off, most of them are leave; drawn off by the promise of other luminaries; real or imagined, but some remain.  Some continue to cling to the screen even with the absence of the light within.  They caught a glimpse of it; they know it’s there.  They’ll wait thank you very much, even if it means ignoring the greatest luminary of all that floats over their heads, turning a world of dark and shadow into a silvery fairyland.

Needless to say, with such a great gathering of moths at my bedroom window, the outside panes have become a favorite haunt of spiders and other nighttime predators for whom an energetic, single-minded moth would be a welcomed meal, and every so often morning will break to show a hapless specimen caught fast in a spider’s web; fluttering feebly as its lifeblood is drained to provide a meal for another creature.

Here where I live, January is one of the coldest times of the year.  The moths are long gone; the spiders have crept off in search of more hospitable climates (probably my basement, but I’d rather not think about that at the moment).  But last night I flipped on the bedroom light and was startled by a moth’s fluttering shadow against my wall.  On closer inspection I found that it was just the husk of a moth; what was left of its body and wings; caught in the tattered remnants of a long deserted spider’s web; the fluttering caused by the whipping of an unrelenting northern wind; wings still beating against the hard reality that kept the moth from its goal.  And without warning I found myself in tears.

This poor moth wanted nothing more than to reach the light.  For days; weeks maybe, it had gone from light to light; from window to window; searching for the answer to its driving question:  “Where is the light that was meant for me? Where is the light that will welcome me home?”  And yet, time after time, it was met with the solid reality of an impermeable barrier between itself and the light it had found itself drawn to; the artificial brightness that had blinded it to everything else; that promised the world, but would not – could not – follow through. Like thousands of others of its kind it had expended itself in a desperate attempt to reach its goal; even if that goal was unrealistic at best; an illusion of welcoming warmth; a mirage of belonging.

And all the time it had ignored that greatest of luminaries; the source of its instinct; a light source that gave freely and equally to all that turned their faces up to her; dispelling shadows and turning even the drabbest landscape into a silvery realm of enchantment.  Ignored her free gifts and giving up who they really were; their inheritance as children of the night; to pursue the starkly fake brightness of those artificial lights.

And I cry for the life she could have led; flying free in the open air, with the cool silvery light of the moon on her wingtips; the life she gave up in order to pursue a dream with no substance; a dream whose unobtainable promises blinded her to the beauty and meaning that was right before her eyes.

And so I opened up my window and swept the cobweb from the outside of my pane; letting the wind whip the remains of both web and moth out into the night; into the moonlit night of hope where what is, what was, and what will be have not yet been set in stone, and the dreams of another summer’s night with all its attendant possiblities, is  still waiting to be born.

Authentic Living 101: Rediscovering Your Joy

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

In today’s world living authentically is quite the challenge.  Part of the challenge – indeed a good bit of it – is in dealing with a society that encourages conformity almost to the point of worshipfulness.

Oh don’t get me wrong, we have plenty of choices when it comes to purchases; to styles and entertainments; to political ideologies and religions and genres of reading material.  We can choose from a plethora of car models or types of furniture or computer software or talk radio stations every day but the point is that if you don’t choose one at all; if you choose not to choose or (heaven forbid) choose something that is not on society’s ‘acceptable’ or ‘recommended’ list; if you don’t toe the line when it comes to society’s expectations for what you should be doing, you run the chance of being ostracized.

It’s an interesting conundrum.  You get plenty of encouragement to express your individuality, but if you don’t choose correctly you run the risk of being ostracized, and heaven only knows that people have a fear of being considered different; of being shunned or ignored by others; of not being accepted, and so they will do anything to fit in; to feel as if they belong.

Worse yet, this is not something that is only put on us by our society.  There are layers of conformity laid down all throughout our culture.  We are subjected to the expectations of our governments, our educational systems, our religions and even our families.  Everyone, it seems, is expecting something from us.

Indeed, the idea of being exactly who and what you really are is not only discouraged by society in general, but most people can’t even begin to tell you where the real ‘them’ begins, because they have immersed themselves so completely in the expectations of others that they have lost track of their authentic self years ago.  The trick comes in rediscovering who and what you really are.

The First Step to Living an Authentic Life

Living an authentic life is living a real life; a genuine life; a life where your physical reality and your soul purpose are in alignment.  It means living the life you were born to live, and even if you have buried that authentic self under layers of expectations and commitments, you can rest assured that your authentic self is still there, just waiting for you to rediscover it, and the first step is simpler than you might expect; it comes from rediscovering your joy.

Do you remember joy?  I’m not talking about happiness here.  Happiness is a choice.  You can choose to be happy in spite of your circumstances, you can also allow outside circumstances to increase (or decrease) your happiness.  Joy is something else altogether.

Pure, unadulterated joy is what you experience when you are doing something that completely and totally engages every part of your being.  It is what happens when you are free of constraints and restrictions and are able to fully experience everything that is happening at this exact moment in time.  It is what happens when you are able to open yourself up completely; so completely that time actually ceases to exist and you find yourself suspended in one absolute and perfect moment of now.

You can see true joy in the face of a small child who has brushed off the restraining hands of an adult and is doing exactly what they wanted to do.

You can see pure joy in the face of an athlete as they hit that moment where everything drops away and where they are completely and totally aware of every cell and fiber in their body working in synchronization with every other cell and fiber.

You can see unadulterated joy in the face of an artist or writer as they become one with their work; in the face of the monk who has slipped into a pure state of awareness during meditation and in the face of a lover as the world around them dissolves into heat and light.

It is in rediscovering your joy that you will take your first step towards living an authentic life, for those things that bring us joy are directly connected to our higher self; to our soul purpose, and by pursing them; by engaging in those activities you will reconnect with who and what you really are.  But how do you begin to find what it is that brings you joy?

Rediscovering Your Joy

The problem is, of course, that everyone is different, and the activity or object that instills joy in one person may not be what triggers it for another, which means that no one can tell you what it is that brings you joy, they can only explain how to find joy for yourself.

It’s actually far simpler than you might imagine rediscovering your joy is simply a matter of remembering those things; those activities; those ideas that completely engaged your attention.  Mind you this may involve go back to when you were young; to when you had fewer obligations and responsibilities; to when you acted spontaneously and without consideration of the feelings of others.  Keep a pen nearby when you are thinking about this and write down those things that come to mind.

Did singing in the choir raise your spirit through the roof?  Did you get chills when you stood on stage and said your lines to spontaneous applause and laughter?  Was it laying on the warm grass on a summer afternoon that touched your heart?  Or maybe it was the wind blowing through your hair as you ran pell-mell down a hill or through a field, or maybe it was the colors of a spectacular sunset that took your breath away.

Write them down.  Write them all down.

Chances are that with some thought you will be able to list a number of things that you can remember brought you joy.  But it is not enough simply to remember those things that brought you joy.  In order to live an authentic life, you have to be able to live your joy.  You have to be able to act from your heart without fear of censure or criticism. Then and only then will you have taken the first step towards living an authentic life.

 

I’ll Meet You There

On By Just StephIn Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about

~~Jalal ad-Din Rumi

Can you imagine it?

Can you imagine a world where we’ve stepped beyond the need to classify things as “right” or “wrong” and instead live so completely from the heart that we are in total synchronization with the universe’s plan for our lives, even if the life we live goes completely against social conventions?

What couldn’t we do?

What couldn’t we be?

How much of the misery and despair around us results from people trying to be something they are not? How much of it stems from living up to our societies expectations of what we are supposed to be?  How much of it results from people giving in to the pressure of friends and family to be “responsible” and “practical” to put aside their dreams in order to “grow up?”

I have asked this question before and gotten answers that, taken together, amount to this:

“But people have responsibilities.  We have obligations.  We have jobs and families that are depending on us.  Our communities, our societies expect us to behave in a certain way.  To just run off in pursuit of a dream; something that may or may not pan out; to pursue our own happiness regardless of the cost; that’s not being responsible, that is taking a risk, and not just with our own happiness, but with the happiness of others.”

Well, here are some questions for those who would hold this to be true:

Do you not also have a responsibility for your own happiness?

Do you really think that you can ever be truly happy as long as you know that you are not living up to your potential?

Do you really think that those who love you would not applaud you for doing what feels right and becoming the person you were truly meant to be?

Do you really think that it’s better to put away your dreams and be responsible, but to always know down deep in your heart that there is more to you than what you have settled for?

How much has the human race lost because someone with a dream responsibly put that dream aside in order to live up to their own or someone else’s expectations?

And finally (yet most importantly), what does your heart tell you that you should be doing?  What do you find your innermost soul yearning for? Are you content or do you find yourself seeking for something else; something more?

It is only in the deepest part of your heart that you will find the answers to these questions, and only there that you can find the strength to answer them honestly and then take whatever steps are necessary to bring your life into alignment with your soul purpose.

It is not an easy thing to do.  And no, it does not mean that you have to leave your family or give up your job or shirk your responsibilities.  This is something that goes far deeper than that.  Of course if you are honest with yourself; if you truly want to bring your life into alignment with your soul purpose; if you commit yourself to living from your heart then things are going to change.

When you can finally be honest with yourself and admit that you are not living from your heart; that your life is not in alignment with your soul purpose; when you finally commit to living authentically and are open to what your heart is telling you, things will change. It can’t be helped.  But you won’t have to force them.

As you listening to the promptings of your soul; as you learn to act on the instincts and impulses that it sends to guide you.  You will find your life becoming richer; deeper; more authentic than anything you could possibly have imagined.  But you will also find that many things that you thought were important; many things you thought you couldn’t do without will start to fall by the wayside. Desires, wishes, plans, ideas, beliefs, friendships, relationships; each and every one of them will be subjected to the same test of authenticity.  Some will survive the test.  Others will not.

Regardless of what does or does not change, your life will never be the same again.

And one day, one day you will be able to walk past the concepts of rightdoing and wrongdoing; smiling at them as you pass them by, and find yourself in that field where the person you have become will be able to lay itself down and bask in the wonder of what it truly means to live authentically.

And there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.