We’re already at the 3rd pillar of well-being!
As a quick review, the first two are:
-Meaning, the ability to be more present, tuned into your here and now as well as to your mind chatter.
From Dr Davidson directly:
“Awareness: A heightened, flexible attentiveness to one’s environment and internal cues such as bodily sensations, thoughts, and feelings.
Skills: Mindfulness, attention, self-awareness”
How is your practice of awareness coming along?
Another way to think about awareness, is mindfulness. If you google that word alone, you’ll find loads of practices (in addition to the pause one I gave you) to support you in cultivating more awareness.
Today we’re exploring the 2nd pillar of well-being that Dr Richard Davidson identified with his neuroscience research.
Have you heard of a neuroscientist named Richard Davidson?
He’s been doing research on the brain specifically related to mindfulness, meditation, and well- being for decades. And his research is fascinating!
One of his key findings is around the idea of well-being. Through extensive study, trials and research, he has identified what he calls 4 pillars of well-being.
The really exciting news is that these so-called pillars aren’t inherent qualities, or even simply acquired knowledge. They are qualities that each and every one of us can cultivate and apply every day of our lives! Wahoo!
Have you experienced the past few months as intense, chaotic, and full of uncertainty?
Yes?
You’re not alone.
Some days feel like a tough slog. Like we’re moving through dense resistance. Which is all the more reason to embrace your spiritual practice and deepen into it.
Many seers have spoken of this time we are in as an amplification, when everything is speeding up and gaining power. This is exactly why you have to choose your own sanity, clarity and peace.
Not only because the chaos is ever growing, but because the benefit of you doing your inner work is amplified during this time. In other words, you can use this time to fast track your liberation.
Recently, we explored the big idea in which I asked you what myth are you living. If you’re still ruminating on this, here’s another tool that might help you drill into it: archetypes.
The concept of archetype is something Carl Jung spent a tremendous amount of time exploring and is so rich! Caroline Myss has built on Jung’s work and expounded on how we can access and utilize archetypal energy to better understand ourselves and the world.
I was listening to a speaker recently explain why people don’t obtain results. And do you know what she said?
Think about one of the New Year’s resolutions you made ten months ago. Maybe, like many of us, you had ‘lose weight’ on your list. Let’s say fifteen pounds.
Those of us who are committed to a spiritual path can sometimes feel split in two. There’s the contemplative, ascetic side of our nature, the part that loves meditation, silence and oneness with God. Then there’s the other side of us that’s out there in the world earning a living, being a consumer, friend and partner.
How do we merge these two aspects of ourselves that seem disparate but in reality are one?
The exciting answer is, YES!
As Pema Chodron reminds us, “Whatever is happening is the path to enlightenment.”
When I was twenty-six, I discovered, quite to my surprise, that I was pregnant.
I panicked because I was not ready to have a baby.
I’d only been married three short months. My new husband and I were still getting to know one another. Were we, as a couple, prepared for a child?
And I certainly didn’t know enough about anything – life, parenting, culture... There was so much more I needed to learn before I could be a mom, wasn’t there?
After spending a few weeks in denial, I quickly moved into anger. How could I have been so stupid? What was I thinking?
Ever have one of those days when you just hit the wall? When your efforts create no results and nothing seems to work?
Days like that are frustrating, tiring and, frankly, discouraging.
And what if tomorrow you embraced a new idea, a new way of looking at life? One that felt more invigorating and enlivening. A perspective that was less about doing and more about receiving.
I recently had an a-ha about this when I saw a post on Facebook. It was an image of a woman floating effortlessly in the water and said:
Turns out that you aren’t alone. More than ever, Americans are enhancing their every day lives by incorporating some kind of creative outlet. Whether it’s painting a plate on date night or joining a weekly Bollywood dance class, we’re choosing to spend more of our time in creative pursuit.
Hmmmmm.
It was the agreement I made with myself when I left my spiritual teacher in 2004, when I agreed that I would be in charge of my life – good and bad. That whatever happened, I would own it.
Things are going exactly according to plan and you are clearly in charge of your life. But then- all of a sudden- life takes charge and is controlling the wheel of your destiny.
When that happens, tasks take forever to complete. No one calls you back. Or maybe you think things will go a specific way just to get entirely rerouted.
When life seems to be in charge - it can trigger uncertainty or the internal skeptic- and make us feel unsure or cloudy.
Day turns into night, flowers bloom and wither, stocks rise and fall. We move houses, change jobs, meet new people, and shift our mindsets.
Change is a natural part of life but sometimes, especially in our intimate relationships, change can be a challenge.
We want to know that there is routine, that things will stay the same. That my assistant will be at work on time, that the bus will stop at the corner at 8:30 every morning, that Safeway always carries the deodorant I prefer.
Just as we have our coffee every morning, we come to expect people to be the same day after day, too, and when they shift, that can upset out status quo.
Whether you’re just about to graduate from college, a millennial rethinking your career path or in your 50s looking at being an empty nester, the answer is the same.
This can be hard because it often seems like there are multiple people speaking to us all day long. It isn’t just one clear voice guiding us.
This is a really useful tool. Because it can help us distinguish which aspect of ourselves we might be listening to or activating.
Or to be more specific, when your shadow behavior is pointed out to you by someone you love and trust.
Recently I had a conversation with my husband in which he shared that over the past year I’d demonstrated more controlling behavior. He gave a few specific examples, some I agreed with and others I wanted to immediately reject.
It wasn’t that I was being more controlling it was that I was finally coming in to my own, doing what I wanted as opposed to what other people were telling me to do.
My husband was infinitely kind, loving and soft when he spoke to me but what I heard was, “You’re a controllingbit** and I don’t want to be with you.”
Have you ever had the experience of meeting someone and, after a brief period of time, it’s as if you’ve always known them?
Or perhaps you have a good friend you haven’t seen in years (or decades) and as soon as you’re together, it’s like no time has passed?
I have a soul sister like that and I’ll call her Natalie.
Last year I stayed in a town just a few hours from where she lives. I hadn’t talked to her in awhile but we’d stayed in touch on Facebook. I messaged her letting her know I was nearby.
Natalie immediately called and said she was on her way to this very same town as her daughter was participating in a state event!
I was a little nervous to see her again. Even though we’d reconnected via social media and the phone in the last few years, I hadn’t seen her or physically been with her in almost 20 years.
Maybe it was disappointment at some of my life choices or that I’d backed out of a plan we’d made together. Either way, I felt stifled and judged and in need of some space and time. I’d relocated, moving a thousand miles away, so it became easy to stop communicating with her.
On average, I lived in a place for four years although sometimes my stays could be as short as a few months. I bounced around for years until I had my first child. Then, one of my friends finally scolded me. “You can’t keep moving, it’s bad for the baby.”
At first I ignored her. Infants cling to primary support not place but her words rang in my ears and I finally had to stop running.
I was convinced that each new place was the answer to my unhappiness. It wasn’t that the dissatisfaction was within me, NO! It was the pollution, the traffic, the unaware people, the lack of opportunities.
I exchanged traffic for trees, noisy neighbors for none but I still always brought my emotional baggage with me; my procrastination, unresolved issues or negativity because, they were all a part of who I am.
Have you heard this before?
I interpret this to mean that what I feel, how I view my life and process it affects me more than where I physically am, or what I am actually doing.
A few years ago I was skiing in Colorado. It was a cloudless, sunny day in the high 40s, the snow conditions were perfect and I was surrounded by my loved ones.
But as I rode up the chair lift looking out at the forest of frosted fir trees and mountains, I felt terrible. Inside of me was like a gray, gloomy day. I was in a funk.
Maybe it was the stark contrast that I was experiencing in that moment- between being in such a gorgeous place and feeling so dark inside- but something finally clicked.
I have a good friend named Robin who’s a Unity minister. She’s a dynamic speaker and a riveting storyteller. Reverend Robin has a knack for tying metaphysical concepts with everyday reality and infusing them with heart and humor.
One of her sermons -that really stuck with me- was a story in which she likened life to a game.
Sometimes we get a good break (we skip three spaces) and sometimes we have to go backward (or worse to jail!)
Maybe we meet a partner, have a child, get divorced, buy a house or a car, lose a job, go back to school, fall into bankruptcy, get sick, need hospitalization…
But inevitably, whatever new adventure life throws at us, we have to continue playing.
June 30 marks the 5th anniversary of my younger sister, Melissa’s, death from metastasized breast cancer. Almost as soon as June begins I think of her constantly. And in these past few weeks, I’ve been reflecting on what she taught me, particularly about courage.
As a child, I was self-deprecating and acted as the family peacemaker while Melissa was the rebel, the one who was so clearly out of the box. A born risk-taker, she was always more daring than I was.
My Dad had successfully maneuvered us up the chairlift and onto the bunny slope. He was busy adjusting my binding when he looked up, glanced around and then turned to me. “Where’s your sister?”
At 18, she went skydiving, at 20 biked alone across the Netherlands and France and at 22 moved to Cairo. She was her own person and was a great teacher for me about living courageously.
