Tag: presence

How to Say I Love You

Yesterday afternoon, I lounged on my porch and I read, in between lazily throwing balls into the pool for Trip and Ralphie to continuously retrieve. (Ralphie and Trip are our true-to-their nature sporting dogs, and all the while, Josie, our true-to-her-nature herding dog, was tirelessly nipping at their heels and earnestly making sure that they got out of the pool, again and again. This morning, we have three exhausted dogs, which makes for a nice, peaceful, uninterrupted morning for this writer gal. All by design . . . ) As I was reading and pondering, something in my reading and meditating and contemplating, sparked me to write this exact text to myself:

“What do you want from this day? From this experience? From your relationships? How do you want to feel? What kinds of outcomes are you looking for? Don’t be a reactor, be a visionary.”

We so often forget that we are the creators of our living experience. The job, the relationships, where we live, how we spend our time, what we eat and drink, what we think about, what we ruminate on, our hobbies, etc. are all of our own choices. If you don’t like some of your choices, you have the ability to change them. You are the one who brought them into your life in the form which they are in, so you have the ability to choose differently. Don’t pick “the victim stance”. It limits you so much.

All of the inspirational reading and listening I have done throughout my entire life – the books, the articles, the cutesy signs, the memes, the meditations, the quotes, really all circle around to the same overall ideas: Be intentional. Be grateful. Be HERE in the present now. Make conscious choices.

And here’s a big one that I want to finish out my year reminding myself and making it a forever practice (and this is a tough one, as a mother of four adult kids who are spread all over the east coast, and as one who has aging relatives and friends, and as one who when she loves, she loves hard and full and deep with her big ol’ entire heart) Worry does not equal love. I am not loving you in the best way that I can when I am worried about you. I put fear energy all around you when I worry about you. It makes you seem small, weak, and victim-like. I am loving you best when I believe in you – when I believe in your strength, and your vision, and your abilities, and when I have faith that Something/Someone so much bigger than all of us, is in your corner, keeping you safe, helping you to carry out your living purpose, which is for the better sake of all of us on this Earth, combined.

I have noticed that when I tell people whom I care about, “I don’t worry about you” and I say it with a tone that implies, ‘I know that you are going to be fine, more than fine. You’ve got the right attitude, heart, and guides to see you through’, this firm statement makes them sit up straighter and feel more empowered and confident than almost anything else I could say to them. “I don’t worry about you,” might be one of the most beautiful variations of “I love you” that we have in our spoken/written communication. Fear is the opposite of love. Worry equals fear, not love.

Readers, continue this beautiful year of your life, living fully and intentionally. Be grateful for all that you have created and will continue to create in your one and only unique life. Finish strong. I know that you will. I love you, readers. I don’t worry about you.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Better Late Than Never

“So, in an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, noting is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.” – Pico Lyer

I know that I may have some long-time, loyal, everyday readers, who might be a little bit concerned about me right now. I understand. I pride myself on consistency. I am late writing this post because my host server, Bluehost, was experiencing “Gateway” problems all morning. (don’t ask me what that means, I’m a writer and certainly not a technical one) And I can’t complain. I can count on one hand how many times Bluehost has caused me issues on being able to get on to my WordPress blog site to write my daily blog. In my experience, Bluehost has always been reliable and consistent. I can’t complain. Nothing and no one is completely without fault in this world. C‘est la vie!

So, in the meantime, I have been deliciously lounging outside by my pool, reading a wonderful book, while every 45 minutes or so, coming into the house to see if I could finally log on to say “hi.” I have been living Pico Lyer’s quote above, this morning, and it has been exhilarating and luxurious, and in my case, probably also “urgent.” I have been living more distracted and disconnected lately, than I usually like to go about living my life, and I have suffered some consequences for this lack of attention to the present. Perhaps, even Bluehost knew to force the issue, to make me take a pause.

I hope that you all didn’t go immediately to “the negative” in your minds wondering why I didn’t post. I only write this because unfortunately, this is something that I have the tendency to do. A good friend of mine took her elderly dog to the vet this week, and I didn’t hear back from her when I texted, asking how the appointment went. I’m ashamed to admit that I immediately envisioned the worst possible scenario, and I was already comforting/hugging her in my mind. Well, what really happened is that she changed her cell phone provider and her texts weren’t coming through. Her wonderful, longtime fur companion is just fine! And so am I.

Have a luxurious, exhilarating, urgent “sit still” with me today, if you can. It will do us all a world of good, which ultimately, makes for a good world.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Name ‘Em

“Name your feelings to tame your feelings.” – Holiday Mathis

The holidays are upon us and everything gets amplified at this time. Lights are brighter, food is richer, decorations are more ornate than ever, and there is more of everything coming at us at every angle, and loudly. SALES!! BLACK FRIDAY!! ANOTHER HELPING OF STUFFING!! GUESTS!! PARTIES!! JINGLE BELLS!! LIGHTS AND LIGHTS AND FLASHING LIGHTS!!!

With this amplification of our material lives, often comes the amplification of our interior lives. What has been lying low, deep below the surface, often gets jostled awake by the sensory overload happening all around us. In short, the holidays can be A LOT. They can be a lot of fun, a lot of merriment, a lot of celebration, a lot of excess, a lot of planning, a lot of mess, a lot of memories, and a lot, a lot, a lot of feelings coming to the surface.

Feelings are not good or bad. Our feelings are just our natural compasses to remind us to do course corrections when needed, and to soak in, and to bathe ourselves in our moments of our internal peace and happiness. Feelings just are. But we often try to avoid our feelings at all cost, especially the ones that we deem to be “bad” feelings. Ironically, that just makes our feelings more powerful. Avoided, unobserved, repressed, suppressed, denied feelings end up controlling us, and at worst, hurting us by stagnating in our bodies, which can later cause unrest and disease. But the way to control our feelings, is to face them head on, in a detached matter, and to notice ourselves feeling our feelings. (see quote above – “Name your feelings to tame your feelings.“) Just like we have the ability to notice our thoughts, we can easily notice our feelings. When a feeling arises and catches our attention, we should take a pause and name the feeling. Anger. What does anger feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of anger happen in my body? Happiness. What does happiness feel like in my body? Where does the sensation of happiness happen in my body?

I read a book recently that said we could take this “notice your feelings” activity even a step further. As we feel the sensations of our feelings, we should then feel love for that particular feeling, and love for the power of that particular feeling in our body. Finally we should feel love for ourselves for feeling that particular feeling and all of our feelings. This activity ends up disciplining us to notice and name our feelings, to feel our feelings, and then to alchemize all of our feelings into love and acceptance for ourselves, and for our natural state of constantly shifting feelings. (Credit: Arnold Patent)

When you take this activity seriously and you make a conscious effort to do it, what has become really obvious to me, is just how quickly the feeling moves on. It’s like the feeling is saying, “Okay, thanks! Thanks for feeling me. That’s all I needed. I just wanted to be noticed and acknowledged! Thank you. I’ll be moving on now!” But if you deny or ignore your feelings, they become like indignant children in the middle of a tantrum. Their intensity grows and sometimes they get out of control. They will plant themselves firmly in place and scream, “Don’t you ignore me! LISTEN TO ME!!! FEEL ME!!! I WILL BE FELT!!!! KA-POW!!”

The next time you hear “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, playing in your local grocery store for the 16th time before Thanksgiving, as someone muscles you out of the way for the last tube of sausage on the shelf, stop. What are you feeling? Where are feeling it? Love the feeling. It’s intense, isn’t it? It’s powerful, isn’t it? Aren’t our bodies amazing messengers? Love your body and yourself, for being so amazing and full of sensation. Now notice how quickly the feeling has passed. (on an aside, if the feeling isn’t passing, you may be ruminating in your thoughts and your judgments. Notice those thoughts and judgments. Are these thoughts and judgments even really true and objective?) At this point, after fully feeling your feeling, you don’t even have the inclination to ram someone with your shopping cart anymore. In fact you may even hum a little bit to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”, or perhaps even sing it out loud, as you are experiencing your new feeling of holiday cheer. What are you feeling now? Where are you feeling it? Love that new feeling. Most importantly, love yourself for the best gift that you are giving to yourself this holiday season. You are giving yourself the presents of presence. And that is a priceless, serene gift that you and all of us, absolutely deserve.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.