This week I wrote four articles on ending well. We all face many endings in life and they bring an opportunity to end well so that you can begin again well and fully without baggage and regrets.

I encourage you to read them all on my Soulseeds blog.

The first part looked at impermanence.

The second looked at ending well, especially in the case of divorce or relocation.

The third looked at assumptions.

The fourth part looked at making peace with time.

F.E.A.R False Evidence Appearing Real

This is part 3 in a series on 9-11, fear and healing memories. Please visit Soulseeds to read the whole series.

 Fear is the memory of danger. It serves a purpose, often keeping us out of danger like not touching a red hot stove top, but in many ways it’s a dinosaur. The fight or flight response of fear is a hangover from ancient times when people had to avoid flying spears and hungry mammoths. It created the urgency to act before thinking. Life doesn’t hold the same dangers for most of us now, and yet our brains still hold the same capacity for fear. Our challenge is to separate healthy fear from unhealthy fear. This is part of the process of photoshopping memories- updating the information and reframing the challenges behind fear.


Healthy fear gets you out of the path of a speeding car, and checks in with the doctor about a strange lump. Unhealthy fear is F.E.A.R, false evidence that appears real but is mostly a fabrication of the reptilian brain and the ego that wants to keep you imprisoned in your own mind, unwilling to be fully alive because it’s too risky to venture out. Overcome this unhealthy fear, and you will wake up to an inner security that will put external threats in a new perspective.

TS Elliot said, “I will show your fear in a handful of dust.” 9-11 showed us fear in a skyline of dust, an urban wasteland. Ten years later, the dust has settled, but the fear remains for many. Unfortunately, some politicians, most branches of the media and too much religion tap into the reptilian fear impulse and encourage unhealthy fear. Whole systems of so called security are established to create the façade of safety. One of the ways we can photoshop the awful memories of 9/11 is to update some of our information and reframe our workdview.

I flew out of American on Christmas Day, 2009, the same day that the famed “Underwear Bomber” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab strapped explosives to his underwear and attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit airport. As a result, I passed through the tightest air travel security regimen that the world has ever seen. Countless hours and dollars were poured into patting down 7 year old girls wheeling Dora the Explorer backpacks full of Christmas toys and crayons. (I always thought there was something fishy about Dora, her evil side-kick Boots and that cunning talking map.)

Update your information about air travel. In the past decade there have been a handful of terrorist related incidents on US airplanes. Most of them failed or were foiled by other passengers. If you look at the total number of passengers on planes in the last decade, the odds of being on a flight with a terrorist incident is 1 in 10 million. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 500,000. Here is a stark way to reframe the events of 9/11. You are more likely to die from falling out of bed than as the victim of a terrorist on a plane. Or to reframe this in a positive context. Your odds of finding true and lasting inner peace skyrocket when you rid your mind of irrational fears.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to have air travel security measures. We need to take precautions. But there is a world of difference between precautions and paranoia. A precaution is taking a cell phone and GPS on a long car trip. Paranoia is not leaving your home. There are few things in life we desire more than security, and yet it is often like chasing the wind. Just when you think you’ve caught it, another gust comes up from behind and knocks you down. Security has an elusive charm that keeps you searching but can leave you vulnerable to surprise attacks and missed opportunity.

Security is tightened at major national airports, leaving the gate open for someone to enter the system in one of the smaller, less secure, airports. It’s like double dead bolting your front door, but leaving the side French Windows wide open. There are gaps in the border walls to Mexico. There are loopholes to laws and tax systems. Bottom line, there is no perfect security system. You can surround yourself with the greatest military might on the planet and still not feel secure.

After ten years of tightened security measures, do you feel safer on an airplane? Maybe. But at what cost? While so much focus is on air travel, what other security threats are being ignored? The ultimate question is- Are you prepared to sacrifice personal liberty for the illusion of security?

As long as you frame life against an expectation of security, you will never feel safe. When you frame your life and memories against a backdrop of freedom and personal responsibility, you will be at peace. To live is to risk. To love is to risk. To risk is to surrender. To surrender is to find peace of mind.

Updating memories with new information is one step in reframing traumatic memories. The chance of something happening on an airplane is slim. The risk in visiting New York City is negligible. People wearing turbans are no more or less dangerous than those without turbans. If 9-11 teaches us anything, surely it is to live while you are alive, and not allow the illusion of security and the frame of fear to hold you captive.

Recently I discovered that someone in our neighborhood has built a bomb shelter. I could understand this during World War 2, but in our quiet town in 2011 it verges on paranoia. The same person moved from the other side of the state for safety reasons. The desire for security is insatiable. There is nowhere to run and hide from life. It demands to be lived. There is no place, no travel, no system, that can satisfy the ego’s desire for security. The biggest problem is bomb shelters of the mind, the protective layers that keep you locked in a small perspective.

F.E.A.R- come back to the false evidence part of the equation. Change the frame.

There is a parable about a man who wakes up in the middle of the night to find a poisonous snake coiled next to his leg at the foot of his bed. He lies awake all night, frozen in terror, praying that the snake won’t bite him. As dawn breaks, and light begins to shine on his bed, he finally realizes that it’s not a snake at all. It’s a belt he forgot to put away when he went to bed. Once he knows the truth, the snake disappears, the memory of the night is reframed, the fear is gone and he is filled with relief.

Until he had seen the light, so to speak, his imagination got the better of him and he imagined his own demise at the hands of the snake. When you shine a light on the memories and call them what they are, you can make unconscious emotions conscious and reframe false evidence.

This is one of the ways we can honor the loss of 9/11. Call it what it was, but not more than that. It was the tragic loss of life at the hands of a few extremists. Insane people with insane beliefs can knock buildings down and kill people to further their agenda, but they can’t win inside your head and heart which is the engine room of your life, unless you let them. Choose love over fear.

The choice is there for each one of us- continue to reenact the fear, and you will live your life in a bomb shelter of your own mind. In this case the terrorists win. Or else put events of the past in perspective, and reclaim your power. Live with courage, which is not the absence of fear but the choice to proceed despite the fear. Sometimes your worst fear becomes your greatest opportunity.

Where do you find the strength to persist despite the fear? This simple story illustrates a profound truth. A mouse was in constant distress because of its fear of the cat. A magician took pity on it and turned it into a cat. But then it became afraid of the dog. So the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to fear the panther, so the magician turned it into a panther. Then it was full of fear for the hunter. At this point, the magician gave up. He turned it into a mouse again saying, “Nothing I do for you is going to be of any help because you have the heart of a mouse.”

Have the heart of a peaceful warrior and nothing outside of you can conquer you. Therefore there is very little to fear. You nurture the heart of a peaceful warrior with the rock solid inner stillness that accepts change without attaching to outcomes.

The stage is set for an incredible evolutionary leap beyond reptilian fear and you and I are a part of this shift. As more people make a choice to live with inner freedom and personal responsibility, the very DNA that defines our fear impulse will be recoded. As we reframe the ego’s insatiable desire for security, we will stop looking for things that don’t exist and start truly living while we are alive. This is the greatest way to honor the loss of 9-11.

Let these words from Native American poet, Joy Harjo sink deeply in. She writes from her personal experience of fear. Change the details to match your experience, but keep the essence of her message.

I Give You Back By Joy Harjo

I release you, my beautiful and terrible fear.

I release you.

You were my beloved and hated twin, but now, I don’t know you as myself.

I release you with all the pain I would know at the death of my daughters.



You are not my blood anymore.



I give you back to the white soldiers who burned down my home, beheaded my children, raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.



I give you back to those who stole the food from our plates when we were starving.



I release you, fear, because you hold these scenes in front of me and I was born with eyes that can never close.



I release you, fear, so you can no longer keep me naked and frozen in the winter, or smothered under blankets in the summer.



I release you I release you I release you I release you



I am not afraid to be angry.

I am not afraid to rejoice.

I am not afraid to be black

I am not afraid to be white.

I am not afraid to be hungry.

I am not afraid to be full.

I am not afraid to be hated.

I am not afraid to be loved,

to be loved, to be loved, fear.



Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.

You have gutted me but I gave you the knife.

You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.



I take myself back, fear.

You are not my shadow any longer.

I won’t hold you in my hands.

You can’t live in my eyes, my ears, my voice my belly, or in my heart

my heart my heart my heart.



But come here, fear.

I am alive and you are so afraid of dying.

Feed Your Soul by Geneen Roth

Geneen Roth wrote the outstanding book, Women, Food and God which was featured on Oprah. I included one of Geneen's articles on Soulseeds' Seed Exchange. This article was first published in Good Housekeeping.


There are some things in life you take for granted: Your children will outlive you. No matter how tough it gets, you won't poison your spouse with arsenic-laced toothpaste. And if you have a best friend, you will attend her wedding.

But life sometimes upsets our most basic assumptions. And although I haven't resorted to the arsenic (yet), I did have this surprise: My best friend from college got married today and I wasn't there. Never in a million years did I think I would miss her wedding. We'd been talking about it since we were 18. And yet, when it came down to deciding about making the trip from California to New York, I did something radical, something I rarely do: I took my own needs into account.

I stepped away from my notions of what a good person would do, what any loyal friend would do, and considered the facts: I'd just returned from teaching an exhilarating but exhausting weeklong retreat; I had a broken ankle and a sprained back and could barely walk; my friend decided to get married rather suddenly and told me she wasn't expecting me to come. And I realized that although I would miss seeing her walk down the aisle if I didn't go, I would be a hobbling, exhausted wreck if I did. So I stayed home, sent champagne, and wrote my friend and her new husband a wedding story. It was an agonizing decision but not nearly as painful as the tale I told myself about it: If I don't go to my best friend's wedding — the very friend who held my hair back the night I drank a bottle of Cold Duck and threw up on the sidewalk — people will finally discover how selfish I am and I will lose every friend I have. I will spend my dying days alone, dribbling Diet Coke on my chin with no friends or family around. As soon as I realized I'd made a leap from taking care of myself to visions of dying alone, dribbling and friendless, I understood that I considered looking out for my own needs a radical concept — so radical that it scared me to (a pathetic, lonely, and potentially sticky) death.

I should know better. In working with tens of thousands of women over the last two decades, I've found that there is a whole set of beliefs called "the bad things that will happen if I take care of myself." I've heard things such as, "My son will choke on a fish bone the minute I leave him alone and take some time for myself." "My husband won't be able to make friends without me if I stay home from this party and rest." "My friend will hate me if I don't make brownies for her bake sale."

Think about this: Do you feel it is right to put yourself at the center of your own life, or is your secret fear that if you consider your own needs, you'll alienate the people you love and end up homeless, rifling through old chicken bones in a dark alley? Are you afraid that a "me first" attitude will get you drummed out of the "good people" club?

Most of us secretly believe that good people, especially women, take care of others first. They wait until everyone else has a plateful and then take what's left. Unfortunately, most of us make decisions based on our ideas of who we think we should be, not on who we actually are. The problem is, when we make choices based on an ideal image of ourselves — what a good friend would do, what a good mother would do, what a good wife would do — we end up having to take care of ourselves in another way.

Enter food. When you don't consider your real needs, you will likely fill the leftover emotional hunger with food. (Or another abused substance. Or shopping. But most of us opt for food.) You eat in secret. You eat treats whenever you can, because food is the one way, the only way, you nourish yourself. You eat on the run because you believe that you shouldn't take time for lunch; there's too much work to do. You eat the éclair, the doughnut, the cake, all the while knowing this isn't really taking care of yourself. But to really take care of yourself, you have to think of yourself first.

"Is that possible?" you ask. "What about my children? I'd die for them." Have you ever considered why, on an airplane, the flight attendant tells you to put on your own oxygen mask first, before you help your children? It's because your kids' well-being depends on it. If you aren't grounded, present, calm, and able to breathe, there is no one to take care of them.

What would your life look like if you acknowledged the truth that working nonstop for 10 hours, taking care of other people, leaves you so spent and weary that there really isn't much left of you for your kids, let alone yourself? What would your life look like if you realized that you need to set aside time every day to fill yourself up — even if it's only by taking a few 15-minute breaks during which you stare at nothing or go outside or lie down? What would the pace of your life be if you went on "soul time" instead of clock time, even just a little?

It's possible. A few days ago, I spoke with a first-time mother. Her baby son had colic, and she was completely exhausted. She was so afraid she wouldn't be there when he needed her that she couldn't sleep even when he was napping or with her husband. And she was turning to food to calm herself down. I asked her what it would be like to do something very simple for herself: to sit down and breathe. That's all. No big deal. Nothing to achieve. Just let the body do what it was already doing and give herself a break. She said she could try that. She just breathed.

At the end of five minutes, I asked her how she felt. She said she was relieved, immediately calmer. She said that since she'd had her baby, she had forgotten all about herself and her needs, and while some of that was natural ("I'm so in love with him," she said; "I've never known love like this before"), she was not serving him best by exhausting herself. She said that caring for herself was doable — maybe not in the same ways she did before she was a mother, but in new ways. Taking small rests. Eating well. Going outside for even five minutes while he naps. "I can do this," she said. "I can treat myself with the same kind of care that I give him."

"Now you're talking," I said. "And the better you take care of yourself, the more he will know as he grows up that it's fine for him to take care of himself, too."

If you operate on what you believe a good mother/partner/friend would do and you leave yourself — what you need, how you feel — out of the equation, your relationships will suffer.

I'm here to tell you that cherishing yourself by making yourself a priority in your own life is possible. You can take care of your needs and your relationships with family and friends can thrive. I know, because I am making this my daily practice, and I am confident I will not go out either alone or dribbling.

Six Degrees of Separation

This is the first part of a four part series on oneness and interconnectedness. Visit Soulseeds for all four articles.

The idea of six degrees of separation is that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet by a chain of no more than five acquaintances. In 1967 the American sociologist Stanley Milgram created a test called “The small-world problem.” He randomly selected people in the mid-West to send packages to a stranger in Massachusetts. They were told only the recipient’s name, occupation and general location. They were instructed to send the package to someone they knew only on a first name basis, who would then send it on to another, and so on until the package finally got to the recipient. While it was expected that the chain would be at least 100 people long, Milgram actually found that the range was from 2 to 10, with 5 being the average. His study inspired the phrase, “Six Degrees of Separation.”

Various forms of the theory have been tested and confirmed in the decades since. Most recently, Microsoft analyzed 30 billion Instant Messenger conversations in one month in 2006. They claim that they captured about half of the whole world’s IM communication for that month. They confirmed that the average chain of connection between IM users was 6.6. Yahoo and Facebook are now creating their own test of the theory.

The Kevin Bacon version of the experiment shows that all actors are connected to Kevin Bacon by an average of less than 3 connections. It turns out Bacon isn’t even the most connected actor. That award goes to Rod Steiger. By virtue of his five marriages, Steiger might invite a new version of the game to see how many marriages each couple is separated from every other couple. The mind boggles. It’s a small world, but as comedian Steven Wright said, “I wouldn’t want to paint it.” You can do your own Six Degrees of Separation exercise. When you’re at a party or work function, strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know, and find out how many degrees of separation there are between you. Ask questions about where they live, where they exercise, hair dressers, doctors, schools, what town they grew up in etc until you find a common acquaintance.

The idea of six degrees of separation is incredibly empowering. That elusive answer you’ve been looking for, the guidance, connection, support, inspiration, are all closer to you than you imagine. Sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone and connect with someone new or some new place just to remind yourself that you live in an awesome universe that is open and generous, and that sometimes strangers or unlikely acquaintances bring you surprising gifts. There is enormous value in connecting with a diverse group of people and travelling to new places. It expands you and your experience of life. It reminds you that you live in a small but miraculous world and there is always more to learn.

Six degrees of separation is also motivating. If you understand the power you have to influence others, you can choose what you want to share. Because studies now show that happiness is literally contagious across your extended network, up to three degrees of separation. One study showed that if you are happy, your friends are 25% more likely to be happy as a result and your friends’ friends are 10% more likely to be happy even if they don’t even know you. So, given that we are all connected by six degrees of separation and happiness reaches across three degrees of separation, two people at opposite ends of a social network should be able to pass happiness back and forth among the network like a vibrating chain. Choose to share happiness and optimism. Spread it like a virus for good. Interconnectedness is not just a human experience.

David Lusseau, from the University of Aberdeen, UK, performed a similar experiment on 130 dolphins living off the coast of Svotland. He found that it takes an average of just 3.9 steps to link any two dolphins by the shortest possible route through mutual flipper friends. This is a good reminder that the six degrees of separation is not just about linking humans. All beings are intimately related. The notion of six degrees of separation reminds us of one of the fundamental laws of the universe and a profoundly spiritual truth. We are ALL connected and intimately related to each other. This is the foundation for compassion, morality, gratitude, wonder, vision, the law of attraction, paying kindness forward and so much more.

This week I will write each day on different aspects of six degrees of separation, including the gift of “weak” connections, the effect of the parts on the whole, the need to reconnect widely and culminating in an article on 360 degrees of connection.

Swami Vivekananda, the 19th century mystic credited with bringing Hindu philosophy to the west offers the perfect summary of the theme, All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything

Light in the Tunnel- Change Management

This post first appeared on my blog at Soulseeds, and is the first in a four part series. All four articles are on the Soulseeds blog.

I have whiplash from following news of the economy in recent weeks. One day I read an article titled, “The top 10 reasons the U.S. will not see a double dip recession”. On the same day I read another report titled, “The top 10 reasons a double dip recession has already begun.” So which is it? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is so sure they have the truth. In order to keep a little perspective in the madness, here are 10 lighthearted ways to know that we are in a recession.

10. For his birthday last week, President Obama asked for cash gifts….in Canadian dollars.

9. Angelina Jolie and Madonna have begun adopting American babies.

8. You now receive pre-declined credit cards in the mail.

7. Paris Hilton has changed her name to Paris Holiday Inn.

6. When you order your MacDonald’s burger, the server asks “Can you afford fries with that?”

5. When the ATM declines your transaction, you don’t know if it’s because you or the bank have insufficient funds.

4. You take your sales clients for a round of miniature golf.

3. A picture is now only worth a hundred words.

2. Wall Street has been renamed- Wal-Mart Street.

1. The light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off because we can’t afford the electric bills.

The economy is not a laughing matter of course, and many people are feeling its devastating effects. I don’t mean to minimize the difficulties in any way. However a little fun can release some of the tension and offer a little perspective. When you get up each morning, as you eat your Credit Crunch for breakfast and before you watch the so- called news, remind yourself that economic change is in itself a gift. Every economy, strong and weak, creates new, and unforeseen, opportunities. Many jobs today were not even imagined 20 years ago. A recession is an awesome time to get innovative, bolster your resilience and believe in the power of change.

There IS light at the end of the tunnel (and it’s NOT a train). It’s an LED bulb, which incidentally is one product that is selling well this year. This in itself is a sign of optimism. People are making a change to their energy habits after all the focus on sustainability in recent years. Change is happening like it always does and we seem to be finally catching on. Go with change because the light is calling you to make empowered choices and live with optimism. The darkness of the tunnel; your personal shadows, blind spots and forbidden thoughts, are punctuated by glimmers of light. Embrace the time in the tunnel, whether it’s a recession, an illness or a loss. The light is there in the tunnel, waiting for you to see it.

Optimism is the light at the beginning, middle and end of the tunnel. No matter how dark it feels, stay focused on the light which flickers with a reminder of your strength and brilliance. When you stare at light, you still see it when you look away. It’s the same when you focus on your inner light. It colors everything you see with optimism. With optimism, it’s ALL light and no tunnel, just open space and possibility. Follow the light of your intuition and you will arrive at new and exciting opportunities.

Where do you look for optimism? There is an ancient Sufi story about the trickster Nasrudin who loses his keys. His friends find him on his hands and knees under a street lamp. They ask him, “What have you lost?” “My keys”, he says. After a while, one of his friends asks him if he is sure this is where he lost them. He says, “No. I dropped them over in the next street but the light is so much better here.”

As the Zen proverb says, “If you can’t find it where you’re standing, where do you expect to wander in search of it?”

The shimmering new realizations arrive where you are because they ARE you in some new form.

Rumi wrote about light,

The lamps are different.
But the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp shop, Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire, The Light streams
toward you from all things, All people, all possible permutations of good,
evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.

Trust the opportunity of change. If we learn nothing else from the ebb and flow of economies, let it be a reminder of the inevitability and opportunity of change. It’s those who adapt best to change who thrive on the waves of life. It is those who are able to stay present to the loving silence of the moment who find the treasures of change.

In recent weeks I have been writing about change that is forced on us by external circumstances- grief, job loss, divorce, physical pain etc. In these situations you can’t change the circumstance; you can only change your attitude towards them. I turn my attention now to a different sort of change, change that you help to create. These are the opportunities that present themselves for you to get active and get involved. They might be changes to your lifestyle or health, they might be changes to your consumption or energy efficiency, or they might be changes to the way society functions. Whichever it is, similar principles apply. The goal is to live and express beauty, truth, justice and love in your own life, and intend those same virtues for the entire planet. When you do this, you transform the world with light from the inside out.

In the coming days I will outline a three point plan for how to be an agent of conscious change, or in other words how to effect change in the healthiest way possible. It’s the AAA plan for change management that involves

1. Awareness,

2. Acceptance and

3. Action.

There is an article on each step at Soulseeds.

Transforming Grief

This is the fourth part in a series on grief. Please visit my blog at Soulseeds for all four articles.

Having allowed all the full range of grief’s emotions to move you, mess with you, mould you and make you who you are today, you may feel ready to pull yourself out of the funk and move forward with a greater sense of peace. You will never be the same again. But that is true in every moment, with or without grief. The question is whether you have the courage to live with the disappointment of an imperfect experience. Anne Lamott sums it up brilliantly-

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

There will be cold days when your grief feels arthritic. There will be other, more limber days, when the spring in your step will surprise you. Dance with a limp, live with the pain and roll with the punches. What else can you do? Trust what the experience of millions has confirmed; that grief comes in waves and like a wave, grief does subside with time. When the wave of grief feels overwhelming, stay with it and remind yourself that “this too shall pass”. Fight the waves, and you will exhaust yourself. Go with them, and they will subside more quickly and you will become stronger with every passing wave. Nothing can be transformed until it is fully accepted.

This brings me to the fourth truth of grief. The first truth is to feel the pain and let it transform you. The second truth is that you are not alone, because you have a unique version of a universal experience. The third truth is that grief follows its own timetable and patterns. The fourth truth of grief is that it is ONE part of your life, and even if it feels all consuming at times, you are more than your grief.

E-motion- Energy in Motion

Grief, and all of its associated emotions, are energy in motion. They are always on the move. Grief is not one, unchanging thing. Grief turns on a dime. Stay alert to the alchemy of grief. Burned in the fire of sadness, strength is born. Elisabeth Kubler Ross offers a visual analogy for changing emotions. She says that grief emotions will come and go. When they knock at your door, let them in, and say “Oh. It’s you. Come on in.” Entertain them, get to know them, talk to them. Let them have the run of your house for a while. Maybe keep some space apart from them. Don’t set a space at the dinner table for them.

Transformation takes place when you realize that emotions come and go. You can witness them, talk to them, feel them. But there is a “you” that is doing the witnessing, talking and feeling. At your essence, you are more than any emotion and more than any experience. Emotions and experiences impact and mould you, but they don’t fully define you.

Grief usually visits as part of a group of changing emotions. Hurt, disappointment, sadness, regret and so much more. Emotional mastery is to know what emotion is what, where it is coming from, to be present to them all, but not get stuck in any one emotion.

Rumi’s Guest House captures it well-

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Shaken not Stirred by Change

This is the fourth part in a series on change. You can read all of the posts at Soulseeds.

Marilyn Monroe said,

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right…..and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

Change is inevitable. That is the first truth of change. The second is that the future is open, and you can help to create it. The third truth is that chaos and change bring gifts of growth. The fourth truth of change is that there is something that remains stable while all else around you changes. It’s this unchanging spirit that gives you the courage and perspective to see the gifts of change. To paraphrase 007, change may shake, but not stir you.

Try this exercise. (of if you prefer, you can watch me demonstrating it here )Take your right hand and hold it out palm facing up. Something is about to change. Your hand will soon be facing palm down. It’s a 180 degree change. Conventional wisdom would say that it can’t be done without twisting your wrist. You are about to turn your palm down without twisting your wrist. Your wrist will remain stable while your hand changes direction. So, hold your right palm out in front of you with the palm facing up. Without turning your wrist, bring your palm up to your face. Then fold it down over your heart. Then take it out in front of you without twisting your wrist. Then bring it up to your face. Now hold it over your heart. Finally take it out in front of you. Now it is palm down. You did it without twisting your wrist.

In this illustration, your wrist is your unchanging inner spirit. You just changed without becoming limp wristed or losing the core of who you are. Everything can change around you; circumstances can be 180 degrees changed in your life. But you always retain the freedom and ability to choose your response. When this response comes from an inner place of peace, or equanimity, then you are not rocked by change. In fact you may even enjoy it.

Do you have something that needs to be released, some change that you feel brewing in your life? Hold your palm out, face up, so that what you need to release can fly free. Is it a relationship, a career path, a religious belief, a political hope? Let it go. Let it out. Let it fly free. Do it from the part within you that is completely free, the spirit that is still and peaceful in the midst of change. Everything is in perfect order. Reality is unfolding in perfect time, and you have the privilege of co-creating this reality as it unfolds.

This quote from Ken Wilber’s book One Taste is challenging but gets to the heart of that which is unchanging-

There is no inside and no outside, no in here versus out there. The nondual universe of One Taste arises as a spontaneous gesture of your own true nature. You can taste the sun and swallow the moon, and centuries fit in the palm of your hand. The pure I-I, the great I-AMness, breathes into infinity and creates a Kosmos as the Song of its very Self, and oceans of compassion fall as tears from your own very Original Face.

This is how I understand this beautifully poetic thought in practical terms. The lines on your palm change throughout life. The wisdom that some people believe you can discern from your palms is only a snapshot of who you are becoming in each moment, rather than a prediction of your future. There are other marks and signs on your palm; calluses from hard work, scars from injuries, etc, all reminders of your unique life experience. Some of these marks last a long time, but still change over time. I had a birth mark on my left palm that only started fading after 40 years. But there is something on your hand that is unchanging- your finger prints, the distinctive mark you leave when you shake hands with life. Your finger prints represent your unique human expression.

You do indeed hold centuries in the palm of your hand. Generations of genetic and environmental lineage make you who you are. You are changing from moment to moment, just as life changes from moment to moment. An open palm indicates that you aren’t hiding anything. You are ready to surrender to change with all of your vulnerable humanity. With an open palm, you give and receive, let go and begin the process of taking up again. An open palm is also snug. It signifies that you are okay with who you are becoming. This acceptance is the essence of your unchanging spirit. Everything can and will change around you. You will change; your mind, your direction, your path. Others will change. Systems will change. But through it all you remain grounded and stable.

To quote George Orwell, as he marveled at the human spirit that no system can squash,

The thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.