Winter Solstice, Chanukah, Christmas,..... this is the time of year when we celebrate the season changing to longer days known as the Festival of Lights. Lights on the Menorah, Lights on the Christmas trees, Lights of the Yule log,....
Light symbolizes the birth of longer days ahead as well as the light of goodness in our hearts. This time of year we gather around loved ones and give gifts to show we appreciate them. Some of us donate our time to organizations that help feed and clothe the homeless and offer solace for those who are suffering from depression and mental illness. No matter what religion we may follow the messages are the same. Take care of and love each other. The message of the 'Spirit of Christmas' is clear. Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men. Simply put and easily understood- we simply take care of each other. We begin with ourselves learning patience, acceptance (tolerance) compassion, forgiveness and loving-kindness. Regardless of how we are raised we all come to a point in adulthood where we realize that in order to make this a better world we must begin to forgive others for their weaknesses or ignorances. We do this by being mindful of how we speak to ourselves, how we speak to each other, how we practice forgiveness and walk in gratitude. In Mindfulness meditation we become aware of our thoughts and are mindful of which thoughts we allow to remain part as our behavior and which thoughts can be replaced with something that outwardly effects our world in a positive way. Being mindful of how we respond to each other with rational thought rather than reacting with emotion, mindful of how we taste the food we eat and give thought to the farmers, the rain and sun and the seed from which it came, mindful of how we treat our planet when we get in our cars to drive and how we might produce less waste to recycle, all begin with learning how to be mindful. Like anything else it takes practice. So developing a 5,10 or 30 minute practice of meditation each day just to quiet the mind and learn to let go of thoughts that create tension in our bodies which can lead to tension in the world is a easy first step to creating the positive day we will walk in. And from that we add to the positive day the people we meet and interact with may have and so forth. Peace on Earth, Goodwill Towards Men is created by us. And Mindfulness is a simple but powerful way to begin the process of creating such a world. *Joanie Lane is a Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master/Teacher, Spiritual & Life Coach, and Healing Movement Qigong Leader. She lives in Kelseyville, Ca. at her meditation center "A Positive Light". For more information visit her website at apositivelight.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others that have been included have been identified.
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When I would hold my "Compassionate Communication for Couples" class I always told couples that the most important part of communication is listening.
Let's just look at the word "communicate". It means 'to commune'. Or to share. In others words, Give and Take Equally <------ to share. How can we truly understand what someone is saying if we are doing something else, like watching television, playing video games, reading a text,.... Or, if we are having a disagreement with someone, preparing our next defensive response rather than listening to them. Putting in the effort to look past the emotions to what the other person is trying to say is the more compassionate response. Emotions easily get in our way and we tend to react to those emotions rather than what the person is actually saying. Often this means not responding until some thought has gone into sorting out what we heard. Sorting out how our emotions may have twisted the message which may trigger a habitual response. Or we can try looking deeply into how the other person feels. Do they seem hurt? Angry? Afraid? Could we be interjecting defensive behavior because of an assumption on our part? Even if we conclude after all this searching that the other person is over reacting and not "being fair", is there still a way to respond with a caring heart? There are times when we must put up boundaries to let someone know that there is a line that you will not allow to be crossed for your emotional safety. Clearly stating that verbal abuse will not be tolerated and that you will not participate further in conversation if this line is crossed is a healthy approach to communication. We can then choose to walk away after saying something like "I will be happy to work this out with you when you can be open and calm", or if you yourself are angry, "when I am open and calm". Something else that we want to practice is not bringing up the past, unless this is something that is being worked on as a couple and may take time to process through. But throwing past mistakes in the face of someone will not help them trust to open up to you and could be a way of avoiding a talk about the present. In a world filled with billions of people it would be unrealistic to think we could all communicate without argument or disagreement, but by practicing lovingkindness in our responses we can help others learn by example. Being mindful of what we say, how we are listening and how we respond are the tools to compassionate and successful communication. Not always easy to do I know, but practice improves each attempt. *Joanie Lane is a Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master/Teacher, Spiritual & Life Coach, and Healing Movement Qigong Leader. She lives in Kelseyville, Ca. at her meditation center "A Positive Light". For more information visit her website at apositivelight.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others that have been included have been identified. Each day we are given the gifts of joy. Though we experience difficulties and challenges, joy is always there, sometimes standing in a shadow or void, but there beside us none the less. Often when we are caught in our sadness or anger we don't see the joy beside us. But we can learn to see it, always. If we can learn to view life with a grateful heart we can open to viewing the joy in life, no matter what.
I think we can all agree that in order to know happiness we must know sadness. In order to know the feeling of accomplishment we must know hard work. And sometimes we must go through great adversity to experience the marvelous feeling and freedom that joy brings us. So from that we can see that sadness is joy, hard work is joy, adversity is joy and so on. Jesus was a great teacher who taught that God is love (or Love is God). That if we open our hearts to his teachings and love each other BECAUSE of our differences instead of in spite of them, we would see the world through loving eyes and choose to live in the world in love and joy. Mohammed brought us the same message; to love our differences. That to see that our differences were the gift that lent support to the whole. That while each of us brought something unique to the world which filled the gap with a gift that another may not possess, these combined gifts make a strong and supportive whole. Buddha also taught that we are interconnected and that we cannot survive happily when we do not accept each other for our differences. For those very differences are the strength that binds us together. It simply comes down to loving these differences as gifts and that our joy is interdependent on each other's joy. This week I invite you to peek around throughout your days and see if you can spot joy. Is it obviously there in the smile of someone you love? Is it there in the corner waiting to be seen when you feel frustrated or disappointed? Perhaps you can find it in the song of the birds and in the breeze as you dig that ditch to divert the gift of water from the winter rains. You carry it every moment in your heart even as the person driving next to you cuts you off in traffic. No matter what, joy is always available to you even if you have to look deeply to find it. But look none the less. It's there. Invite it out to play. *Joanie Lane is a Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master/Teacher, Spiritual & Life Coach, and Healing Movement Qigong Leader. She lives in Kelseyville, Ca. at her meditation center "A Positive Light". For more information visit her website at apositivelight.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others that have been included have been identified. Your experiences are not who you are. They do not define you. There are the unforeseen accidents or occurrences that happen randomly. There are also the planned events of life such as going to college, becoming a parent or a teacher or a scientist. Non of these experiences describe who you are. Today. In this moment.
Often when something unpleasant or downright bad happens we hold onto it as part of our makeup. "Our" past. Our identity. But the truth is life happens, good or bad, we learn something and move on. Or don't learn something and repeat it down the road. Repeating it can mean having the actual event happen again, (because we didn't learn to avoid it after the first time), or we repeat it over and over again in our thoughts or out loud as a description of who we are. And often we don't like what we see ourselves as and are afraid of what may happen next. Learning from experience is a very important part of growth and these life experiences can shape our character, but we do not have to become a lifelong victim of circumstances. Nor do we have to hold onto them as our identity. Life can be painful, scary, and often unfair. But when we carry our past as the identity of who we are today it's like looking through an obscure filter of dirty water. All the scary, crazy, ugly things that happened to us in the past just muck up the lenses that we see through today with. If we are doing this then no wonder we don't like what we see, or are fearful of what may happen next. Part of Mindfulness training is becoming aware of how we talk to ourselves, how we relate and interact with this life in each moment and how we see ourselves in the present tense. Seeing the world through our negative past experiences can blind us to the beauty of a new day, and new opportunities. By practicing Mindfulness we can become aware of when we are viewing the present through the dirty lenses of fear, regret, anger or resentment created by negative past experiences. Instead of seeing the world through the veil of our past we can enjoy each new moment as it is born and live it fully. In the coming week I invite you to practice becoming aware of how you see yourself. And when the opportunity arises, notice if you describe yourself as the person you are in this moment, reminding yourself that you are not your experiences. *Joanie Lane is a Meditation Teacher, Reiki Master/Teacher, Spiritual & Life Coach, and Healing Movement Qigong Leader. She lives in Kelseyville, Ca. at her meditation center "A Positive Light". For more information visit her website at apositivelight.com **These are original writings by Joanie. Any quotes by others that have been included have been identified. |