Archive for May, 2008

Freedom through the art of Listening

Monday, May 26th, 2008

“One of my wings beat faster,
I couldn’t help it–
the one away from the light.

It hurt to be told all the time
how I loved that terrible flame.” –William Stafford, Growing Up

If you experienced a small increase in awareness, this awareness will make it possible to see the mountain that impedes your success. If you experienced a bit of compassion for yourself with this awareness you will be able to move this mountain. Patience and compassion along with a willingness to do what it takes to be free from habitual states is key here. Slow and steady. And, sometimes just take it slow. In fact, slowing down will allow you to move any habitual pattern that gets in your way of good health.

Habitual states are typically accompanied by a busy mind where new, fresh ideas cannot be heard or invited in. When we slow down through the process of awareness we can then unhook habitual patterns. We can also bring in new possibilities of relating to the moment. Consider a pattern that really seems to trip you up, seems to support unhealthy means rather than healthy ones. For example, eating unconsciously where we cannot really pay attention to our food. This is done when we eat while we drive, or eating while we watch TV, or reading while we eat. Unconscious eating is often fast eating. Our awareness is either on something else or on many things and not fully on our meal.

When we slow down we can listen to what wants to happen in a given moment. When we listen and pay attention to what we notice this gives us the ability to respond to our bodies in a good way. When we listen to our body we discover it just wants to rejoice, enjoy and create with us. It wants to release the stored up pain and feel free. Our body wants to move and express. Our body wants to experience every one of its’ senses. Our body wants to love and to be loved.

We need to get beyond the thinking mind so we can listen to what our body is saying to us at any given moment. (Spiritual Journaling and meditation help with this). We need to get beyond the habitual response of our mind and emotions and listen to our heart, listen to our intuitive body. It is not the body that craves the second helping of chocolate ice cream. Nor is it the soul. It is the mind, the mind that rules the emotions that insists on second helpings and other habitual ways. In Buddhism this dynamic is part of our ego clinging: clinging to the “got to have this.” Let go, breath and listen to discover what it is your body and soul really want and need.

Listen to your body. What does she want?

Listen to your soul. What does she need?

Listen to what you really want.

Listen. Listen to the call of nature.

Listen to the call of your True Nature.

Listen. Listen.

Consider journaling the following to help you listen . . .

1. Give yourself 30 minutes for this experience. Go out in nature for a slow walk. Notice all the sounds. Listen. Listen to the sounds under the sounds and those nearby and far away. Bring your journal with you. After walking and listening for a while, sit and journal about the sounds you hear. Record what you hear. Then later sit and listen to your body. Try to hear your body, to feel your body’s vibration and physical sensations and emotions with your inner ear. Write about what you notice in your body.

Now write about what you forgot repeating the following words: “I forgot . . .” Instead of stopping your writing to think, get beyond the thinking mind and repeat the sentence, “I forgot . . .” Try and fill up a page.

Now take the sounds you heard in nature and in your body along with the above piece on forgetting and combine them into a poem.

2. Before lunch practice the following brief meditation. With feet on the floor, breath into your belly. Feel your feet on the floor. Feel your connection for a moment to all that lives and breathes. Feel your connection to the breathing earth. Imagine roots going down into the earth. Again breathe deep into your belly (breath in through the nose and out through the mouth), and ask yourself: What does my body want and what does my soul need? Listen to what comes to you. Trust what comes and make note of it in your journal. And now, enjoy your lunch.

3. This week journal each morning about how you want the day to look, feel, be for you. Focus on meals and food but include other aspects of your day. Script the ideal day. Consider this ideal day for a moment after you are done journaling it. See your self eating well, slowing down, and going for that walk. Describe how it will feel and be for you. (Be careful not to make a list of goals. Instead act like the artist painting her day – make it beautiful. Keep it simple).

Sayings of the Blind by William Stafford

Feeling is believing.

Mountains don’t exist. But their slopes do.

Little people have low voices.

All things, even rocks, make a little noise.

The silence back of all sound is called “the sky.”

There is a big stranger in town called the sun.
He doesn’t speak to us but puts out a hand.

Night opens a door into a cellar–
you can smell it coming.

On Sundays everyone stands farther apart.

Velvet feels black.

Meeting cement is never easy.

What do they mean when they say night is gloomy?

Edison didn’t invent much.

Whenever you wake up it’s morning.

Names have a flavor.

¬–Sayings of the Blind by William Stafford, taken from The Way It Is, New and Selected Poems GRAYWOLF PRESS

Yours in this shared journey, Julie

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Journaling Your Way Through Resistance

Monday, May 19th, 2008

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.” –Steven Pressfield, taken from The War of Art.

Most likely you are bumping up against some personal resistance if you are trying to change habits. Yesterday you were inspired and now today perhaps not so inspired. There are skillful means to staying inspired such as journaling, reading motivational material, walking, and gathering with others who are supportive (to name a few). Ofcourse Success is great for inspiration. Right? You experience some success so you are inspired to continue what brought on this success. Well, yes and no . . .

Out of the soil of inspiration and intention rises resistance. You feel inspired and successful and then, something comes up and you find yourself doing the same old thing (or not doing anything). The key here is to befriend the enemy. When we befriend our resistance through awareness we can then continue creating a healthy, conscious life. When we can experience our resistance like a shell the sprout pushes through to get to the light, then we can keep moving through the hardness or the darkness of the soil and bloom into some form of our beautiful, innate self.

Once we “blossom” into something, resistance doesn’t just disappear. Once we succeed resistance shows up in a more evolved stance of its former self. It gets more sophisticated. It is the universal trickster; resistance is whatever attempts to take you away from your intention to be healthy and creative. The blessing (in disguise here) is when you understand resistance as the teacher you will always be directed back to your intention.

Let me warn you though; the bigger the intention (think of the Oak tree), the harder the shell of resistance (think of the acorn). And what could possibly be bigger than changing our habitual ways to food?

Resistance is not something to try and get rid of. Resistance is not wrong. Resistance is something you come to know. Something you become aware of and work with – sometimes with a song; other times with a sharp stick. I know resistance is coming up for each one of you as it is for me. This is the nature of setting an intention. When one commits to a healthy life, to a spiritually directed path, resistance simply appears.

Steven Pressfield in his book, War of Art gives a list of what brings up resistance: “In other words, any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity. Or, expressed another way, any act that derives from our higher nature instead of our lower. Any of these will elicit Resistance.”

If we are to wake up to our greatest potential, then we must change our habitual ways with food. This is central to our spiritual path and wellbeing. So, this is big stuff (think Oak Tree). Therefore the Resistance will be hard, tricky to move through (think acorn). But I know you have within you all that it takes to keep moving, staying committed even on those days (weeks?) you are not feeling so inspired.

“Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be but to find out who we already are and become it.” Steven Pressfield, War of Art

Consider or journal about the following

Write about your resistance. Get as clear as you can in your journal how resistance comes up for you when you are practicing these more mindful ways of eating and being in the world. Bring compassion to this awareness.

Write a poem about the contents of your refrigerator.

Choose one meal this week to have a conversation with the food before and during the meal. Then write a journal entry about this conversation. What did your meal have to tell you? What did you have to say to your meal? As in all good conversations you talk and listen. (You may want to hold this conversation in your head if you are with others.)

Write a blessing prayer for your meals.

Write about when you last felt inspired.

Write a letter to yourself from your Higher Nature. Let her or him inspire you.

Beyond the Page

Read Stephen Pressfield’s book: The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle.

Notice when (time of day, day in the week, or who you are with,) you feel drained of your inspiration. Do it anyway. (Whatever it is for you – - eat that meal mindfully, write a poem, go for a walk).

Spend longer time in nature. Get inspired through your encounters with wildlife.

Continue the Simple spring detoxification and notice how your body feels without sugar or cheese . . . just notice.

“May this meal feed my body, mind and spirit. May all who are hungry find nutritional food. May all of life feel my appreciation as I eat this meal.”

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“Keeping it Simple” Spring Detoxification

Monday, May 12th, 2008

“Learning to listen to ourselves is a way to love ourselves.”
¬–Joan Borysenko

A little goes a long way. A little yoga in the morning and my body feels better all day. A little meditation and my mind feels calm and present for all that may arise that day. Simple changes in your eating habits and you will find deep and lasting shifts in your physical, emotional and spiritual experience.

This week we will introduce into our life a little, user-friendly spring detoxification. The best and most powerful process of detoxification is accompanied by an intention to live a life free of habitual ways that are not good for us. I may crave something after dinner but my body is full. What I truly crave is not going to be fulfilled by habitually eating chips or other snacks. In fact whenever we act habitually we strengthen that habit (and the emotions that drive it), making it more and more challenging to be free of it. So, as we engage in a compassionate and user-friendly detoxification, we weaken our habitual ways of eating and being.

We begin the detoxification with 3 minutes of appreciation for our body in the morning. Sit in a comfortable position on your meditation cushion or chair and bring to mind what you appreciate about your body. Be specific about what you appreciate. Breathe and appreciate. Follow this with at least 10 minutes of mindfulness meditation.

Have part of your morning routine be the following: Drink a morning cocktail of unsweetened cranberry juice and ground golden flax seed. I add one tablespoon of ground flax seed to a cup of cranberry juice (1/4 cup juice to glass of water). (I use a straw to drink it down). Then enjoy a detoxification tea and lemon juice before breakfast. One warm cup is good enough.

Throughout the day drink lots of water. You may add a bit of fresh orange juice to your water.

Consider eliminating from your food intake three of the following (you may take out more if you choose). Remember a little goes a long way and sometimes further than doing a lot all at once.

Sugar
Processed foods
Wheat
deep-fried food
Coffee, caffeinated tea
Alcohol (if you do not eliminate this one, only organic red wine)
Salt (as best you can)
Gluten
Cheese/milk
Butter/mayonaise
Any artificial sweetener
Fruit juice (other than fresh squeezed)

Include in your food intake at least three of the following:

Fresh (organic) green leafy vegetables
Nuts (walnuts and almonds are great)
Fresh fish (2x weekly) or/and orangic fish oil daily
Olive oil
Seasonal, local organic vegetables (see what is at the farmer’s market).
Gluten and sugar free granola
Fresh fruit (especially blue berries) daily
Legumes
Brown rice
Wheat-free crackers (to replace wheat if you eliminate it). A great cracker is Mary Gone Crackers.

As part of the detoxification get at least 7 hours of sleep, 8 is even better. You may drink a cranberry-flax cocktail a few hours before bedtime if you want to increase your cleanse as you sleep.

Eat as much on the include list as you like. Make sure to have a good breakfast. For snacks between meals choose from the “include” list. Practice not eating after 7:30 pm (giving your self three hours of no food before sleep).

Increase your time outside to 15 minutes a day. To help release the toxins and increase energy in your body, walk for at least 15 minutes a day (and up to 60 minutes). Recent research shows that we need 90 minutes of activity a day to maintain our health.

Eat all meals sitting down and chew your food at least 20 times before swallowing. ENJOY your food. Be mindful of what you are eating and keep your attention on the meal as best you can.

“Why separate your spiritual life and your practical life? To an integral being, there is no such distinction.” – Lao Tzu

Consider or journal the following:

Notice how removing one food from your diet impacts you physically, mentally and emotionally. Write about your awareness.

Write about hunger.

Carry a journal around with you this week and journal a couple minutes before you eat your meal.

Taking the Practice Beyond the Page:

Practice a week of this simple spring detoxification.

If you normally eat your lunch out, make it part of your morning routine to pack yourself a lunch.

“If thou tastest a crust of bread, thou tastest all the stars and all the heavens.” – Robert Browning

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Transformation, Mindfulness and Spring Detoxification

Monday, May 5th, 2008

“You might be the most depressed person in the world, the most addicted person in the world, the most jealous person in the world . . . All of that is a good place to start.” –Pema Chodron, taken from Start Where You Are

(Next week we will practice a Spring Detox. To prepare for it read below on Taking The Practice Beyond The Page.)

Consider personal freedom from a given habit. Bring to mind one of your habits with food. Eating late, overeating, eating fast, having to have sugar, eating alone, eating out, eating in front of the TV or emotional eating, to name a few. Of course, any one of these can trip us up. To change one habit is to transform your life. This is the beauty of such a practice. All habitual ways of being are interwoven and holding a tapestry of your life experience together. Take one of these habits and pull it from the tapestry and all the habitual ways begin to weaken. Practicing freedom from one habitual state begins to free you from them all.

Within the Buddhist practice they recognize that everything on our path is there to wake us up. Everything can be used to initiate our true nature. This is what journal writing and the spiritual path have in common – one can use everything and anything that shows up as a means of creativity and wakefulness. Here, we are using our relationship to food.

Let’s choose for this week to give up one habit. Let’s discover what lies dormant underneath it until the light of awareness shines on it. Lets pull free that one thread in the tapestry of habitual states and see what else frees up. It could be a trigger food that you will give up, or eating after dinner, or eating while you are in the car.

Choose just one habit and commit to let it go.

Ultimately, one must be able to slow down to uproot habits through awareness and mindfulness practices. You may want to be free of the eating your meal fast and thoughtlessly. So, slowing down before a meal, looking at your food, noticing as much about the food you are about to eat is a way to slow down and become mindful. Or give up the habit of eating quickly by chewing your food more. Last week you gave attention to how many times you chew before you swallow. Is there a habit here that can be given up?

As always, do this with compassion and patience.

Journal or Consider these:

Write down in your journal what habit you are giving up. Write down your experiences with giving up this habit. What are your experiences in place of the habit? What other threads are being freed up as you give up this one habit?

Write about the contents in your refrigerator using the following words: mother, past, relentless, green, dream and craving. (You may want to sit in front of your fridge with the door open and write.)

Write your body a thank-you card. Write about what you appreciate about your body.

Taking The Practice Beyond the Page:

If you haven’t yet this spring, clean out your fridge.

To prepare for 7 days of detox get the following:

1. Purchase a detox tea (ask your health care provider for a good one).
2. If you don’t already, get a filter for your water.
3. Purchase a non-plastic water bottle. Most food coops and health food stores have them. Sigg™ bottles are great.
4. Buy some organic, unsweetened Cranberry juice (R.W. Knudsen is my favorite) and ungrounded golden flax seed. (To grind it each morning you will need a coffee grinder or food processor). Purchase organic lemons or organic lemon juice (Santa Cruz is my favorite)
5. Consider removing sugar and refined foods from your diet this week to better prepare you for your detox.
6. Consult with your health practitioner on your intention to practice an internal spring cleanse.
7. Begin, restart or continue your mindfulness meditation practice in the morning. Email me for basic instruction if you don’t have it.

“There is a time for departure, even when there’s no certain place to go.” –Tennessee Williams

Emaho! Julie

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