The Face of Divinity

This past weekend the weather here was beautiful, sun shining, temp in the 90s during the day and cooling down a little in the evening with a smooth breeze blowing that made for a perfect night to be outside. I went to a local Cherry Blossom festival in the early evening to enjoy this beautiful weather and take in the sights and sounds of the local festivities that help to announce the beginning of Spring.

There were many people at the festival doing the same as I, enjoying the beautiful spring evening, listening to the bands that were playing their music and taking in the scents and tastes of fair foods, Funnel Cakes, hot dogs, hamburgers, French Fries, etc.

There were people from all walks of life at the festival. I observed people as they interacted with their families and friends and enjoyed the day. The biggest thing I observed was the divinity that I saw in the face of each person and the kindness that many of them exchanged with me as we made eye contact or exchanged greetings along the way.

When we are out and about at event such as this or simply walking through town we often come across people who by outward appearance seem to be very different than us, be it because of how they are dressed, the color of their skin, the language they use or the way they carry themselves. Often times we make value judgments based on what we observe. Many times we make these judgments because we have preconceived ideas about the people we see which are mostly borne out of us not taking the time to understand the differences in people. More importantly than understanding the differences we observe we do not take the time to observe the sameness that we share with all people.

The sameness that I am speaking of is that we are all of the same divine source and that because of this we are all divine by nature. At our core, beyond this body that we inhabit we are all the same divine energy.

When we understand that we are all of one source and that we are all divine beings we then have the opportunity to look beyond the external and know that each and every person we meet is the face of divinity, the face of God if you will.

We all have a divine spark within us and though there are many who seem to have this divine spark hidden deep below layers of ego it is still there for us to see and acknowledge when we are open to the existence of the divine in everyone. When we view each person as the face of divinity than we lose our desire to judge and our judgment which comes from ego is replaced with love that comes from our spirit, our authentic self.

Imagine what happens when you see the face of God/Divinity in everyone you meet? Imagine how your thoughts and actions change because of this knowing!

When you do this you will note that your judgment dissipates and is replaced with love as you recognize the divine in the homeless person on the street, the drug dealer on the corner, the prisoner, the overbearing boss, the materially driven executive, the know it all acquaintance, the rude person, the selfish person, the person who seems to purposefully push your buttons until you are ready to pop or pop them.

When you seek to see the divine spark in everyone you meet you will find that in turn your divinity will shine through and instead of judgment you will create connections and open yourself up to love and lessons that you otherwise may have missed. You will be amazed at how much you were missing out on.

If you have read this far and you still doubt the divinity of all, then I ask you to do the following. Take a moment and reflect on the faces of all the new born children you have ever seen. See their face, is there anything but divinity in their face? Have you ever seen a newborn that was not pure love/pure spirit? I am betting that you have not ever looked upon a newborn with judgment of them and that you have always looked upon them with love and through your love you have seen and experienced their authentic self which is love.

We all begin with spirit for that is what we are; we all begin as divine beings for that is what we are. We never lose our divinity, however many do tend to hide it under an armor of ego and lifetime of experiences.

Today look upon everyone as if you are looking upon the face of God … because you are!

Changes In A Relationship

“People change and forget to tell each other”  ~Lillian Hellman

“You are not the person I married!”

“You have changed!”

The honest answer to these two declarations that are often used in long term relationships is that they are correct, I have changed, and I am not the same person I was when you married me so many years ago. As a matter of fact you have also changed!

We do change, no one is stagnant, we grow, the world around us changes and we change too. If we are not changing then something is seriously amiss. We all know this to be true, however in a long term relationship we sometimes act as if change is an anomaly or that change is somehow a personal attack on us or our relationship.

It is true; we are creatures of comfort and when change happens our comfort can feel as though it has been jostled. When we feel that the consistency of our relationship or our lifestyle is being changed in some way we often feel threatened. We may feel insecure when we note a change that is happening with our partner and we may take the change to be a personal attack. Normally the change has very little if anything to do with us; it is part of the other person’s journey, simple as that.

The fact is that in a long term relationship we may fall into comfortable habits which make are relationship feel as though it is in a groove, a steady flow if you will. However just because we may have fallen into certain comfortable and expected behaviors does not mean that those comfortable behaviors are making everyone feel good. An example may be when a child comes into our life and we set aside some personal aspirations to raise the child. The child rearing parent may become very comfortable in being the primary care giver and taking care of everyone’s needs and may be happy to do it, however that does not mean that there are not some personal passions that have a burning desire to be fulfilled. In this situation the partner may feel uncomfortable or insecure when the primary care giver expresses a desire to pursue a passion they have. Making time to pursue this passion disrupts the expected norm and sometimes creates anxiety about the person not being happy.

If we are not fully communicating in a relationship it is easy to view this change as something that came out of the blue or blow it off as some fleeting desire which will go away in time. Note when I say we are not fully communicating I am not only talking about what one person expresses to another. While this is critically important, it is just as important to be a good listener and observer. Communication in any situation is a two way street, there must always be a transmitter and a receiver, if not than all we have is noise.

Personal change is part of our process, it is part of our natural flow. It would be unreasonable to expect that the people in our life would not change. It is unreasonable to expect that we won’t change. Everyone changes and every aspect of us changes from our mind, our heart to the physical body. Bottom line is that we will change!

For a relationship to survive we must be aware and accept the fact that we will change. We must be aware that in an intimate long term relationship that two people will not necessarily change at the same pace nor will those changes necessarily align with each other. To expect that we would change at the same pace or that our changes would always be in align with the other person is to set a relationship up for much frustration which in the end may create a separateness which causes the relationship to dissolve.

When we love each other unconditionally and we are full aware and accept the fact that we will grow and change along the way we then have an excellent foundation which will provide support for each other and the relationship as these changes happen. The key is to communicate, to be aware and to support each other in every way we can.

When we love each other from spirit and not allow our ego to get in the way we are able to have incredible and long lasting relationships.

What changes are you going through that you feel that you have not communicated to the significant people in your life? What changes are the people in your life going through that you are missing because you are not being attentive and listening or because your ego is resisting the changes?

Open up your heart to allow for the changes that come your way and come the way of the people in your life! Tis a grand adventure that we are on, it would be shame to get bogged down in the quicksand of our ego or to miss the changing scenery along the way.

Preparing for Mourning

“I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me
but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The
gratitude has finally conquered the loss”
– Rita Mae Brown

Today, the sun is shining! The birds chirped their songs as I awoke. It is Spring and one can see signs of new life and re-birth at every turn of the path!

It is a glorious time! As I awoke and gave gratitude for all of the blessings that I enjoy I also prepared for this evening when I will attend the Viewing of a friends Mother who died the other day. I know that tonight will be a time of mourning, a time of tears, a time of sadness as those who remain on this leg of our journey go through the transition of losing someone close to us. There will be many emotions experienced tonight; tears will fall and then be paused as someone tells of a funny story as they remember the deceased. In some ways tonight and the funeral tomorrow will be a celebration of a life lived on this earth. For some this event will be a time of remembrance and celebration of a fellow spirit who traveled this journey with us. For many this will be a time to reflect on the mystery of death.

I have been to many viewings or wakes as some call them and of course as I grow older in this human experience I tend to know more and more people who have transitioned from this experience to the next and therefore attend more viewings and funerals. The one thing I understand is that these traditions of death are not for the departed, they are for the living. The departed has made the transition; they are on the next leg of their journey. It is we who remain in this form who need to attend to the traditions of how we handle death. The viewing is a time of closure for many, it gives people the opportunity to say goodbye. My belief is that the body that lies in the casket is simply an empty form void of the energy of the soul which has now moved on to its next adventure and that the body that remains is simply like an empty suit of clothes that hangs in the closet.

To me the sadness of death is the sadness of missing someone whom we love. When we begin to shift our perspective to that of gratitude as Rita Mae Brown states in the above quote then we begin to have a shift of emotion. Once we begin to make this shift in emotion we can then move to an understanding that for the departed this is not a time of sadness, this is not a time of fear and tears, this is a time to be celebrated for they have completed a leg of their journey and are now off to a new adventure. This is not goodbye, this is bon voyage!

There is no death as we know it, only a change in the form that our energy takes. May I be full of spirit tonight as I console my friends and their families. May they feel and see my spirit and through my energy and the energy of the one who has left her form find comfort, wisdom, gratitude and love as they wish a fond Bon Voyage to the one whom in physical form will be missed.

“While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil”  ~John Taylor

Are You Full of Yourself?

There was a time in my life where people said that I was rather full of myself and that I was arrogant to a degree. I am certain that the intent of this statement was not a compliment, however, at the time; because I was operating from such a high state of ego I would easily spin this statement to support my attitude and behavior. Thinking from ego I would see this as a statement of how sure of myself I was, how confident and maybe how ambitious I was. As far as I was concerned I was okay with someone telling me that I was full of myself and arrogant; these statements were food for my ego, these words supported my ego. My ego was so much in the forefront of my thinking that I was unable to see that my ego was in my way and actually causing harm to myself and others. Yes I was very full of myself and damn proud of it!

Interesting how I can now look back and see myself for what I was and also understand the negative impact that this ego driven life had on myself, the people I supposedly loved and all whom I touched. Of course back then I could not see any of this because I was “full of myself” and when one is full of themselves there is no room left to learn as illustrated in the below story.

There was once a man who saw himself as a seeker, a student of Zen if you will. The man kept going from Zen Master to Zen Master looking for a teacher of Zen whom could teach him the secrets of the Universe. One day he gained an appointment with a very renowned master. The Zen Master and this man sat down to discuss Zen and share a drink of tea. As the seeker sat before the great Zen Master, he quickly and in great detail explained to the Zen Master about all of the other teachers he had worked with and how much he knew about Zen in an effort to impress this Zen Master he sat across from. As the man spoke, the Zen Master began to pour tea into his guest’s cup, the man could not help notice that the tea cup was full and now overflowing, however the man hesitated to tell the Master that the cup was overflowing as to not embarrass him. When the man could take it no more, he blurted out to the Master, the cup is full, no more tea will fit! The Zen Master then stopped pouring and looked at the man and said, “Like this cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” The man then bowed in humility to the Master.

Note: there are many variations of this story, this is one interpretation.

The lesson here is relatively clear; we must be an open vessel in order to receive. In the realm of wisdom we cannot receive or uncover intuitive wisdom if we are full of other “stuff”.

I ask you today to view yourself as a vessel and ask are you full of yourself to the point where there is no room left or are you an empty vessel which is ready to receive?

One may ask how do I make room for more. How do I become an empty vessel? The key is in understanding the contents of your vessel and discerning what is of value and therefore open to receive more and what is not of value and is blocking the way of receiving.

Consider the following two analogies.

- You have an empty vase which every day you place some pebbles into it, at some point the vase will become full and will be unable to accept anymore pebbles.

-

- You have an empty vase which every day you place some water into the vase, water by its nature evaporates, that is it returns to its source and therefore is continually creating more space within the vase in order to receive more.

When we are operating from spirit we are operating from source and the space within our vessel is infinitely open to receiving more fore like the water we create a natural system of replenishment and growth. When we are operating from ego, the ego fills our vessel with obstructions which do not allow for us to receive. We become limited in our ability to receive and to give and ultimately become frustrated with our inability to receive and grow.

Knowing the Future

If you could know with certainty your future, the future of your loved ones or the future of this Earth which we inhabit would it change the way you live today? How would knowing the future impact your decisions great and small? I am talking about the knowing the big things, that is the date you will die, the date that this world will go through a dramatic change which will alter all life as we now know it, etc.

There are billions of dollars being made because people want to know their future or want to know the future which in turn would impact them. People seek out many sources to attempt to foresee the future. People read cards, tea leaves, palms; others read the stars and ancient prophecies such as the writings of Nostradameous or the book of Revelations in an attempt to define significant changes or the end of days. Some people build their belief systems around predictions of the future and therefore live their life based on these predictions. People throughout time have even taken their own life because they thought the end of days was near and did not want to suffer through the predicted horrors that they believed would transpire.

For many people we are quickly approaching another time that has be prophesized and analyzed by many to be the end of days or if you are more positive the beginning of a more conscious and better world. The year 2012 is the year of which I speak that many people are now wringing their hands over.

I noticed over the past couple of weeks that there are more TV programs and magazine articles which are talking about the prophetic year of 2012. The year 2012 is being touted by many to be the end of days or at the very least a time of incredible climate changes which will turn this world and all whom inhabit it upside down.

While I do find all of the chatter and prophecies about 2012 very interesting I don’t find that knowing this information is a catalyst for change for myself or for the masses for that matter. I believe for most, the possibility of foreseeing the future through any medium is interesting, sometimes entertaining however at the end of the day we view it all with a skeptical eye and therefore these predictions of future events has very little impact on us.

What would you do if at a young age you knew the exact date you would die or that the world as we know would end? How would that impact your life? Of course part of the answer lies in how long you had to live, that is, if at age 10 you learned that you would die at age 83, I would imagine this knowing would have very little immediate impact on your day to day life. If at age 10, you knew you would die at age 20, I am certain that your daily life would change in dramatic ways.

There is a reason we don’t know what our human expiration date or the expiration date of this world is. We don’t know our expiration date of this form because it would alter our purpose, knowing this would alter what we do and what we experience. We are not served by knowing the future with any sense of precision.

We are eternal beings who are here in human form to have a human experience. Not knowing the future is part of our human experience. What we do know for certain is that this incarnation of this form will surely end. When it ends is largely based on what our purpose here is and how and when we achieve our purpose or purposes.

If the world as we know it should go through a dramatic change and alter all the lives of its inhabitants then that too will be part of our experience, part of our purpose. We gain nothing by knowing the future and if we believe we do know the future in this sense then our perception of knowing becomes a limitation to our human experience and therefore our overall purpose for being here in this form at this time.

We are here to live! We are here to live in today, live in the now, live in the only time which truly exists which is now!

Release the past and allow the future to unfold as it will and be present in the joy of today!

Contradictions Along Our Journey

“I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!“

Tom Lehrer – US Humorist and Songwriter

“I wish people who have trouble communicating would just shut up”

Tom Lehrer - US Humorist and Songwriter

There is no question, we are walking and talking contradictions. The above quotes are meant to be humorous however they do speak of how we often contradict ourselves. We have often heard people say “Do as I say, not as I do” when they are trying to teach us something. We often do live a life of contradictions, where as our thoughts don’t match up with our actions or where our ego based thoughts do not correlate with the voice of our spirit.

We find contradictions in many areas of our life, in our car, the speedometer goes up to 120 miles per hour, however the top speed limit in the United States is normally 65 MPH, in some rare instances it may go as high as 75 or 80, yet never to 120 or above.  We know that it is wrong to steal, that is to take something that does not belong to us, however many people do not think twice about taking company office supplies home or using the companies internet access or copiers to conduct personal business. For many these are accepted contradictions.

We tend to accept many contradictions in our life. Because we are in the habit of accepting contradictions we may not always take note of the contradictions in our life. As we increase our awareness we will likely uncover contradictions in our life especially in regards to what we know VS what we do. We will note that often times our thoughts are ego based and not aligned with our spirit. The more we turn inward to reveal our inherent wisdom, the more we may become confused by all of the contradictions in our life.  As we begin to look at what we have been taught by our parents, teachers, religions and our culture the more confused we may become. In many ways we may feel frustrated or become angry as we discover what once made sense to us no longer rings true. We may lose faith in our sources of knowledge and blame others for the confusion we feel. We may begin to feel that we have been lied to. Sometimes as our awareness of contradictions in our life becomes more acute we may feel as though are world is simply falling apart around us.

This time of increased awareness of contradictions in our life can be very unsettling to some; it can create fear and/or the feeling of being lost.  This is a time where many people who are on this leg of the journey will recoil to a point in their journey where they felt comfortable.

It is important to understand that as we go along our journey and create increased levels of awareness that it is not like a light is suddenly going to come on and we are going to feel a constant state of joy. It is very important to realize that we may go through what feels like dark times of doubt, fear, feeling lost and that this is part of our process. This is part of our journey and we must allow ourselves to work through our process, work through our journey and summon the courage to keep moving in the direction of revealing our truth.

May you be blessed with the courage to move in the direction of revealing your truth even when it feels as though darkness has descended upon you and you feel alone. Know that you never are alone, know that you possess all the wisdom which you seek and know that there is immeasurable joy in living a spirit-centric life, fore when you do, you are love and pure love knows no contradictions!

How Tall Is Your Wall?

In days of old kings, queens and even countries erected walls to protect themselves from uninvited guests, people who might choose to do them harm in some way. People walled themselves up in forts, castles with drawbridges and moats, China even built the Great Wall to keep out those who might do harm.

In many ways as individuals we are not that much different than the people who built castle walls for protection. Often times as we experience life we may get hurt or damaged in some way and to protect us from future hurt we erect our very own proverbial walls. We enclose ourselves in our own castle in order to avoid getting hurt.

Interestingly these walls that we build to protect ourselves from the potential inflictions of others are not built overnight. No, they are built brick by brick, stone by stone until they reach a point where we feel that we have secured ourselves against the potential hurt that exists “out there”. The building of these walls are often a conscious effort, we know we are building walls, matter of fact sometimes we are damn proud of the wall that we built and sit back and admire the fact that we are no longer vulnerable to the slings and arrows of the world. Some people may even brag about the height and strength of their wall and proclaim to the world that this wall will not be breeched and therefore I will not be hurt again, I will not be taken advantage of, I will not allow anyone in!

There is security found as we stand watch on our wall. There is also the fact that it can get lonely and boring living behind a wall, shut off from the possibility of a new relationship, shut off from the ability to take a risk on a new venture. Yes we feel safe and secure; however we pay a great price as we imprison our self.

After a while behind the wall, we may notice that the sun is shining on the other side, that flowers are blooming and we cautiously and slowly lower the drawbridge to allow our self to travel outside of our wall. Mind you, we don’t travel very far; we remain in sight of the door and ensure that we remain close enough to jump back behind the wall if we suddenly find ourselves becoming vulnerable.

When we meet new people on the outside of our wall we often view them with a jaded eye. We keep them at arms length … just in case. See we don’t want to be hurt again. We may even find our self allowing someone to get close to us and as we do we suddenly realize that we are feeling vulnerable and instinctively push that person away and retreat behind our wall, raise the draw bridge and sling arrows at this person who dared to get close to us. Of course this behavior seems strange the person who was trying to get to know us, trying to get close to us. Other people can’t readily see your wall and they may have a difficult time understanding your confusing behavior.

Walls that we build may indeed keep the bad stuff out and mitigate our vulnerability of getting hurt; however the same wall keeps out the good stuff as well. The walls that we build eventually become a self imposed prison and we are our own warden, holding the keys to the outside world. It is a safe yet lonely life living with in the walls of our fears.

Who knows what or who you may be missing from your life as you hide within the walls of your mind?

Some people are waiting for a knight in shining armor to show up and tear down the wall in one swoop and carry them off to happy land of eternal happy endings. Unfortunately these poor people will wait an eternity for this to happen. Sure Prince or Princess Charming may show up, however because the walls are so high and so strong we may and probably will miss them.

We must know this, just as the wall was erected one brick at a time, the wall will have to be dismantled one brick at a time and you must be the person who dismantles the wall. Taking down the wall is an inside job! Taking down the wall and becoming vulnerable again is to experience life in the fullest, to live!

When we are truly living, the sweetness of life is sweet beyond description and too the lows will be the lowest. When we live, we feel pleasure at an increased level of awareness and we also feel pain at an increased level of awareness. Life is meant to be lived! Yes we may get hurt, yes we may get taken advantage of at times, however in the end the highs will be that much higher and will out weigh the lows and as you transition from this leg of the journey to the next you will be able to do so knowing that you truly lived.

In the famous words of President Ronald Regan, I implore you “Mr/Ms ___________ tear down this wall!

Be Open to Wisdom It Comes In Many Ways

Are you closing doors to wisdom? Are you getting hung up on the source and thereby discounting what you could possibly learn because of where the lesson is originating from? For most of us the answer is yes.

Many people do not read a story, pick up a book, watch a film or listen to someone speak because they have made a pre-judgment based on what they think they know about the source of the material. We often judge what we will expose ourselves to based on the outward appearance of someone or based on what we know about their affiliations or background or on the source of material. Often times people will not read anything that is not written by someone of their same background, be it religious, ethnic, gender or some other factor. Sometimes we won’t give a book the time of day because we don’t care for the way the author looks in their back cover picture. We may discount what a speaker is saying before they even speak because of their political affiliation or because of what we know about their past. We even may dismiss the possible lesson of a story because we cannot validate weather or not a story is true or not.

We miss so very much when we make these judgments. I have found over the years that there is great wisdom within the stories of the Qu’ran the Christian Bible, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Torah, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Tao, etc, the thoughts and stories of great spiritual masters both dead and living and many ancient and modern day stories.

I observe people who put up a wall as soon as you mention key words, such as Christian, or “New Age” Democrat, Republican, Jesus or Mohammed. Some of the walls go up because they believe in one faith and have closed the doors to the possibility that there can be wisdom found in other faiths. Sometimes the person is a person who was once a member of a religious faith who no longer believes in that faith and therefore tends to dismiss anything that comes from that faith.

When it comes to ancient stories and even some modern day stories some people use the burden of truth to dismiss a story and its potential value. One may listen to a story and dismiss the story because if the truth of the story cannot be validated, then it is not true and they are not going to learn from an untruth.

The beauty of a story is that most stories are not whole truths. Stories are usually entertaining to some extent and within the stories are often found lessons. The lesson is the truth of a story not the narrative. Often times a story is crafted around a lesson. The story is the vehicle which helps us to learn the lesson and to remember the lesson.

Consider this, if you had to teach a complex lesson to someone at work or to a child would you rather re-teach the lesson each time you need to until the person “got it” or would you rather touch them on the shoulder and say, “remember the story of ….”. See, when you say, “remember the story of …” the other person usually quickly recalls the story and the associated lesson within the story and is right back on track. This is so much easier than having to stop and re-teach the lesson every time that the person needs to be reminded of what they were taught.

We are exposed to so many lessons and yet we close the doors to many of these lessons because of the source. I myself am guilty of this as I find myself sometimes pre-judging the source and not taking the time to see if there is a lesson within that I am missing. We must all become aware of our pre-judgments and stop discounting information that comes to us because of our prejudices. We must be open, take the locks of the doors of our mind and accept even that which may seem unacceptable to us may have a lesson for us to learn.

What are you closing yourself off from? What books have you put back on the shelf because you didn’t like the language being used, or because the picture of the author did not appeal to you? What speakers have you tuned out because you don’t agree with their political party or you don’t like the way they look, their age or their socioeconomic background? What people in your life have come to share a lesson with you that you closed the door on because of your arrogance or ignorance?

Agony In The Garden

As the Christians of the world celebrate Good Friday today and Easter on Sunday I am reminded of the Christian biblical story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he contemplated the forthcoming events of his crucifixion and the death of his mortal body.

This story is very important because it demonstrates that Jesus who was a spiritual master and who lived a very spiritual life still struggled with the process that he was going through. The recount of this event in the Bible tells us that Jesus agonized over the fact that he would die. In fact he agonized to the point where he sweated blood. He was not able to sleep for he was troubled and had to go through a process to come to a place where he could accept what was to come.

Jesus foresaw that in his final hours that his disciples would abandon and betray him. Jesus went through great agony to get back to a place of spirit, where love overflowed and he was able to accept his death without resentment to those who would betray him, he had to accept the humiliation of crucifixion, he had to accept the death of his human form and most importantly he had to accept that this was not the end of his being, that it was simply a transition to another form.

What intrigues me about this story is that here is Jesus, a great spiritual master, an enlightened being, an incredible teacher, a being who was very confident in his beliefs and at the end with all the wisdom and love that he had, he still struggled, he still went through the dark hours of the night, feeling doubt, feeling fear, asking questions, going through a process to get back to a point where he accepted and understood what was to be.

Be you a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, agnostic, atheist or of any other belief system you cannot help but find solace in this story. I personally find solace in that as spiritual and enlightened as Jesus was that he too struggled, had to dig to depths of his soul to work through his doubts, to work through his ego based emotions of resentment and feelings of abandonment. This story reminds me that we all have moments of doubt about what we believe, we all go through the dark hours of the night and search our soul to understand and accept the lessons of this part of our journey.

Often times when we find ourselves in the dark hours of the night and we are feeling fear, doubt, resentment, jealousy, anger, etc we tend add to our agony by beating up on ourselves for feeling these emotions. We may think that we somehow have let ourselves down because we have succumbed to these emotions. The truth is that the human experience of these emotions is part of our make-up. We are no less for feeling what we feel, for it is all part and parcel of our process and that by allowing ourselves to sweat blood, to experience our agony in the garden, that we give ourselves the opportunity to have a full human experience and truly grow.

May we remember the story of the Jesus and his agony in the garden when we find ourselves in our dark hours that are filled with fear, doubt, etc and understand that all that we go through is part of the journey.

Happy Easter  and Happy Passover to all.

Shifting Gears

“Life is like a ten-speed bike.  Most of us have gears we never use”

Charles Schultz

If a cyclist had a long trip to make and only used one or two gears the entire trip the trip would be much more difficult than it needed to be. The array of gears on the bicycle are provided to give the cyclist ways to gain efficiency along their trip and not to use them would be rather foolish because one would experience increased fatigue, need more recuperation time and possibly cause or exasperate injuries to muscles and joints.

We are much like the multi-speed bike, we too have many gears to choose from as we make our journey, however for most, it seems as though we only use a couple of those gears. Some people use two gears, fast and really fast! These people spend their day in high gear, peddling at a blinding speed as they approach their work day at break neck speed and continue to pedal fast and furious as they go home, prepare the evening meal, throw a load of laundry in, feed and bathe the children, help with homework, do some household chores and then sit down, flick on the TV and crash before they even get through the show they wanted to watch.

If you are student you day is full of classes, papers, reading assignments, study groups, working a part time job and again crashing the moment you do allow yourself to relax for a few moments, simply to get up the next day to do it all again.

The reality is that we cannot operate at one or two speeds for very long before we pay a price. The price we pay for staying in high gear is often manifested in physical ways, headaches, insomnia, weight gain, high blood pressure, not to mention irritability, low sex drive, etc.

If we are driving our self in high gear all of the time we are most likely not enjoying our life. Our relationships with the most important people in our life are not what they should be and our relationship with our self is disconnected.

Of course there are people who are on the other end of the energy spectrum who are operating in low gear; their two speeds are slow and slower. People who are operating in low gear all the time just can’t seem to find the energy to do anything; they sit and vegetate in front of the TV, at work they tend to do the bare minimum to get by, etc. People in perpetual low gear often feel sluggish, that there get and go got up and went. People in low gear also will sometimes bring on some physical manifestations such as weight gain, high blood pressure, depression, feeling left out, feelings of not belonging, low sex drive, irritability, etc.

Like the 10 speed bike we are equipped with an array of gears, however we often find that we are stuck in the habit of only using a couple of gears as we travel along our journey. When we do not access and use all of our gears we become inefficient in both body and mind and life feels like a chore rather than the joy that it is supposed to be.

It is key to our well being that throughout each day that we are constantly and consciously shifting gears to maintain a healthy balance of spirit and body. When we do this we are more efficient and we are more joyful in each moment of this leg of our journey.

Today, become the observer and note what gears you are using. Are you only using one or two primary gears? Is your overuse of one or two gears setting you up for a less than joyful experience? Note how your under utilization of all gears is impacting your self and your relationships? Consider the long term impacts of accessing and using all the gears that you have available to you.

When I get on a ten speed bike I am never quite sure what gear I should be in. Be brave and experiment, shift gears, play around and see what works for you. Remember just because a gear feels odd or uncomfortable at first does not mean it is the wrong gear for you to be in, you have to give each gear a chance. Take each gear for a test ride and enjoy the sun on your back and the breeze on your face!

Live a joyful life!