Spirit In Gear

Shifting Ground

Saturday evening on my walk out with my husband, I ponder the deeper aspects of my life.  (There's something about moving side by side that makes it easier to have such conversations than when we sit across from one another.)

I wonder aloud if I'm just going through the motions of living. 

I seem to engage attentively in my day to day activities in the world "out there."  And yet I can sense that there is a lot of inner upheaval brewing.  I feel unsettled.  I feel like I'm "waiting" for something.  But what?

I could say I'm waiting til our adult daughters "land."  Will they continue to live in Chicago?  Will they marry the fellows they're currently with?  Will our younger daughter find employment soon?

I'm also waiting to see if my 83 yr old Dad passes his stress tests in order to undergo major surgery to remove a tumor.  He's fast losing weight and not doing well.  I'm not ready to think about life without my papa.

My husband (and I) are waiting to see if he still has a job this fall.  As layoffs continue, we grapple with living amongst economic uncertainty. 

Underneath it all, I'm waiting to find another "rock" of stability to show up that I can stand on.  Since I entered the decade of my 50's, loss and impermanence play a much bigger role in my life.  I can no longer pretend that earthly life goes on forever.  Loved ones pass on.  My body doesn't look like it did 20 years ago, or even 10.

As loss continues, my yearning for deeper connections increases, perhaps as a way to replace dear loved ones that have transitioned on.  That includes a desire for a deeper relationship, not only with people, but with God.

I question what I'm doing.  I wonder if I should be doing something else, something "more" with my life.  I have far more questions than answers.  I sense this shifting ground may be a permanent part of the landscape of life in middle age and beyond. 

And yet . . . what I need to remember, and what my wise friend, Deb I. shared with me today, is to stay present, and focus on experiencing joy.  Joy is the reason!

Your life is right now!  It's not later!  It's not in that time of retirement.  It's not when the lover gets here.  It's not when you've moved into the new house.  It's not when you get the better job.  Your life is right now.  It will always be right now.  You might as well decide to start enjoying your life right now, because it's not ever going to get better than right now--until it gets better right now!
- Abraham

The above quote provides good advice.  I have been duly chastened.  But not silenced.  We human beings come equipped with emotions that require acknowledgment and expression.  There is a time for me to cry in my beer.  And a time to blow my nose and move on with life.

Right now I'm ready to move on.  Until the next time when I am called to cry in my beer.

[Photo Credit:  "Miss Duckey"]

Greatness - Beyond Abstraction

I find myself plodding through Eckhart Tolle's latest book, A New Earth.  I'm only on chapter 3 - slow going on this end.  Don't get me wrong, I have read his other books and appreciate the brilliance of recognizing how we each create our own heaven or hell, depending upon how we utilize the power of now.  I'm just not a fan of his heady writing style.

A friend suggested that I jump ahead near the end of the book to chapter 9 - "Your Inner Purpose."  Eureka!  This chapter justifies the book.  Tolle illustrates his concepts with a practical dialogue to bring it all home.  I'll be writing several posts on gems in this chapter that resonate for me.

Today's gem - GREATNESS

"The great arises out of small things that are honored and cared for.  Everybody's life really consists of small things.  Greatness is a mental abstraction and a favorite fantasy of the ego.  The paradox is that the foundation for greatness is honoring the small things of the present moment instead of pursuing the idea of greatness.  The present moment is always small in the sense that it is always simple, but concealed within it lies the greatest power."  - Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Rather than my expounding on this quote, I invite you to respond to it.  If this idea of "greatness" resonates for you, how have you found it true in your own life?  Or you may have another perspective altogether.  Please further the dialogue by sharing a comment.

When Motivation Becomes a Lousy Substitute for Living

Rebecca Thomas inspired this topic when she wrote a post on her struggles with self-motivation over at 100bloggers recently.  Her candor prompted several comments, including one I left.

I realized that there is a lot more I want to say about motivation than I allowed in my posted comment.  In mulling my thoughts over, more questions surface.  Here goes:

When we are really in sync with ourselves, who needs motivation?  It becomes rather superfluous, wouldn't you say?  Likewise, when our desire outweighs our resistance, motivation becomes a non-issue.

When I need "motivation," I'm attempting to do something I don't want to do, like cleaning my bathroom, or doing administrative tasks.  Motivation comes from my head to prod what my body and heart DON'T WANT to do.  I say, the fewer the motivation sticks we have to endure, the better for healthy, joyful living.  [Note to myself - pay someone to do this!]

Sometimes we are called to stand up to motivation and kill the beast.  Maybe that is what Rebecca's response to the post comments imply:  "Right now, I'm not motivated to do the things I absolutely love, which is why I'm so concerned."

"Killing the beast" acknowledges that it's time to get off the motivation merry-go-round.  Sit still, take stock.  Quit pushing.  Peek under the symptoms.  Be still and let the empty space open up for the hard questions to emerge.  "What have I outgrown?"  "What am I pretending to like?"  "What do I really want instead?"

Most of us have probably found ourselves in the strange holding pattern Rebecca is circling around in.  That place where nothing feels right.  We are out of alignment in some way.  And our head is usually the last to get it. 

When the motivation wind gets knocked out of us, I consider that a wake-up call.  My heart, that inner sense of knowing, has been attempting to reach me and I haven't been listening, or have chosen to ignore what I hear.

Last month my car, "Betsy," was involved in a minor fender bender.  It didn't look like much damage on the outside, but the innards got knocked around a lot.  New body parts needed to be fit in with the old, and the process didn't go quickly.

The same car analogy captures the challenging process we can find ourselves in when our motivation skips town.   It may be that something no longer works for us, or fits us.  Acknowledging that can feel scary and disruptive.  It may involve changing part of our identity, or thought patterns, or ways of doing things. 

If we trust and stay brave in our shaking boots, wisdom will eventually guide us to the necessary change.  We must be patient and compassionate with ourselves - integrating that change requires some shifting and juggling to take place before that smooth alignment emerges, taking us back into the land of the living.

In my middle years, motivation bores me.  I don't like the word.  It conjures up the "carrot-stick" mentality.  It's the head's way of thinking it knows best.  NOT.  I will give motivation its due.  It acts as a gauge, alerting us to symptoms to attend to when it runs low. 

But let's not confuse motivation with inspired living.

Could This Be Our Real Purpose in Life?

Dick Richards devoted a number of blog posts recently on behalf of those who help others find purpose in their lives.  His latest post on this topic spelled out a 3-pronged "purpose prescription."

Dick mentioned a key factor - seeking experience that stirs the emotions.  How true - and when those feelings emerge, how often do we trust them enough to be guided by them?  Do we follow our passion, that work or way of being in the world that makes us feel alive? Or do we do some version of opting out?

Abraham challenges us even further in how we understand our life purpose, stating that our only purpose in life is to feel joy and happiness, not to write the next blockbuster, create a cure, or fight for world peace.  Not that those things can't be accomplished as a by-product of following what gives us that joy and happiness.

Most of us seek to define our purpose (in a linear fashion) as a way to give meaning and direction to life.  Aligning our vocation with our purpose creates that sense of fulfillment we all seek.  I have operated that way most of my life.  But there is some room to expand on this thinking.

Allow me to digress for a moment.  Several weeks ago, while Jazzercising, my mind was berating for me for not having a clearly-defined "life purpose," now that I had shut down my coaching practice.  My ego ranted that real estate investment was not my life purpose; that I was playing small, blah blah blah.  At the time, my ego thoughts felt so real that I managed to put myself into a mild depression.  I was back to my natural self the next day and wondered why I allowed my ego to twist me up into an emotional pretzel.

Within a couple of days of this incident, I listened to the Abraham CD that introduced the revolutionary concept of joy and happiness being our sole purpose in life.  My immediate reaction to hearing this was one of relief and lightness.  It took my self-induced pressure off and gave me some perspective.

I began to experiment with this.  At the beginning of my day, I created an intention to be  mindful of ways that I could choose to experience joy.  The first thing that happened was that I began to be more present focused.  When I noticed my mind wandering down paths of worry, I reined my mind back in and halted that line of thinking.  I substituted with a smile to myself.  That gesture, small though it was, created a speedy shift towards well-being.

When I got irritated, I learned how to "fork" in a better feeling direction.  For example, I went to pick up my daughter's allergy prescriptions at one pharmacy.  I used our health care spending account card to pay.  No problem there.  Then I proceeded to a different drugstore to pick up another prescription.  I handed them the same card, and it didn't work.  It wouldn't process the charge after a couple of attempts.  So I paid for the item out of pocket.  Meanwhile my inner dialogue was ranting on what a pain this was, what a bunch of idiots they were, and how much time and energy I'll have to expend to call up customer service to get it straightened out.

All of this internal ranting happened in seconds.  Then I paused.  Whoa Debbie.  If you continue this train of thought, will you feel worse or better?  Worse.  Well, Deb, you have a choice.  Keep on ranting or take a breath and get a grip.  Okay.  Got it.  I don't have to make a big deal out of something like this.  Stay calm and soon I'll feel better.  That's my girl.  (And it worked!)

Now, back to our life purpose.  What if . . .we placed the experiencing of joy and happiness as the overarching purpose in our life?  It would fall naturally then that we could be guided to choose vocations and ways of being in daily life that reflect this overarching them.  This does not alleviate the necessity of defining, in linear fashion. vocational directions.  But it makes more obvious the context in which to define them. 

We know what it's like to be around someone who is positive, whether that be a quality of joy, lightness, happiness, compassion etc.  Now can you imagine what this world would be like if, one by one, we each chose thoughts and experiences that led us to a greater sense of well-being?  We'd have us a big Love-In!

Dick Richards concludes his Purpose Prescription post with this proverb-like advice:  ". . . you will find your purpose when you become the kind of person to whom purpose calls."

The kind of person I strive to be is one who inspires and empowers others to claim their TRUE voice by doing the same myself.  Sometimes it happens through my blog posts; other times when I'm passionately cheering my football team on; or pushing myself harder in my workouts; or sharing the light I see in someone else with that person.  And it even happens in a place I wouldn't have expected - in my weekly private investor group meetings.  Earlier this week I took a chance and shared openly on something I needed.  My openness sparked three other people to share, creating an animated and lively discussion that created connections.

Being a solo real estate investor (now that hubbie returned to the corporate world several months ago) has been a lonely and hard day-to-day process for this gal who enjoys working with others.  Since I've come to embrace the notion of joy and happiness as my life purpose, I have attracted an experienced real estate investor to partner with.  We began working together a few weeks ago, sharing leads, pooling financial resources to increase marketing and advertising, and combining our individual talents and experiences. 

Without a doubt, the sum of what my partner and I are creating is far greater than what he or I could do alone.  We share similar values on how we want to conduct ourselves, and how we want to treat people.  Best of all, working with a partner feels energizing and fun, and allows us to create quicker momentum in reaching our goals.

So I conclude this discussion of joy and happiness by asking you, could this be our real purpose in life?