Thursday, September 24, 2015

Response: The Gateway to Being Authentic

How do we know if we are being authentic? Listening to our internal monologue grows our self-awareness. Self-awareness in the present moment allows us to passionately and authentically respond instead of fearfully react. While it may seem easier to react without thinking, habitual reactions based on old patterns only serve to deepen our illusions. Ultimately these reactions hurt us.
We can break the chains of reacting by questioning our assumptions and judgments. This openness to query slows our tendency to react in harsh, judgmental ways, and allows us time to formulate passionate response. Gathering additional information by reflecting on our own experiences is vital to strengthening our authentic being.
Sometimes the assumptions and judgments that are most illusory — damaging to others and to our authentic self — only become clear when we identify the unconscious fears at the root of our reactions.  Taking a moment to quiet our mind, we can disengage and consider how to formulate a response. It is never too late to shift from reacting to responding.  The key is to catch our reaction, shift to response, make amends, and learn from the experience.
Both our reactions and our responses provide opportunities for growth. When we take advantage of the learning gained from these experiences, our ongoing transformation leads us more deeply into authentic living. We live optimistically; we see each moment as an opportunity to be more true to our authentic, compassionate self.

Moving from reaction to response is a full-flavored, whole-body experience. As we engage with curious daring, there is no room for apathy. Eager engagement through awareness fills our being.  With hyperawareness we mindfully experience all the incoming sensations.  We shift our perception and see our actions with all of our senses.
Namaste, Vanessa

Thursday, September 10, 2015

the grace of spiritual kintsugi

I gazed through the haze that creates a thin veil between there and here.  Ready to begin my journey, I had but one more task.  As I neared the threshold, I noticed just that side of the gateway stood shelves filled with vessels of all sorts and sizes and shapes and materials.  Of course, my eyes were drawn to a piece of Raku pottery.  The beauty of the mingled colors and the rough texture of this piece of Japanese pottery called to me.  Holding the Raku heart gently in my spirit hands, I crossed the threshold between then and  now.

Throughout the years I have carried this vessel, and it has carried me.  As I have slipped, and slid, banged and bounced through this life, my Raku heart has become chipped and cracked.  With each lesson learned and each challenge met, those chips and cracks have been mended. 

In the healing I experienced the spiritual practice of kintsugi. When pottery is cracked, broken, or chipped in Japan, potters use the process of kintsugi to repair the Raku.  Seams are fused together and gouges filled with gold.  The repair makes the vessel stronger, more durable.

Our life lessons and challenges often cause stress fractures in our self.  Then the light of the Sacred can flow through illuminating a new way.  As we learn the lessons and meet the challenges, we heal.  We seal the cracks and fill the gouges.  We may not look or act or think the same, but we are stronger and more able to walk our path. 

Perhaps my piece of spiritual Raku does not look the same as it did before, but it is a thing of beauty.  At any given moment, the light of grace shines through the cracks.  In yet other moments, the gold of healing grace repairs the vessel.  And, in the beauty of spiritual kintsugi shines a life well lived.

Wishing you the grace of spiritual kintsugi in your life,


Vanessa

Friday, September 4, 2015

Uncovering Your Wisdom...With Help!

Earlier today two cardinals perched on my fence.  They were looking intently at one another, peering into each other’s eyes, and dialoguing with unspoken words.  I smiled at my feathered neighbors as they enjoyed my patio space.

I spent a few quiet moments breathing into their presence marveling at how they were takng time just to be.  Mimicking them, I stopped my hectic race to the finish and took joy in resting in place.  With clarity I realized that while I was learning from the cardinal couple; they were not teachers.  These beings were fellow sojourners who facilitated an unveiling of my path.

These two cardinals were an example of what Deb said yesterday in a meeting, “I am not a teacher, I am helping to uncover.” And, those two helped me, in that moment, uncover the silence within.  Brought me to a place where I could listen to the internal monologue and discover the distractions lurking in my quiet mind.

Do I offer new information in my classes? Yes.  But, like the cardinals, and like Deb, I am not so much a teacher as a guide helping others to explore a newness…helping others to discover who they are at the depth of their being.  In this unveiling, seeing the possibilities, and reframing, we step off the path of the mundane and visit again and again the extraordinary.

That’s life…the commitment to offer a descriptor to a writer or suggest a color to an artist or a different way of being to a seeker.  We aren’t creating the canvas or the paper or the path.  We are merely facilitating one another’s imagination and ability to see beyond the ordinary into the world of infinite possibilities.

Who will nudge you today? Who will offer you a pallet of vibrant colors or a dictionary filled with poignant words or a potential legend to your life map?  And, what will you offer to another?


From one fellow sojourner to another,

Vanessa