What Is Real

After one of my programs, a participant recounted a story about a message that she had heard in a recent sermon.  So profoundly affected, the next week she sought out the minister to thank him.  After sharing how deeply his story affected her, the minister smiled and gently thanked her. 

His next words still haunt, “but that was not in my sermon.”  She heard something that the man had never said.  We chuckled because although it was not the message of the sermon, those words were what she needed to hear. 

Our perceptions create our reality.  What we are certain we see and hear, shape how we respond and react to the world.  I think about the constant bombardment of information and wonder how often we actually hear or see or read what is intended.  Lots of room for misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and reactions exist.

How can we create filters that empower our awareness and help us take an accurate look at the real?  Through our compassion and intuition we sift through what we believe we see to what is really there.   Compassion asks us to be gentle first with our self and then to the people, situations, and bits of creation we meet along the way.  In compassion’s presence we are more likely to  name what is triggering our suffering and take strides to ameliorate it. 

For me, compassion is a calming force.  It creates a metaphoric eye of the storm.  In the eye of my life storm, my intuitive nature is freed through self compassion.  In the calm, my intuitive whispers are less likely to be blown away unheard.  I am better able to listen to wisdom as it surfaces. 

Compassion is a companion; intuition is a guide.  Both help me see past illusion and empower me to create a more authentic reality based upon my perceptions and interpretations.  With both intuition and compassion, maybe, just maybe, I am equipped to understand that others live in a world based upon their perceptions and interpretations.  And, maybe, I live the words of Gandhi, as I become “the change I wish to see the world.”

Into the Real with Awareness,

Vanessa

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com

tgff: Thank God For Friends

Early-ish this morning a friend called.  After a series of mishaps, disappointments, and not-so-great news, her call was exactly what I needed to blow the staleness from my life.  The smog lifted.  And, if I squinted, I was able to see possibility.

What impelled the wind’s blowing?  She gently reminded me to connect with Sprit by affirming the possibilities in my life.  Even if I could not see them, my intent is to acknowledge their presence. 

But, what of that low hanging, tenacious smog — that funk that gets in the nose and eyes of our heart obscuring beauty and hope?  For S., the way to combat this smog lurking in the crevices is gratitude.  She suggested that I create a list of five things of which to be grateful.  And, to do this before I left the house!  As a follow-up to the list, I was to affirm, through prayer, my relationship with the Sacred.

List accomplished.  Affirmation uttered.  Next, I engaged in full body listening.  What had originally felt dulled and overwhelmed now felt noticeably lighter.  I could even sense a minute spark of hope.  A tiny light of possible was flaring in what was originally the darkest of night.

So, tgff — thank God for friends this morning.  To that wonderful woman who listened to her intuition and responded through an “accidental” call.  She gave me what I most needed.  Her words impelled a fresh perspective in my life.  Her not so little act of compassion made a big difference.  Thank you, S., for generating the gentle breeze that blew away of the smog. I can see more clearly.

Open mind, open heart, open soul,

Vanessa

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com

Suffering: Knee Deep in the Compost

“Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional,” reminds me of a popular 80s slogan, “You can heal your life.”  The way that I interpret each leaves me unsettled.  What if suffering is not optional, and you cannot heal your life?  Does that mean when you are overwhelmed by suffering and unable to heal your self that you have failed? 

Maybe, like most things in life, it all comes down to semantics and meaning.  For me, suffering, while not permanent, is most certainly not optional.  Suffering offers a pathway to transformation.  When I consciously seek the catalysts of my suffering, I discover challenges that bring the greatest life lessons. 

With this realization come opportunities for transformation and the means to move from suffering to learning.  As I begin to learn, compassion flows; suffering alleviated. This life companion provides the compost for my life garden.  Without suffering I would not be able to rise to the heights and plunge to the depths of my soul.  The deep anguish I feel is not optional, but it is not permanent either. 

Each of us has many ideas of what healing is.  By definition, healing is a return to wholeness.  What if the “whole” doesn’t look like what we think it should?  What happens when we believe healing is only possible when we are restored to the original? (This is the definition of cure.)  “You can heal your life” may be setting us up for the suffering triggered by the belief of our failure. 

So, if we live by these slogans, we do not fully engage in the transformative power of life experience.  If suffering is optional, we risk casting aside the rich opportunities to grow and transform.  Without a true understanding of healing, we lack the potential to become whole in ways that do not restore us to the original.

Suffering is the catalyst that brings us through the tumult and urges us to return to whole.  Through suffering we fertilize the seeds that grow in the ground of our being and nurture our most authentic self.

Knee deep in the compost!

Vanessa

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com

In Heart’s Brokenness: A Story of Compassion

A friend recently said, “Sometimes a heart needs to be broken.”  At first this seemed harsh and violent, but the more I reflected, the more I saw wisdom in her statement. 

Energetically, we hold unresolved anguish and angst in our heart.  Conversely, the heart is the repository of unconditional love and compassion.  Imagine a heart with two chambers — one holding unresolved pain and suffering; another with an infinite capacity to share unconditional love and compassion.  This heart, our heart, is made for healing. 

We are good at sharing compassion outwardly, but aren’t so adept at thinning the barrier that separate the two chambers of our heart.  Allowing compassion to flow through what, in reality, is a permeable barrier, and soothing the inflammation of anguish although not an easy task is a possible one.  This happens through the most courageous, curiously daring, difficult act we will ever undertake.  That act?  Self-compassion.

So, maybe we need to break our heart every now and again.  Maybe in those cracks the anguish and hurt finally escape.  No longer held captive, our suffering connects with compassion.   Once in the embrace of compassion, our broken heart is surrounded and soothed.  We do not negate the anguish; rather, we transform it.  And, in this transformation, we are healed. 

So, hearts do need to break but cannot be left broken.  Through our compassion, to self, other, and world, we mend hearts and in doing so, change the world — one compassionate act at a time.

With compassion,

Vanessa (www.intentandaction.com)

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

Grounding: Be Here Now

Be here now.  A good reminder as we find our self pulled in many directions.  Many mindfulness practices do just this — root us in the here and now.  One energy technique, grounding, invites us to do the same.

When we ground, we connect to Earth and Source in the present moment. Through grounding we consciously acknowledge that we are part of the great circle of life; we flow within the cycle of life. 

While there are many different ways to ground, try this simple way of grounding  through the breath:

Inhale…describe the breath with all of your senses…sight…sound…taste…smell…feeling… consciously focus on the breath as it flows into the crown of your head…with each inhale, pull your breath deeper into your body…through your head…into your neck…past your heart…deeper into your torso…reaching into pelvis…branching out into both your legs …down, down, down your legs until it flows out the soles of your feet…

Your energy mingles with the energy of Earth…it co-mingles forming a unique weave of your and Earth energies…draw this comingled energy up through the soles of your feet, up your legs, into your torso…noticing how the joined energy touches your being…how does the energy make you feel…with each inhale, the energy moves further up your body…through you neck…up past your forehead…out your crown…

it reaches up, up, up to the Source…here all three energies mingle…draw this three strand energy back into your body…notice, with all of your senses how you are connected to Earth and Source…how they connect to each other through you.

Throughout the day, notice how this connection helps you “be here now.”  When you do not feel present, reconnect with the energy of Earth and Source.

Grounding with awareness into the moment,

Vanessa

Vanessa is an Intuitive, Community Builder, and Compassionista, and Author of Engaging Compassion Through Intent & Action

www.intentandaction.com