Category: The Pivot Project

***ZazenMed***

What would you have me know today?

What would you like to discuss? 

Hm. I would like to discuss ‘moving into mission’. What does it take to organise one’s life so that we are in full mission flow? It feels like we are all seeing that a ‘life of purpose’ is a gift. This time of stillness/chaos makes that clear. Some of us are sitting at home wondering about our daily walk routes, while others are pouring their exhausted bodies into uniform again to go out and support our bewildered society.

You want to join the masses who are serving? 

Well, of course I do. And yet… I don’t even see myself signing up as an NHS volunteer. (For my health reasons.)

Then what would you like to be doing? 

I would like to be doing my work in this world.

Go ahead, dear friend!

Um… Everyone’s a little distracted with other things at the moment.

Keep offering. Keep offering. Keep offering what you’ve got. That is the absolute bedrock of mission service. Can you see that? Can you see that those who serve do so whether they are lauded or not? They keep offering come what may? They can’t stop themselves! And they will give under all conditions, but in their own way… because their own way is their mission. They are not slaves of an external system. They are acting according to their own calling. They may work hard within a system, but the system serves them by providing a channel for their mission. Beautiful isn’t’ it? 

Like a nurse, or a priest, or a teacher – they serve out their calling within a system. But also, if it’s not fitting right with their mission, they can becomes slaves to that system. It is about them keeping an eye on that, maybe?

Or an artist might have no external system instructing her to check in or out for work, but she gets up at the crack of dawn nonetheless, to serve out her mission.

Yes. I love it. Tell me more about this notion of ‘keep offering’. I find myself recoiling if my offers are not warmly received. Recoiling. How can I give that up?

“When you feel yourself lacking something, send your thoughts towards your Intimate and search for the Divinity that lives within you.”

Ha! I meant to ‘command bold’, but commanded ‘paste’ instead. This is a quote from Aristotle which I copied an hour ago! It’s so appropriate. Tell me more…

The Divine in you never recoils. It is the Human in you – which has a (powerful, valuable) ego, and experiences fear and shame – which recoils. So Aristotle is saying, sit still a while, and ask your Divine self. 

I guess that’s what these Dialogues are about.

Indeed. Exactly so. So, in terms of ‘recoiling’ from offering what you have to offer… What message do you hear? Get really quiet for a moment. 

I’m hearing… the recoiling is a sign that it’s … the good stuff.

Aha. So, the recoiling away is the sign to extend towards! 

But… it feels SO uncomfortable.

To the human in you, it most certainly does! That’s the bifurcation speaking. There’s one way through the bifurcation of the human and the divine self, isn’t there?

Aarrgh…

And, consider what lives on the other side of bifurcation. 

I bet there’s less depression. All your shames busted into the light… That’d give the mind some distraction!

More than that, there is freedom to be oneself, freedom to create, freedom to express oneself. Offer up, not to negotiate or to haggle, but for the freedom on the other side of Doing Your Thing 100%. Who are you? Ask yourself that. 

Do I have to say?

No! It’s a larger question than one for this morning. First of all. Look at others, for Who They Are. Ask, what is x or y or z in their divine form? Not their human form, which is defined by profession, income, title, CV, house size, personality traits. Consider your father. What is he? 

The Philosopher.

Boom! And your mother? 

The Mirror! [She was a photographer.]

Superb. And your sister? 

The &&&&&&&&& [Unredacted version is in my files]

Beautiful! And your brother? 

I’m hearing: The &&&&&&&&&. I don’t get it. I think it’s because he is sensitive to such delicate subtleties.

Exactly!  And your Eldest Girl? 

The &&&&&&&&&

Spot on! And your Youngest Girl? 

The &&&&&&&&&

And you? 

The … Healer. :-/

There we go!

Why does that sink my heart so? Why is it like hearing I’ve got my skirt stuck in my knickers?

Denial, resistance, fear from past lives. 

That I can understand. I reckon there was some very funky business in the past for me, around healing others.

Hugely difficult experiences, if you don’t mind our saying. Hugely challenging, and difficult. 

Oh. Hence the recoiling… so maybe I (like many others) have a calling towards healing, and simultaneously an inbuilt recoil response, because of what healing meant before. (ie threat, retribution, punishment)

We don’t want to underline things too much, but if we had a red pen, we would underline this three times. 

🙂 In the ‘Starseed’ series of books, it says there are only two roles in this era: healer and teacher. I get what it was saying, and I wanted to identify with one… I automatically discounted healer, but then, neither am I naturally a teacher. This topic still makes my stomach turn.

So, tell us about ‘healing’. 

Well, how about we would start with ‘healer heal thyself’?

Why the heaviness? 

You tell me. The old stuff arising. How can I feel safe? I don’t. I feel perplexed. And very reluctant for anyone to read this. I feel compromised and afraid. So, you tell me.

You are invited to remove the ‘mystery’ from the notion of healing. You are invited to normalise it. Think about how often you receive healing from others: the kind word from a stranger; the out-reached hand from a loved one; the gentle message from a friend; the helpful information read online… This is all healing. Normalise it. Normalise it in this time. Healing is not ‘special’, or ‘magical’! It really is not. Look at the doctors and nurses and care workers. They are not magicians. They are just people, patiently offering up their services and knowledge, to other people who, for that moment, need to be able to lean on the strength of another. Healing, both physical and spiritual, is the most natural thing in creation. It is part of the purpose of creation. For the disparate to become one. For the fallen to rise – in whatever format. Through healing, Source knows itself to be. 

Today, think about healing. Take out the egoic concern of “Am I a healer?!” and consider that all are healers, of self and of other. All. That’s a bit of positive input you can add to your world today – the vision of every person being a self-healer and a healer. That is a valuable use of your mental energy today, if you can keep it soft and natural. (No pendulums!) Think about healing. Mull it over. Ask yourself: who heals and how? And see that healing is the natural state. 

I was wondering yesterday, ‘How many nascent illnesses will have been averted simply by people being forced to stop and rest at this time?’

The body is geared towards what people are now calling ‘radical remission’. This is a very natural process. Hold consciousness of this today. Not to ‘stop’ what you perceive to be happening in hospitals, but to help stimulate the timeline in which healing – in whatever form –  is as natural as a walk in the woods. 

See that ‘healing’ is the natural state

****

Later:

‘In whatever form’… that means that a person may not heal physically/physiologically but they may have healed in some other form… right?

Right. There is so judgement of healed or unhealed. Everything is eternally healing in the form it requires to take. Life cannot not heal. 

But death…

Death is a step taken into a new paradigm. 

 

 

 

 

What can I say? There’s nothing like invoking ‘Happiness’ and ‘Softness’ to trigger in me the lamentations of the ages. Sobs, and bafflements, and pains have been flowing through me. I can barely look at the world out there. I can hardly look at the world in here.

A purging time, isn’t it, dear friend?

It really is. Yesterday at least 950 people died with Covid19 in the UK. We overtook Italy and Spain in highest daily death toll. These screen shots of Guardian and BBC front pages today don’t do the situation justice…

This is a world of so much pain. We had been accustomed to it. But sit still in your house, with no distractions, and no busy-ness – and the tenderness of being alive at this time sweeps over you in palpating waves. I’m glad to be awake to it. I’m grateful for it. But, really, I feel the need to know that this is actually part of the shift of all ages…

And it is. 

How do you know?

What happened yesterday? For you? 

AV and I went to Bath for the first time since Lockdown began, to go shopping in Waitrose… so we could see LV, my daughter and AV’s sister…whom we haven’t seen since Lockdown began.  We did not take this lightly as we have been extremely diligent about social distancing, and consider doing so highly importantly. We coordinated timings. You’re only meant to have one person per household go in, so (and forgive us if this was wrong) AV and I split the shopping list, and queued for entry separately. LV was shopping inside. When I saw her – talking at a safe 2m from AV by the vegetables – I burst in to tears. To see both my girls together. To see my little girl in person for the first time in so long. My heart nearly burst.

Your heart nearly burst. 

It did.

You have stumbled upon the key aspect of this momentous time. Everyone’s hearts are fit to burst. The empathy, compassion and tenderness arising in the collective consciousness is like at no other time. Not even during the war, when there was a sense of the ‘enemy’. Now, there is no enemy. Just circumstance. 

We (some) would make our governments to be the ‘enemy’, and seek to hold them account for their slowness in responding to a situation they could have acted upon earlier…

Errors, errors, errors. Humans make errors.

But ‘herd immunity’?! Didn’t they plan just to let the vulnerable take the hit?!

Underestimating the value of human life is a human error. 

Assuming an economy has more value than a human life is a human error. 

Hoping a situation will go away because the actual data tells you it will, is a human error.

I’m torn because on the one hand I want to turn rebuttals on this – it’s too easy for our ‘leaders’ to shrug their shoulders and deny/purport “error”; or for us to excuse them by saying ‘They’re human too!’. On the other hand, I am conscious of my human errors. Substantial human errors. I’ve had cause to think this week about how unmerciful we are towrds each other’s errors on this planet. We make people live with their errors for a life time. We are so unforgiving.

I worked this week with someone who has experienced acute suicidality for some ten years. I discovered (by my own googling) that he was once a high-profile person and in the course of his important work, he made a error of professional judgment. This error was publicised by the media and by his profession. Ten years ago. Here is this person, ten years on, still living to make amends for that error, on the edge of life and death… when the condemning journalists would barely be able even to remember his name. Would the person affected by his error really want him to be experiencing suicidal thinking ten years later?

Anyway, what has this all to do with shifting?

The route to the shift is forgiveness, of self and of other. 

Like JC who came to forgive us our sins. (It’s Easter Saturday today.)

Mercy is no lofty ideal. It is intrinsic to making this planet coherent.

For a person to be merciful – to forgive – to transmute hate and blame into compassion and love – what must occur first? 

The heart must open… We must become open-hearted. And that’s what is happening now? That’s what Covid19 is doing to us? Making us open-hearted?

You say ‘open-hearted’. We say ‘heart-centred’. 

Beautiful. Yes. I dig that. Tell me more about ‘heart-centred’.

The Heart-Centred paradigm is the Next Big Thing. 

Aha? In what way?

#BeKind is a ripple in this new ocean. 

It arose out of loss. (The suicide of Caroline Flack.)

It arose out of loss. 

Is that the only way we can learn how to love, by losing what we take for granted? Health, friends, loved ones, cultural icons…

It is not so much that you take these things  ‘for granted’ but that you assume they are permanent fixtures in your life. Life is about impermanence. The only way to tolerate impermanence (without toppling over with grief or frustration or anxiety) is… by finding one’s heart centre. 

Tell me about my heart centre.

Physiologically it is in your chest. Etherically it is at the higher frequencies. Energetically, it is just in front of your sternum. 

And how do I become more heart-centred?

You are invited to turn up the frequencies in your heart centre so that they hum. 

Excuse me? So I can understand?

Consider impermanence. That will make your heart hum. It will make your heart hum if you consider not the loss in impermanence, but the value in ‘what is’ when all is impermanent. See the freshness of what is, anew. As Goethe said. 

Ah yes… Let me find that twitter screenshot I took earlier…

The whole screenshot sums up this current situation in so many ways:

“LIVE EACH DAY AS IF YOUR LIFE HAD JUST BEGUN.” Goethe

This is about awe, wonder, marvel. That is the heart-centred state.

Like a baby…

The innocence of the baby, and the receptivity of the baby. The freshness of its sight. 

I see. And for today…?

Value what is, right here, right now. Endeavour to see it for what it is. A marvel. This will lift your heart, and make it hum. Marvel at what you see. 

Marvel at what you see. 

************

I did marvel at what I saw – in fact we (G&I) even got out binoculars. I marvelled at:

• A Great Tit resting in the dust
• Buzzards on the upward breezes
• Dappled sunlight on bluebells
• The beauty of my beloved G.
• The nobility of my beautiful A.
• Pictures of my precious nieces

Hm… everything I marvelled at was living. Living things are marvellous. Maybe in part, because they are – oh my heart – impermanent. 

No strain; flow downhill; take the route of no resistance. This is a good pivot point to counterbalance the jazzhands, the effortations and the pushpushpushing uphill.

Yesterday, I believe I finally got a sense of what Abraham means by the notion of ‘point of attraction’. It links to what you said yesterday about our ‘frequency profile’. This is how I am seeing it: if someone were to take a snapshot of me in any moment, what… archetype… would they see me displaying? Here, by ‘archetype’ I mean, person with a set of characteristics, traits, energetic frequencies and vibrational set-points.

The idea is that, you get more of what you do, think or feel. Right? So your ‘point of attraction’ in any one moment makes up the general magnetism you are offering. So, it’s important to flow into the archetype (point of attraction) you are seeking to have more of.

If your general point of attraction (POA) is out of alignment with your vision for yourself (or your inner being’s POA), disappointment may follow. Examples:

• a person might have a goal to help others, but if you took readings (snapshots) of their point of attraction, 9 times out of 10 they would be scowling and complaining about others’ behaviour. So, they ‘create’ more scowlable circumstances, and don’t flow into the place where they find themselves being asked for their help.
• a person wants success in their business, but if you took readings (snapshots) of their point of attraction, 9 times out of 10 they would be acting as if their business were a disaster. Yet they can’t understand why it doesn’t get better when they are adding so much effort (aka resistance) to solving the ‘problem’.
• a person wants their children to bring them pride and pleasure, but if you took readings (snapshots) of their point of attraction, 9 times out of 10 they are frowning and tutting about their children’s behaviour. And so, their children behaviour mirrors the parent’s POA and spirals downwards.

Tell me more about this.

We discussed ‘acting as if’ before. It’s your doorway through. And you developed this skill powerfully as a child. But, often you turned your vivid acting attention to darker emotions. It made you a great lead in your tragedy and tragi-comedy shows! Now you are invited to play the lead role in the happy show. 

I can do that! I really can! This quarantine time… Oh man. It’s giving me so much to be grateful for: a renewed awareness of the stillness available to us, the dazzling beauty of nature, the extraordinary fragility of life, the good-heartedness of people, the power of community spirit, the miracle of the internet, the kindness of strangers, the bounty of our food supplies, the refuge of a loving home, and the astonishing preciousness of our loved ones.

Yesterday, G, A and I sat out in the evening sunshine talking all things philosophy, went in for home-cooked food, and then whiled away the evening singing karaoke. I can’t tell you how blessed I feel by some of the moments I am sharing with my Girl (the Younger). Deep conversations. Time to connect and walk together in nature.

Turn off all the extra channels, and you find that the original channel was all you needed.

So, The Happy Show. I’ll flow with that. What’s the set up? It’s not, ehem, like the Truman Show..?

Well, dear friend, it’s not so very far off The Truman Show… You talked about taking snapshots of your state in any one moment, to get a sense of the Point of Attraction you were set to. You could say that your own cameras are on you the whole time. You are constantly transmitting a state to the ‘cameras’. What is that state? What is your state like when you ‘zone’ out and ‘forget yourself’… What’s your Resting State Face?

Hahaha! I’ve caught sight of it… Ok, first of all: it varies, ok?! Secondly: sometimes, it can be a little on the old glum side, I admit. A little hardened. Other times, I am jolly and peaceful and relaxed and soft…

There’s no judgement here. Just the invitation to grow that ability to ‘remember’ yourself, and also to organise your life to prompt that Resting Soft Face on a regular basis. 

‘Prompt that Resting Soft Face’… Interesting. When you have a baby around, or a pet you adore, you are constantly being triggered into that soft, oxytocin, towards state. How else can I organise my life to prompt Resting Soft Face?

You already are doing that. For example, your gift to self of a routine is taking some of the strain out of your days. 

That’s true. And photos in my environment prompt good feelings in me. And the flowers and trees around me. And tidy spaces…

Tell me more about The Happy Show. Is it like The Good Place?

In The Happy Show, there is a motto:

‘Nothing Matters… More Than To Love.’

That motto guides decisions, states, moods, environments. It serves to take the strain off life – because love is never strained. 

And so what does it mean to be a character in The Happy Show?

The characters hold their Point of Attraction in the frequency of happiness, using the Love priority to release all other pulls-and pushes-out-of-happiness. 

Can they not feel sadness, then?! Aren’t our emotions messengers we can learn from?

Most certainly they can feel sadness! But they interpret the messages of the sadness quickly, and act upon them. And hence are returned to happiness. By happiness we simply mean: flowing downhill in alignment with the inner being’s desire, which is, simply, largely, mainly… to love in innumerable ways. 

Like Source.

Exactly. Like Source. 

Source doesn’t grumble, complain, strain, effort…

Only via humans’ freewill choices. 

Ok. So today…

Play the lead role in The Happy Show. Check your point of attraction across the day. Reorganise your life, in this blessed Easter break, within this momentous epoch of global patience, to prompt moments of downhill flow and ease, for this is the frequency profile of your happiness. 

The times of withholding happiness are done. All the shames, the angers, the grudges, the disappointments, the unworthinesses. Let them be cleared out in this time. Understand that divine mercy starts with our view of ourselves and reaches outwards from there. Know that to love, to forgive, to cherish yourself is the starting point for all healing, inside outwards. So play this game. Act as if. Act as if… all were forgiven, all were healed, all were in its perfect state. This is your heaven on earth game, and it is more powerful than you know. If everyone went about ‘acting as if’ this were indeed heaven on earth for but 30 seconds, this planet would shift instantly. But here’s the thing. This period of ‘Shut Down’ is not dissimilar to such a scenario. Everyone is considering themselves, their neighbours, the nations and their global family anew. And as a result, the collective point of attraction is changing. 

Will it rest ultimately on ‘love’ or on ‘fear’?

The determination of your world starts with you – can only start and end with you. Where does your consciousness lie? Developing awareness of your personal Point of Attraction is your greatest gift to the collective consciousness. Start there, dear friend. Start with you and your Resting Soft Face.

Play the lead in The Happy Show (#RestingSoftFace)

 

ZEN MIND: The mind which is always on your side is not just your mind, it is universal mind, always the same, not different from another’s mind. It is Zen mind. It is big, big mind. … Big mind is always with us. That is why I repeat the same thing over and over when I think you do not understand. Zen is not just for the man who can fold his legs or who has great spiritual ability. Everyone has Buddha nature. We each must find some way to realize our true nature. The purpose of practice is to have direct experience of the Buddha nature which everyone has. Whatever you do should be the direct experience of Buddha nature. Buddha nature means to be aware of Buddha nature. Your effort should extend to saving all sentient beings. Zen Mind Epilogue p138/7

Big Mind – Zen Mind – Universal Mind … is always with us. And our practice is to access it, to still the noisy ‘I’ mind long enough to be able to bask even briefly in the pure, perfect illumination of this cosmic mind.

This book, Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki, has been a beautiful accompaniment into the storm of the coronavirus pandemic. I am so grateful. It has allowed me, for seconds at a time, to put myself in the perfectly calm eye of this storm, where all is still, aligned and… perfect. This book has brought me back to a better form of mindfulness practice. It has simplified my practice to a seated breathing meditation, with neither bells nor whistles. I feel myself learning to appreciate stillness, rather than fill it with stimulation. And this is bringing me back, softly, gently, to my original nature.

The Zen state is your Aspie Zen Zone? That was your original mission. To discover your Aspie Zen Zone. 

Well, my goodness, I’ve been in quarantine for a full month now. Talk about Aspie Zen Zone! All I can say is that, within this peace, much is arising for clearing. Ho hum…

Go inwards. Dear friend. Accept your zazen gift. 

***ZazenMeditation***

As you prayerfully access this universal mind, you align yourself more effectively with the infinite intelligence reaching out to inform us all. It is within your reach, at all times. To the degree that you can relax and remove ‘strain’ from your frequency profile, you will be able to access the knowing of all ages. Does that please you? 

Hugely. If doing so can make me more useful.

The invitation is to centre yourself within your own sphere. It can be so tempting to drift into another’s sphere and attain fresh energy there. 

Basically, jumping on someone else’s pendulums… The eternal seduction.

The opportunity available to all is, if you will, to discover you are all suddenly solar-powered electric vehicles now. As long as you expose yourself to the light, you are entirely self-sufficient. There is no longer a need to plunder the dark depths and suck out toxic substances to fuel yourself. The light shall fuel you entirely. 

And this exposing ourselves to the light. What does that look like and mean?

Light is simply light, from the sun. It is also the light of love, of wisdom, of truth, of heightened consciousness. It is the qi field, the energy field, the quantum field. As Lorie said, ‘turn on your quantum radio.’ You are the receiver, but you have to turn the switch on. As Abraham said, get in the receptive mode. 

Imagine you had an electric car, powered with electricity from the grid. You plugged your car in overnight – without actually turning on the switch at the socket. You wouldn’t get so far the next day. 

So what’s the actual ‘plugging in’ and the actual ‘switching on’ – for us?

The ‘plugging in’ is simple: it’s turning in the direction of the destination. Imagine your car at the top of the hill. 

The ‘switching on’ is fractionally more complex: it’s allowing the energy to flow. It’s the car shifting off it’s starting spot at the top of the hill. 

Hey, we don’t want to crash into the destination at the bottom of the hill, do we?

Quite right. And that is what stops you leaving the safety of the hill top. What you don’t know is that car is self-regulating. It won’t run away with itself. 

So:

1. Plug in: know your destination and turn in the right direction.
2. Switch on: allow the journey to start…

Almost. 

1. Plug in: Know your destination and turn to face the right direction.
2. Switch on: Follow the path (route) of least resistance – the downhill glide.

In other words: your destination is always down the hill. It is never up the hill. If you feel you are straining, you are going the wrong way. Turn round and do down hill. 

Ah, like ‘flow downstream’. ‘Everything you want is downstream.’ I like this car analogy.

We want you to think about your energy levels. You are often complaining – yes, complaining – about your low energy levels, about low battery, about running on empty. We want you to know that it is because you have been driving uphill. That is noble, good and worthy. But, if you want to get to where you want to get to – and you do, otherwise you wouldn’t keep driving on and on and on – then turn round. Turn. Round. 

Pivot!

via GIPHY

And go down hill. 

If it feels like a strain, you’re going AWAY from your destination. Pivot. 

If you need first gear to get/keep moving, you’re going AWAY from your destination. Pivot. 

Turn round and go downhill. Whenever you feel you are straining. 

You know your destination. You just don’t dare say it aloud, even to yourself. 

You’ll feel a heck of a lot better – and more energised – when you own your destination. And pivot towards it. 

You read it hear first. 😉

When you say, ‘own’ my destination?

Own it. Admit it. Articulate it. Shake it around and get used to it. ‘Undress’ it in public without cringing at the nakedness of it. Expose it. Accustom yourself to your truth and get on with your life, in truth. 

Man… Ok. Let me work with this.

You literally have all day.

With love. With love. With love. 

Ty. <3

Own your downhill destination

via GIPHY

 

 

In truth, yesterday was a really tough day. I was physically exhausted and spent most of the day either sleeping, or working in bed, on the urgent task of prepping my first significant online training for today. I cried ‘for Britain’ several times – triggered by something heart rending I’d seen or read, but not really being able to name why I felt so terribly sad. It was good to process emotions out of my body though. It felt like a purging of sadnesses.

It’s dawning on me that I have been so over-stimulated for so long, that just stopping is feeling like being in freefall. So much is floating up. Matt Kahn talks about the ego as ‘the over-stimulated nervous system’. YES. I am a cortisol cocktail at the moment. My poor system. I need to throw myself at HARMONY, LOVE, CONNECTION, PEACE like a groupie throwing themselves at their idol. Because it is getting tough out there, and there’s no time for the bifurcation game of:

• on the one hand, love is all
• but actually, I withhold my love for xyz because, hm, judgement

Look at this from a bench in my tiny hamlet… Sh*t’s getting real out here:

But this is just a lightener ahead of the really shocking news of yesterday. For months, I’d turn the radio off at the sound of his voice, full of my own anger and judgment at this man. But no one deserves this. This coronavirus takes no prisoners.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52192604

Last night, I finished When Breath Becomes Air, the extraordinary memoir of the neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi, written at pace in the last year of his life with terminal illness, before his death aged 37, leaving behind a wife and 8 month old daughter. I cried from my belly upwards. Again.

Suddenly, in this miraculous time of life and death; of racing against the tragedy of time, and sitting still with the infinite springtime birdsong, I am getting glimpses of that concept I’d barely resonated with before: Life is short. And it might be shorter than any of us expect. And when death comes, will we have given all we could? When I say ‘given’, I don’t necessarily mean, served our life out to collapse exhausted at the finish line, I mean this… Will we have been honest enough, and unabashed enough, to have given what’s in us to give and to do? Will we have been able to have overcome our shames and hesitations in time?  

It seems to me, if we can overcome our shames and hesitations, there is so much that can be enjoyed and relished and basked in. And, there is so little time in this life… I’m starting to get to grips with this notion, at last: today counts!

What say you? Today, we will have no Zen Mind reading. It’s the just the book’s Epilogue to go, and I want to have good time for that. What say you?

When we remove judgment, criticism or ill-will in all contexts, life returns us the favour. When we can be at peace with all that is, and see none of it as ‘bad’, ‘wrong’ or even ‘worthy of punishment’, the world becomes a benign and benevolent place. The world ceases to be the court room and prison which the ego would see it to be. It becomes the sanctuary for all aspects of creation. It becomes the forgiver and merciful. The world becomes the playroom in which all are seen to be ‘just learning’. Even the biters! Everyone is here to learn their spiritual lessons. That is all. Too often, we expect everyone to have learnt all their lessons. You’ll notice, occasionally, those who learn their lessons fast leave the planet a little early for the liking of their beloved ones. So, hey, there is no rush. All is evolving beautifully. 

Shame is a great balloon-burster, a fantastic party-pooper. Spot your shames today, or your anticipatory shames, and race your loving compassion in there.

Spot too, your judgment of others. Wherever you deploy condemnation, of self or of other, notice your impulse, and free it gently. Release all condemnation now. Do not condemn yourself or others to punishment for invented crimes. Forgive yourself and forgive all. 

Everyone is doing their best.

They are doing their perfection! If anyone should shock or annoy you, it is to show you that you still have judgment in you. Thank them for that.

Release all judgment, dear soul. Release it now. Cease to condemn. You will find such release in stepping down your inner judge. Such blessed release.

Say: all are doing their perfection! And embrace all that you see as “Perfect!”

Embrace all that you see as “Perfect!”

****

Later:

All is Perfect. Even the unspeakable shames which can not speak their holy names… Why? Because in the revealing of them to ourselves, we can acknowledge and forgive ourselves.

 

BUDDHA’S ENLIGHTENMENT “If you take pride in your attainment or become discouraged because of your idealistic effort, your practice will confine you by a thick wall.” Zen Mind p131

I feel incredibly sluggish today. Drained by a poor night’s sleep and the old ‘back to work’ dread.

What are you dreading, dear soul? 

Specifically, I’m really hoping my training – hastily put online and massively adapted for the purposes – is going to fly. Is this ‘taking pride in my attainment’ and deploying ‘idealistic effort’? I certainly feel confined by a thick wall today. Help me out please.

***Zazen5mins***

You must find it hard in these times. 

I guess so. I’m not getting the stimulation of movement which I find so calming. I’m having to sit with my stuff in this less distracted time. I’m having to be more aware of what is actually going on in my life.

And what is going on in your life? 

I think I’d like to be doing more of what I am actually good at. That would reassure me in this world.

How can you activate that? 

Simplifying. Circulating.

Yesterday in the woods I had a brainwave, about my usp in neurodiversity…

And how will that look this week? 

It all feels like so much work…

What One Thing could you do? 

Put the word on my website.

I feel such unspeakable heaviness today. Was it the red wine or over-eating of last night? I’m so inflamed, bloated and …

Steady, sailor, Come right back. You are doing amazingly. Everyone is doing amazingly.

At the weekend (Saturday 4th April), I made this blog open online. With my name on it. For the first time ever. I’d finally decided I was done with desperately trying to hide my personal self ‘lest it should destroy my professional self.’ I finally decided, I’d love to work with the people at the centre of the Venn diagram circles of:

• those who can tolerate my actual self (ie reading this)
• those who have a conflict and want support
• those who have money to pay for services

I always felt that the first people and the last people did not overlap. But maybe this coronavirus era will change some of that. Maybe, my HSPness and my Aspieness will be make more sense in this new era. And maybe, if people wouldn’t want to work with me if they saw these dialogues, it’s better that they see them and make that decision. At last, I’d rather not ‘mask’ my actual self for business purposes. That’s a huge step.

So, on what happened to be the date ‘444’ (4/4/2020), I finally de-bifurcated myself and blended what had been ‘the masked professional’ and ‘the secret soul sister’ . And for that I am pleased. And it feels like a good to have arisen out of the CV19 period, for my part.

But maybe this is why I feel uncomfortable today. Like people might be looking at me. I haven’t told anyone this blog is online, so years could pass before anyone sees this, let alone anyone I know… But nonetheless. Maybe that’s why I feel antsy. Ayudame.

We see you spanning into your future. Today is a really good day to keep the parameters of your planning-and-reaching really simple. This CV19 era is not the time in which you need to do anything major. It is a time of rest and care and modesty and humility. There is no need to impress anyone. Find ways in which others can find themselves to be impressive. Let others be big or impressive today. Keep it simple. 

Yesterday, two major things happened in your country: 

Your Prime Minister was admitted to hospital with coronavirus: 

Your Queen addressed the nation on coronavirus, and urged people to remain ‘united and resolute’, with the British attributes of ‘self-discipline; quiet, good-humoured resolve, and fellow-feeling’, pausing to reflect in prayer or meditation and calling on science and ‘compassion to heal’:

Would you like any more significant times? Can you fathom the moment you are in? Can you give yourself compassion for feeling dread at stepping into a week of work if you expect yourself to be acting in a ‘business as usual’ mode, or worse still a ‘and now I pivot my whole business in one fell swoop’ mode?

When we said that the keyword for this project was ‘pivot’, we must assure you of one thing: it’s an internal pivot at hand. 

Ok, so what is that pivot? What’s at one end of the stick and what’s at the other?

On one end is discord; on the other is harmony. That would be plenty to work with for now. 

And what do you mean by harmony here?

Converging energies, pulsating as one. 

Oh, well then! Why didn’t you say? I’m sure I have some of those in my drawer here…

Very funny, sweet soul. You know what a harmony is. You know the joy it brings you in singing. You sense it. Your body senses it. Can you find harmonies today? What harmonises well? Take your laser beam of attention, and use it to spot harmonies today. That will serve you beautifully. Empty your mind a little as well. Don’t strain to attain or deploy any idealistic efforts. Just looks for what harmonises. What resonates. What complements. What goes together well. 

Does that feel better? 

Yes. I can play with this today. I feel lighter. What’s the final Message..?

Look for harmonies today. 

Thank you. I will.

Look for harmonies

****

Later:

Where I found harmonies:

• Qigong in the garden
• In my routine
• In empty-headed naps
• In the birdsong on my walk
• In the uplifting talks I listened to
• In underlying a quote on calling in When Breath Becomes Air, and another piece of paper falling out with a quote on calling from Reality Transurfing
• In thinking about my upcoming training as ‘people finding connection’

 

 

 

Tenderness. By the end of yesterday, ‘tenderness’ was the ‘good stuff emerging’ that I decided  that I valued more than anything else. We are become tenderised by this pandemic. And that is ‘good stuff’.

Even if we are getting tenderer simply by being forced to stay at home, and be with the feelings arising in us, and not get the daily buzz from ‘action’ or the daily filip from ‘being someone’ in this world… that is good stuff.

There is a sense that the dominant masculine energies are finding balance, or at least, allowing the divine feminine energies to flow fully into the planetary experience. 

What do you mean?

The divine feminine can tolerate stillness. 

And the divine masculine can’t?

Generally, divine masculine is ‘momentum-seeking’. 

Let’s read, to discover more. 

***Reading***

Of course, again it’s perfect. ‘Just to sit without any idea of gain‘ = stillness without momentum-seeking…

EXPERIENCE, NOT PHILOSOPHY: Zazen practice is the practice in which we resume our pure way of life, beyond any gaining idea, and beyond fame and profit. By practice we just keep our original nature as it is. There is no need to intellectualize about what our pure original nature is, because it is beyond our intellectual understanding. And there is no need to appreciate it, because it is beyond our appreciation. So just to sit, without any idea of gain, and with the purest intention, to remain as quiet as our original nature—this is our practice. Zen Mind p124

***Zazen15minTimer***

Look for what you want to see in this world, at this time. Tenderness – yes. The possibility of stillness – yes. Momentum with mission – yes. A balance between divine feminine and divine masculine – yes. Now is the time for all possibilities to be pulled into reality. Choose your reality carefully. Ask yourself: what is my version, or vision, of heaven on Earth. And then, where you can, spot it. If your vision of heaven on Earth is ‘tenderness’, then make it your practice today to spot tenderness, to daydream tenderness, to feel tenderness welling up in you, to act from that sensation of tenderness and – most of all – to bring tenderness to yourself. For that is where is all begins. It begins with how we treat ourselves. We treat ourselves as residents of hell or of heaven, and our reality is borne out of that treating. So treat yourself tenderly today, sweet soul, and all other tenderness will follow. 

Thank you. <3

Treat yourself tenderly