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August 25, 2009
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Those
who never sacrificed a present to a future good, or a personal to
a general one, can speak of happiness only as the blind do of
colors.
Horace
Mann |
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Life
is certainly only worthwhile as it represents struggle for worthy
causes. There is no
struggle in perfect security.
I am quite certain that the human being could not continue
to exist if he or she had perfect security.
Dwight
D. Eisenhower |
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No
one can get inner peace by pouncing on it, by vigorously willing
to have it. Peace is
a margin of
power around our daily need.
Peace is a
consciousness of springs too deep for earthly
droughts
to dry up. Peace
is the gift not of
volitional
struggle but of spiritual
hospitality.
Harry
Emerson Fosdick
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The Seventh
Day
Matthew Kelly
The
seventh day is an ancient tradition founded and based on
our most human needs. It is a Jewish tradition and a
Christian tradition. Other religious traditions also
honor one day of the week as a day of worship and
rest. In this age that has not been kind to
tradition, I believe there is a great need to embrace this
wonderful, life-giving tradition of the seventh day.
The
tradition of the Sabbath emerged from our legitimate need
as human beings for rest. The seventh day tradition
upholds, protects, and ensures our legitimate need for
rest and relaxation, for a change of pace, for time with
family and friends, for time to turn toward the
transcendental, and for time to renew our connection with
God. It is a tradition as relevant today as it was
five thousand years ago.
The
modern conception of life respects only action. To
be spending your time in a worthwhile manner, you must be
doing or achieving something. The crudest and most
basic measure of this attitude is moneymaking. This
mind-set affects even the way we spend our recreation
time. People are so caught up in this obsession with
action and activity, they feel they must be doing
something constantly. Prayer is an inner
activity. When you pray you take on the appearance
of doing nothing. And because the fruits, benefits,
and rewards of prayer are internal, you appear to be
achieving nothing. Nothing could be further from the
truth.
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Not every
person with their eyes closed is asleep, and not every
person with their eyes open can see. . . .
Everything
happens according to the seasons. Nature is based on
certain cycles. These cycles are the untapped power
of our lives. If a farmer plants the seed in the
winter, will he or she have a crop in the spring?
No, they will have wasted time, effort, energy, and
seed. It is knowledge of the cycles, seasons, and
rhythms of nature that makes a farmer successful.
Today, it
is common knowledge and practice that a rested field
yields a plentiful crop. I wonder, the first time a
farmer decided to let a field rest for a year, did his
neighbors and friends say, "Oh, that's a clever
idea"? Absolutely not. They laughed at
him, made fun of him, talked about him behind his back,
and thought he was crazy. The next year, when he
brought in his crop from that field, he had the last
laugh. The following year, when there were three or
four fields resting, he smiled to himself with a gentle
sense of quiet satisfaction. Ten years later, when
every farmer in the district was using the resting field
method, he had become a legend.
The
cycles of nature hold the untapped power of our lives,
too. As you begin to discover those cycles and live
by them, your friends will think you are crazy for leaving
the party early, or for passing up "an irresistible
opportunity" at work, or for changing the way you
spend your Sunday. But over the weeks, months, and
years ahead, as you bring the harvest of your life to be
weighed, they will soon see that your way is better.
They will turn to it. They too will begin to seek
the rhythm of life.
The
question becomes: Are you prepared to give your
health and happiness priority over your bank balance and
your toy collection? The rhythm of life should be a
priority in our lives. The seventh day as a day of
rest is a very powerful tool in creating and maintaining
the rhythm of life. Acknowledge the wisdom behind
the Sabbath tradition. Use this day. Accept
this gift. Allow this day of rest to regulate your
week, to provide a macrorhythm for your life.
Do you
ever feel that you just need a day off? A day to
relax, to be with family and friends, to do nothing at
all, a day to take it easy?
Embrace
the seventh day. Allow yourself to be renewed and
refreshed. For thousands of years, wise men and
women of every culture have been tapping into the power of
the Sabbath, in one form or another, to maintain rhythm in
their lives. From this rest and reflection of the
seventh day, we emerge with a keen sense of what our
priorities are and return to our work and to the world
rooted once again in our life principles.
There
once lived a man whose name was Jude. He was an
apostle of Jesus Christ and was renowned throughout the
region as a wise and deeply spiritual man. People
traveled great distances, venturing across foreign lands,
to seek his advice and healing.
One day
Jude was relaxing outside his hut when a hunter came
by. The hunter was surprised to see Jude relaxing
and rebuffed him for loafing. It was not the
hunter's idea of what a holy man should be doing.
Jude
recognized these thoughts running through the hunter's
mind and also noticed that the man carried a bow for
hunting. "What is your occupation, sir?"
"I
am a hunter," the man replied.
"Very
good," Jude said. "Bend your bow and shoot
an arrow." The man did so. "Bend it
again and shoot another arrow," said Jude.
The
hunter did so, again and again. Finally he
complained, "Father, if I keep my bow always
stretched, it will break."
"Very
good, my child," Jude replied. "So it is
with me and all people. If we push ourselves beyond
measure, we will break. It is good and right from
time to time to relax and re-create ourselves."
If you
don't break from the tensions of daily living, they will
break you. . . .
There is
an art to slowing down. In our busy world it is not
easy to master this art, but it is necessary. Our
lives have a habit of gathering a momentum of their own,
plunging forward, with or without our consent. Learn
to slow down and access life. Take your foot off the
accelerator and look about and within.
Slow
down. Breathe deeply. Reflect deeply.
Pray deeply. Live deeply. Otherwise you will
spend your life feeling like a bulldozed chasing
butterflies or a sparrow in a hurricane.
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Matthew
Kelly, the charismatic minister, speaker and
best-selling author from down under, wants you to
live life out loud and on purpose. In this
expanded version of The Rhythm of Life he
syntheses Christian theology, cognitive psychology
and storytelling to unpack the paradox of being
happy. As Kelly explains, "We want to be
happy. We know what makes us happy. But
we don't do those things--because we are busy trying
to be happy." So here's the gospel
according to Kelly: Find a life-changing
rhythm by choosing a central purpose and becoming
"the best version of yourself." |
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| About to have
a blood test, the woman nervously waited while the nurse tightened
a tourniquet around her arm. "I understand you're from
Oklahoma," the nurse said. "Are you a Sooners
fan?"
"Absolutely!"
the woman replied.
"Well," the
nurse said as she raised the needle, "this may hurt a
little. I'm from Nebraska." |
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Truly Blessed
Lynn C. Johnson
When I
found more pain in others
Than I found within myself
I learned what it meant to feel compassion
And my pain began to fade
When I
found more forgiveness in others
Than I found within myself
I learned what it meant to feel peace
And my heart began to mend
When I
found more belief in others
Than I found within myself
I learned what it meant to have faith
And my fears began to die
And when I
found more love in others
Than I found within myself
I learned what it meant to feel truly blessed
And my spirit began to soar.
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
Carving out
a Few Minutes
Very often
at the end of a day I'll be quite astonished at how quickly the
day has gone by, and just how little time I've used for prayer or
introspection or simply rest. So many things happen during a
day, so many things call out for my attention and time, that it
becomes quite difficult simply to stop, sit down, turn off all the
music or shows or whatever else is making noise, and just be
for a few moments.
The
beneficial effects of doing so--if one takes it seriously and
truly does try to turn off one's focus on the outside world--are
well known and truly life-changing. Taking these few moments
can help us to go through the rest of the day better balanced,
more strongly focused, and more able to deal effectively with
whatever may come up during the day to challenge us and to push
us. Yet these times in our lives, these few moments of peace
and relaxation, remain some of the most elusive moments for us.
One of the
things that I constantly find is that as soon as I finish one
thing, I'm immediately looking for the next thing that I
"need" to do. My mind is on accomplishing tasks,
and I get caught up in doing so, moving from one task to the next
in a steady stream of "doing." One of the problems
with this approach, though, is that after a while of doing things,
I become much less effective at anything that I do. I start
doing things less well, and I start losing my focus, moving from
task to task without any real plans or strategies.
When I do
take those few minutes, though, the rest of my day tends to be
much more strongly focused, and whatever I do, I do pretty
well. Because I've taken time to calm my mind and find a
sense of equilibrium, when I do see a new task I see it much more
clearly, and I see the possible ways of tackling that task much
more clearly, too.
It's
important to carve out a few minutes each day--and even better if
we can do it three or four times a day--to find our center, to
regain our balance, and to renew our perspective on life. We
can do that in a quiet place best of all, though such a place
isn't absolutely necessary. It's possible to take a few
minutes on the bus, on the train, or even at our desk at work in
order to slow our minds down and let peace wash over us.
People who
meditate regularly will tell you that one of the easiest
techniques for slowing our brains down is to focus on our own
breathing, listening to it as we inhale slowly and deeply, then
exhale just as slowly. Focusing on our breath helps us to
establish a slow, relaxed rhythm in our minds, and it helps to
remind us of the fundamental things in life, such as breathing,
that we do all the time but take for granted.
Once we're
focused on our breathing, it's also important that we allow our
muscles to relax as much as possible. When we do this, it's
easier for us to recognize the tension in different places in our
bodies that won't relax, and we can know the areas that need more
of our focus. For me, it's mostly in my shoulders--when I
allow my body to relax, I notice that the tension remains in the
shoulders close to my neck. That seems to be where the
tension affects me most, and I can spend more time stretching
those muscles, massaging them, or just focusing on relaxing them
more.
It's
important to pay attention to our thoughts at these times,
too. Thoughts of stressful situations in our lives,
judgmental thoughts about people we know, or any other negative
thoughts need to be banished. The way to banish them isn't
to focus on them, but to redirect our thinking to our breathing,
so that we have something positive to focus on. If we try to
banish those negative thoughts by thinking about them, we're
simply feeding them.
This is
where soft, relaxing music can come in if you're trying to get
centered at a somewhat noisy place--an mp3 player or CD player and
some nice music can also give you something positive and relaxing
to focus on. Many times at home, I'll try to have such a
time with soft music playing because I find that my mind and body
both react well to relaxing music.
The longer
we can maintain our peace, the more of an effect it will have on
our day. We don't need to do so for hours, of course, but as
we get better at it, it gets easier to pull ourselves away from
the world for longer periods of time, and then we feel the
benefits of doing so for much longer, too. If we never do
this, though, we run the risk of getting so caught up in things
and tasks that we never slow down and ask ourselves just what
gives our lives meaning--are we living to work, or are we working
to live? Is life about tasks to accomplish, or is there more
to it? If we truly are spiritual beings spending some time
in a body, then we have to slow down and pull ourselves away from
the tasks of the mind and body and try to get in touch with the
deeper sides of ourselves, and the best way to start is to carve a
few minutes out of each day to give ourselves a chance to do so.
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Everyone talks
about freedom. All around the world different people,
different races, different countries are fighting for freedom.
But what
is freedom? In America we speak of living in a free country. But
are we really free? Are we free to be who we really are? The
answer
is no, we are not free. True freedom has to do with the human
spirit--it is freedom to be who we really are.
Who stops us from being free? We blame the government, we blame the
weather, we blame our parents, we blame religion, we blame God.
Who really stops us from being free? We stop ourselves.
Don Miguel
Ruiz |
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
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mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
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each week. |
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The
Language of Your Body
Charlie Badenhop
Do you sometimes
find yourself stuck in unproductive conversations that leave you
feeling somewhat helpless? I am sure this happens to all of us at
times. Have a look at today's story to understand a new way to
approach such conversations.
A client who I
will call "Jim" shows up wanting to discuss his
"utter failure" in his new job as a marketing manager.
As he talks, I note that his shoulders are rounded forward, his
trunk is tilted somewhat backwards, he rocks ever so much from
side to side, and he talks rather quickly while breathing in a
shallow manner. All these components of his physical behavior make
up a non-verbal communication pattern that we call "the
language of the body". Jim begins his conversation by
establishing a sense of "utter failure" in his body. He
then shirts his attention to crafting the verbal language that
agrees with what his body has to say.
When Jim's
finished talking I suggest he tell his story again from a
different perspective, by first initiating a different "body
conversation". With my prompting he makes numerous
adjustments to his posture and his breathing style. What I am
helping him do is "talk from a more confident body," and
upon resuming his conversation he reports that his situation does
not seem as discouraging as before.
I encourage Jim
to continue talking while maintaining the new body language
patterns I have suggested. He soon reports that "Keeping my
new posture while talking makes me feel like I am trying to
accomplish two competing tasks at the same time." Upon
hearing himself speak these words he gets a teary look in his eyes
and says, "Just now I realize how overwhelmed I have been
feeling at work, by trying to do too many things all at the same
time." Having said this he slumps back into his
"old" posture and it takes a good bit of gentle
prompting to bring him back to his "new" more solution
oriented body. I encourage him to breathe deeply and tell me what
he is now feeling. He spontaneously begins to change his story
from one of "utter failure" to talking about "A
challenging yet necessary business lesson that he is thankful
for." He begins to understand experientially that to a large
extent his emotional responses to circumstances and relationships
are initiated by his body.
I explain to him
that "When you change the way you use your body, your change
the 'conversations' that emanate from your body and you give
yourself a new emotional understanding and appreciation for what
has been taking place." This is a key learning. Rather than
attempting to help clients fix circumstances they perceive as
"failures," I instead strive to help them realize how
they generate their sense of "failure" with their body.
When you learn how to use your body differently, and breathe in a
more relaxed manner, you feel much more able to successfully meet
the challenges you face.
If you tense your
shoulders, look down towards your feet, and breathe in a shallow
manner, you will not report feeling competent and confident. Yet
this is exactly what clients often do prior to explaining how they
would like to feel more competent and confident! The way you use
your body establishes the emotional tone of your thoughts and
feelings. When wanting to discuss your challenges, it's crucial to
prepare yourself by breathing deeply and embodying a posture that
helps you to feel competent and confident. Only after doing this
should you begin to talk! Much more than most people realize, when
you describe a situation that has been problematic in the past,
what you are really doing is describing how you feel in the
moment, as you use your body in a restrictive manner.
Lead with your
body and your breathing, and solution oriented conversations will
follow!
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From the
newsletter "Pure Heart, Simple Mind"® is written and
edited by Charlie Badenhop ©. All rights reserved. http://www.seishindo.org
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A
second-grader brought home a report card that didn't meet his parents'
expectations.
After dinner, the father sat the boy on his knee and
said, "Son, we're going
to have to do something about these
grades."
"We can't, Dad," the boy replied. "They're in
ink." |
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