Welcome to
another week in our lives! This particular
week will be full of many
beautiful things that we'll never see because we're
so focused on other things.
Let's do our best to see as many of them as we can,
though, okay?
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.
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 bulldozer chasing
butterflies or a sparrow in a hurricane.
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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!
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
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
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.
What do we really mean when we talk about "self"?
How much of it has to do with body? With spirit? With
intellect? Of course, our selves must have something to do
with all of these things, but just how do we define it? This
is an important question because the ways that we define our
selves have much to do with the way that we treat our
selves. And much of the misery in the world has more to do
with the ways in which people treat themselves than it does with
the ways in which other people treat us.
It's a widely accepted fact that we really can't take care of
others well until we take care of ourselves first. If we
don't get to know our selves, if we don't feed our selves with
love and acceptance and caring, it we don't show compassion to our
selves, then it's pretty much impossible to take care of
others. We see the results of people who never have taken
care of their selves in the children that they raise--these are
kids who have a strong need for attention and acceptance, and who
very often act out those needs in inappropriate ways because
they've found no other ways that are effective.
The
older I get, the more I realize the importance of
exercising
the various dimensions
of my body, soul, mind,
and heart. Taken
together,
these aspects give me a
sense of
wholeness. I want to
be a whole human
being
rather than one who limps on one leg
because I don't
know how to use
all of my parts. Intellectual,
emotional, and physical
activity are not
separate
entities.
Rather, they are dimensions of the same
human being.
When we
consider our selves, the most important part of that
consideration, it seems to me, is simple awareness
of the many different elements that make up that
self. Robert talks of "body, soul, mind,
and heart," but that short list also includes
elements of those parts, such as feelings, biases,
fears, ambitions, hopes, dreams, beliefs, and the
like. We are a combination of many, many
different elements, and unless and until we're able
to be aware of what they are and how they affect us,
we simply won't be able to make any significant
changes in order to improve our lives. If we
don't see ourselves as a composite of our different
factors, it's easy to become frustrated and confused
as we try to figure out just how we might better
ourselves.
On the other hand, awareness of our own diversity
can help us to focus on just those things that need
our attention. I might feel that I'm terrible
with relationships, for example, and feel at a loss
when I try to improve them. If I'm aware of
what I do and how I do it, though, I might realize
that my biggest problem is listening--I'm not
necessarily bad at relationships, just bad at
listening, and that one factor sabotages my attempts
at developing relationships. If I can focus on
my listening skills, then, I can improve my
relationships as a matter of course.
I
was always looking outside
myself for strength and
confidence,
but it comes from
within. It is there all the time.
Anna
Freud
Our selves
really are magnificent--unfortunately, though, we
learn mostly how to limit them as we grow up, and
then it's very difficult to learn how to cast away
those limitations so that our magnificence can shine
through. But when we can act as we truly are,
and when we can show others our best attributes all
the time, then we can allow our magnificence to
shine through. It's been pushed down by
insecure people who have wanted to keep us "in
line" or "under control"--even the
people we love the most and who love us the most do
this--but it's still there, just waiting for us to
dust it off and put it on display.
One of the major obstacles that we have to overcome,
though, is the fact that we find it very hard to
believe in our own magnificence. We find it
hard to conceive of our selves as fantastic and
beautiful--instead, we focus on what we perceive as
our faults and our limitations. So I can't
paint well--so what? That's a club that has a
few billion members, and each of us has our own
amazing skills and talents to tap into when we want
and need to. But if I feel inadequate in one
area, it's easy for me to convince myself that I'm
inadequate in other areas as well. And thus
the destructive cycle perpetuates itself: we
convince ourselves that our selves are nothing
special, and we act as if this were true.
But it's not true.
It is healthy to
accept myself as I am, to like myself, and to
love myself. It is okay for me to accept a compliment or
praise.
Because I am just as deserving
and worthy as anyone
else, I may treat myself as well as I treat others,
live
my
own life, and enjoy my life. There is a
difference between
being unselfish
and being a martyr or
a victim. There is a
time for putting myself first
so that I may take
care of myself and my needs.
Jill Wolf
You are just as
magnificent as anyone and everyone else on this
planet. You are a completely unique blend of
spirit and body that has gifts that were given to
you in combinations that no one else shares.
You may not be acting as if you were magnificent; if
that's the case, then you probably don't believe
that you are. But your self has just as much
value as any other that's ever walked this world of
ours, and when you do see your own worthiness,
you'll begin to act as a worthy person, and the
world will then treat you as you act.
When we see the true value of our selves--the
incredibly valuable people that we are--then we can
start giving to the world from a position of worth
and strength, and the world will benefit much, much
more from our gifts.
Give your self a break. Trust your self,
accept your self, allow your self to guide you, love
your self. And the love that you give to your
self will most definitely work its way out into the
world in very positive ways.
Silence
must be comprehended
as not solely the absence of sound.
It is the
natural environment for
serenity and contemplation. Life
without silence is
life without
privacy. The difference
between
sanity and madness is the quality
of our thoughts. Silence is on
the side of sanity.
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.
The
principal thing children are taught by hearing these lullabies
is
respect. They are taught to respect certain things in life and
certain
people. By
giving respect, they hope to gain self-respect
and through
self-respect,
they gain the respect of others.
Self-respect is one of
the qualities my
people stress and try to
nurture, and one of the controls an
Indian has
as he grows up.
Once you lose your self-respect, you
just go down.
Henry Old
Coyote
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
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