living life fully's e-zine for December 2

2 December 2024

Good day, and welcome to December! The last month of our year is here, ready for us to do with it as we will. Are you going to fill your month with encouraging words, helpfulness, and giving, or are you going to focus on criticizing others and losing opportunities to contribute in positive ways to the lives of the people in your life? The choice truly is yours to make.
	Three Ways to Get You through the Holidays Ed and Deb Shapiro
	'Tis the Season
	Sadness tom walsh
Please feel free to contact us at tdw1220 at outlook.com Living Life Fully home - e-zine archives - Daily Meditations Don't forget that you can receive an e-mail reminder each time that our e-zine is published, a free e-mail of our daily quotations and/or our weekly Digest. Click here to learn more!

Simple and Profound Thoughts (from Simple and Profound)
Try not to become a person of success but rather try to become a person of value. -Albert Einstein	We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us. - Virginia Satir
I shall try to remember all this day that I am a divine creation with infinite possibilities. - Benjamin Eitelgeorge	The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not. -Leonard Jacobson

Three Ways to Get You through the Holidays
Ed and Deb Shapiro
Authors of Be the Change: How Meditation Can Transform You and the World

The holidays are a tough time, when demands are constantly being made on our patience, coping capacity, and endurance! When things are not going your way or they look topsy-turvy and you just want to scream; when your day appears chaotic and you are not sure if you are coming or going; or when it feels like it is all piled on your shoulders, then this is the ideal moment to resource yourself by just stopping, being still, and breathing.

You do have what it takes within you to do everything and still be peaceful, but you may need a reminder to just stop and breathe. So here are three moments to regenerate yourself and remember why you are doing all this in the first place. All it takes is a moment to look within and reconnect with your loving heart. You can get it together even when you think it is all falling apart!

Mini-meditations can be done on a train, walking down the street, at an airport, standing at a bus stop, in an elevator, while chopping vegetables, or while sitting in the bathroom -- often the only place you can guarantee you will be left alone! Silently count your out-breath up to ten times, or walk with awareness of each step for up to ten steps. Or relax each part of your body, then silently repeat "soft belly" for five breaths.

If you are at work, then use your lunch hour to find a quiet spot, perhaps in a park, or even in the office if everyone else has gone out. If you are traveling then use that time to consciously breathe, letting your awareness follow your breath from the nose tip to your belly and back out again. If you are driving or operating machinery and feel you are getting tense, then stop for a moment, focus on any part of the body that is feeling tight and breathe into it, until you relax and let go. Silently repeat "soft shoulders" or "soft neck" and so on.

As you walk down the street or ride an elevator practice a mini-loving kindness by silently wishing everyone be well, wishing that everyone be happy. In the office you can spend a few moments repeating the names of everyone you work with and wishing them happiness. On your way home from work reflect on your day and generate loving thoughts to all those you meet. When you send out loving thoughts it relaxes the space around you and dissipates any chaotic or disturbing energies. What you put out comes back to you tenfold.

1. Mini Breath Meditation

Sit comfortably with your back straight. Take a deep breath and let it go. Begin to silently count at the end of each out breath: Inhale . . . exhale . . . count one, inhale . . . exhale . . . two, inhale . . . exhale . . . three. Then start at one again. Just three breaths and back to one. Simply following each breath in and silently counting. So simple. Do this as many times as you want, eyes open or closed, breathing normally.

2. Mini Walking Meditation

You can do this walking along a country lane, a city street, in the office or the garden. You can walk slowly, normal or fast, whatever feels right. As you walk become aware of your walking, of the movement of your body and the rise and fall of your feet. Become aware of your breath and see if you can bring both your breathing and your walking together. Just walk and breathe with awareness for a few minutes.

3. Instant Letting Go

Find a quiet place to sit, have a straight back, and take a deep breath and let it go. Then quietly repeat to yourself: "My body is at ease and relaxed . . . my heartbeat is normal . . . my mind is calm and peaceful . . . my heart is open and loving." Keep repeating this until you have let go of the tension and are at peace. Then take a deep breath and have a smile on your face!

Enjoy the holidays!

(Simple and Profound is now a part of this site. Visit by clicking here.)

quotations - contents - welcome page - obstacles
the people behind the words - our current e-zine - articles and excerpts
Daily Meditations, Year One - Year Two - Year Three - Year Four

Sign up for your free daily spiritual or general quotation ~ ~ Sign up for your free daily meditation

We have some inspiring and motivational books that may interest you. Our main way of supporting this site is through the sale of books, either physical copies or digital copies for your Amazon Kindle (including the online reader). All of the money that we earn through them comes back to the site in one way or another. Just click on the picture to the left to visit our page of books, both fiction and non-fiction!

'Tis the Season

A beautiful season has come upon us once more here in the states and in many other parts of the world. It's called the Christmas season, and it's a time when people tend to think about things like "peace on earth" and "joy to the world," focusing on giving and sharing rather than on taking and keeping. While on its surface it's a Christian holiday, people of many other belief systems have adopted the concept of Christmas and even join in with those who are celebrating the day. It really is a beautiful season, at heart, and in theory.

For many people, though, it's also one of the most stressful times of the year. Christmas over the years has become a season of expectations, and many people fear not being able to live up to the expectations that they feel. Is the dinner done just right? Is this person going to like the gift I got her? What's the perfect gift for him? What do I do if I don't get just the gift that I wanted? I have to get them a gift because I don't want to hurt their feelings, but then I'll have to get one for them, too. . . .

The list of potential problems that can come up during this supposedly festive season is almost endless. In my experience, there are some ways to approach the season that can help conquer any problems that can come up, and those ways generally have to do with making decisions right now about how I'm going to act and react over the next few weeks.

The first decision I've made is not to worry about whether or not someone likes the gift I got them. I made a decision, I bought a gift, and that's that. If the recipient likes it, great. If not, then oh, well--that person can trade it in for someone else. As long as I bought or made the gift with the person's likes and needs in mind, then I did all that I could do. This, to me, is a question of letting go of results and expectations. If I get upset because someone doesn't react how I think they should to a present, then my unfulfilled expectations are making me miserable, not the person's reaction.

Secondly, I've decided that I'll appreciate every gift that I get as an expression of another person's caring, no matter what it is, and no matter whether I particularly like it or not. I want to be extremely grateful that someone thought of me in the first place, for that's a very nice feeling, to be thought of in a positive way. This is a question of letting go of expectations.

Third, I'm not going to worry about anything having to be perfect. No perfect gifts, no perfect meals, no perfect get-togethers or parties. Everything will be as it will be, and that's fine. Some of my nicest holiday memories are of the times that weren't so perfect, and they're fun to remember. If something does turn out perfect, then great! But if I don't have expectations of perfection, then I'm bound not to be disappointed. And if something I make or bake or do doesn't turn out all that well, who cares? Life does go on. . . .

I'm also not going to focus on what doesn't happen, which gifts I don't get, who's not at home this year, where we aren't or whom we aren't with. I'm not going to think of who doesn't send me a gift or a card--I'm going to feel gratitude for who is around, for what I do receive, for what does happen during the holidays. Too much of our time and energy are spent thinking about what's absent, and when we do that, we take our focus away from what's present--even when there's much cause to be thankful for all that is in our lives.

I think that the people who feel the most stress during the holidays are those who go into them with great expectations--especially of themselves-- and who worry too much about living up to them. The holidays are to enjoy more than anything else, so if we can go into this season without holding on to the ways we think things should be, we'll be open to receiving things as they are, and not ask for anything else--especially of ourselves. That's not to say that I'm not going to do anything, but I'll do what I do with love and compassion, and let go of expectations of others when they react to what I've done. And that, I think, will help me to have a truly happy holiday experience.

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.

In a world in which we are exposed to more information, more options,
more philosophies, more perspectives than ever before, in which we must
choose the values by which we will live (rather than unquestioningly follow
some tradition for no better reason than that our own parents did), we need
to be willing to stand on our own judgment and trust our own intelligence—to
look at the world through our own eyes—to chart our course and think through
how to achieve the future we want, to commit ourselves to continuous
questioning and learning—to be, in a word, self-responsible.

Nathaniel Branden

Sadness

Many of us seem to learn early in life that there are many things that we should avoid at all costs, for they seem to hurt us. This is especially true of feelings, and we spend much of our time trying to avoid certain feelings, or trying to deny that we have them in the first place. Some of these feelings may be ones that we do want to try to keep under control, such as anger or resentment, for they can truly harm us if we allow them to dominate our thoughts. Others, though, are simply normal parts of life, and are feelings that can help us to learn more about ourselves and living and life in general, and sadness is one of these.

Sadness is not a feeling that we should try to deny or suppress. It's a very natural feeling that arises from situations in our lives and from the workings of our minds, and it's strongly related to grief or even depression (which is where we want to start trying to reign it in). Most of us seem to think that sadness is negative because it puts us in a state in which we don't appear to be loving life, in which we seem to be "down," in which we aren't enjoying ourselves fully.

To me, though, it's important that we take a cue from nature when we think about sadness--is every day full of sunshine, bright blue skies, and perfect temperatures? We all know the answer to this question, and if we're able to apply the question to our lives, we ask, "Should we expect ourselves to be cheerful and joyful and full of energy every single day that we live?" The answer obviously is "no." And while we can't use this line of thinking to justify a constant focus on the harmful and the negative in our lives, we certainly can try to develop a more positive perspective on sadness and allow it to be a part of our experience as human beings instead of trying to fight it every time it shows up in our lives.

So you must not be frightened, dear Mr. Kappus, if a sadness
rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a
restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your
hands and over all you do. You must think that something is
happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it
holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. . . .

Rainer Maria Rilke
Letters to a Young Poet

I love Rilke's perspective on sadness: "You must think that something is happening with you." Not to you, but with you, and the sadness is here for a reason. Many people have used the analogy of tempering to explain the obstacles in our lives--many metal alloys and glass are put through a series of heat treatments that can be likened to many of our trials in life. And the interesting thing about tempering is that it's a process designed to increase the toughness of the alloy by decreasing its hardness.

Think about that and how we can apply it to ourselves: it increases the toughness by decreasing the hardness.

Sadness can do that with us, too. Sadness is one of those feelings that, if we allow it to do so, can help us to come into contact with deeper parts of ourselves so the we can understand ourselves better and reach conclusions and achieve a more expansive state of mindfulness in our lives. When we try to understand our sadness rather than rejecting it outright, we learn about different aspects of our psyches that can help us to make more sense out of life and living.

It's when we become too focused on the sadness and use it to start feeling sorry for ourselves that sadness becomes a truly negative force. When we wallow in it and spend our time brooding, even forcing ourselves sometimes into the depths of depression, then the sadness can become a destructive force. One of the most important things that we can do with sadness is to recognize it and accept it for what it is, without allowing it to become more than what it is or different from what it is by nature.

It is not ignoble to feel that the fuller life which a sad experience
has brought us is worth our personal share of pain. The growth of
higher feeling within us is like the growth of faculty, bringing
with it a sense of added strength. We can no more wish to return
to a narrower sympathy than painters or musicians can wish to return
to their cruder manner, or philosophers to their less complete formulas.

George Eliot

Our sadness can bring us many benefits. George Eliot tells us that it can bring us greater sensitivity and strength; Carl Jung tells us that our happiness would be diminished if it weren't balanced with times of sadness. When we accept our sadness and allow it to take its course, learning from it and moving through it, we create a richer and more fuller life. We allow ourselves to know that some days were made to be dreary (Longfellow--see below), and to keep in mind that even though we are feeling sad, there is still brightness and happiness in the world, and once we pass through the sadness, we'll be in the sunlight once more. It hasn't abandoned us, and it hasn't banished us--the light is still there, waiting patiently for us to pass through our difficult times.

And as hard as it may sound, it really is our decision whether we want to stay in the sadness or move out of it. Sometimes, when the sadness is very deep, it becomes comfortable and somehow safe--it's what we know best, and we don't want to risk leaving it behind, so we cling to it and keep it in our lives. When we do this, though, we're turning our backs on the rest of life in order to be somewhat self-indulgent and even selfish, for there are still people who need us, and we cannot serve their needs if we're allowing ourselves to stay tethered to our sadness for fear of leaving it. But life is about moving on and welcoming new changes in our lives, and just as there comes a time when a person must put an abusive relationship behind them and move on, so must we face our fear and put our sadness behind us at the proper time, and keep on keeping on with our lives.

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long
as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be
without a measure of darkness, and the word “happiness” would lose
its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take
things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Gustav Jung

On a train ride through the mountains, you will see some amazing sights that take away your breath. You will also pass through some tunnels, and while you're in them, you won't see any of the magnificent sights that still are there, but not accessible to you while you're in the tunnel. Our sadness is much like the darkness of the tunnel, or the darkness of the night--it shall pass, and we shall move on to brighter and better things. It's inevitable, as long as we allow our sadness to take its course--and our lives can be much, much richer when we do face our sadness and learn from it.